The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In beginning this our last lecture I may truly say that there is a great deal more to be discussed, and that on the whole we have only been able in this course of lectures to deal with the very smallest part of what belongs to this rich subject. I may, however, hope that it will not be the last time we shall speak together here on similar matters, and it must suffice as a beginning, if only indications have been given on this theme, the further discussion of which would not be without its difficulties at the present time.

As a golden thread running through the last few lectures, was the idea that something is contained in the Germanic Scandinavian mythology or teaching of the gods, which in an imaginative form is wonderfully connected with everything we can extract in the shape of knowledge from the spiritual research of our own time. Now that is also one of the reasons why we may hope that the Folk-spirit, the Archangel who extends his educative and directing activity over this country, will permeate with the capacities he has developed in the course of centuries, that which may be called modern philosophy, modern spiritual research, and that from then on, this modern spiritual research will be fertilized in a popular sense.

The further we penetrate into the details of the Germanic Scandinavian mythology, the more we shall see how wonderfully the great occult truths are expressed in its pictures such as really is the case in no other mythology. Thus perhaps some of you who have read my Occult Science, or have heard other lectures which I was able to give here, will remember that once upon a time in the evolution of the earth an event occurred which we may describe as the descent of those human souls who, in primeval times, before the old Lemurian epoch, for particular reasons had ascended to the various planets of our system, and who at the end of the Lemurian and during the whole of the Atlantean epochs endeavored to unite themselves with that which the human body had little by little developed and perfected in the way of capacities, and which had been made possible by the separation of the moon from the earth. These Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury souls then descended; as one may still find to-day in the Akashic Records. In the course of the Atlantean epoch the air of Atlantis was permeated with water in the form of clouds; that was the condition when the descent of those souls could be perceived by the old clairvoyance of the Atlantean epoch. Every time new beings were born in the soft, plastic, flexible, pliable bodies of that time, when they descended so to say from spiritual heights, that was considered to be the external expression of souls descending out of the spiritual surroundings, out of the atmosphere, out of planetary life, to unite themselves with the bodies being formed upon earth.

The event of these earth-bodies being fertilized, as it were, by that which poured down from spiritual heights, is preserved in a conception implanted in the Scandinavian Germanic mythology. The consciousness of this was preserved so long that even Tacitus himself still found it among the South Germanic peoples at the time when he made the observations which he described in his Germania. No one who does not know that this event really did occur, will understand what Tacitus relates about the goddess Nerthus. The chariot of the goddess Nerthus was driven over the waters. That later on was preserved as a rite, a ceremony; formerly it was a matter of observation. This goddess represented that which can be presented to the human bodies by the human souls coming down from the planetary spheres.

That is the mysterious occurrence underlying the Nerthus myth and it has been preserved in all that has come down to us in the older Sagas and legends which indicate the development of physical man. Njordr, who is inwardly related to the goddess Nerthus, is her masculine counterpart. He represents to us the primal memory of the descent of the psychic-spiritual human beings, who had once upon a time ascended to planetary heights, and who during the Atlantean epoch, descended again to unite themselves with physical human bodies.

From my pamphlet, Occult Significance of Blood, you will see what a significant rôle the interminglings and relationships of peoples have played at certain periods. Now not only the interminglings and relationships which were expressed in the mixture of blood, but also the psychic and spiritual requirements of the Folk-spirits have played a great rôle. The vision of that descent has been preserved in the greatest purity in the Sagas which in former times developed in these Northern parts. Hence in the Sagas of the Vanen you can still find one of the very oldest recollections of it. Especially here in the North, in the Finnish traditions, was the memory kept alive of this union of the spiritual soul-nature which descended from planetary heights with that which proceeded from the earthly body itself, and which Northern tradition knows as Riesenheim (Home of Giants). That which developed out of the earthly body belonged to Riesenheim.

We understand, therefore, that the Germanic Scandinavian always felt the impulse coming from this side; that he felt within his gradually evolving soul the workings of this old divine vision, which was still ‘at home’ here in those old days when the mists of Atlantis still extended to this neighborhood. The Germanic Scandinavian felt in his soul something of the arrival of a god who was directly descended from those divine spiritual Beings, those Archangels who directed the union of the psychic-spiritual with the earthly-physical. Freyr the god, and Freya his sister, who here in the North were once upon a time specially beloved gods, were thought of and felt as having originally been those angelic Beings who had poured into the human souls all that those souls required to enable them to develop further, upon the physical plane, those old forces which they had received by means of their clairvoyant capacities. In the physical world, that world limited by the outer senses, Freyr was the one who continued all that had been formerly received in clairvoyance. He was the living continuation of the clairvoyantly received forces. He had therefore to unite himself with the physical instruments existing in the human body itself for the use of these soul-forces, which then can carry into the physical plane what had been perceived in primal clairvoyance. That is reflected in the marriage of Freyr with Gerda, the giantess; she is taken from the physical forces of earthly evolution. These pictures represent the descent of the divine-spiritual into the physical.

In this figure of Freyr is expressed in quite a wonderful way, the manner in which Freyr makes use of that which makes it possible for man to manifest on the physical plane that for which he has been educated by his preceding clairvoyant perceptions. Bluthuf (Blood Hoof) is the name of the horse placed at the disposal of Freyr, to indicate that blood is the essential thing in the development of his ‘I’. A remarkable, wonderful ship is also placed at his disposal. It can be expanded into the immeasurable and can be folded together so that it can be contained in the smallest box. Now what is this miraculous ship? If Freyr is the power which carries clairvoyant forces into the spheres which express themselves on the physical plane, then it must be something quite particularly belonging to him; it is the alternation between day-waking and night-sleeping. Just as the human soul during sleep and until the moment of waking is spread out in the macrocosm, so does the miraculous ship expand and is then folded up again into the folds of the brain; so that during the day-time it can be stowed away in the smallest of boxes—the human skull. You will find all this wonderfully expressed in the pictures of this Germanic Scandinavian mythology.

Those of you who will go more deeply into these things, will be gradually convinced that this is no fantasy; but that what has been implanted, inoculated into the thoughts and feelings of this northern people by means of these pictures, really comes from the schools of the Initiates. Thus a very great deal remained in the guiding Archangel or Folk-spirit of the North, of the old education through clairvoyant perception of that which may grow up in a soul which, in its development on the physical plane, connects itself on to a clairvoyant development.

Although outwardly it may seem different at the present day, yet the Archangel of the Germanic North has within him this tendency, and this enables him to understand modern Spiritual Science especially well and to transform it in the manner corresponding to its national character. Hence also you will see why I have said that in the Germanic North the best conditions are to be found for the comprehension of that which I could only indicate briefly in my open lecture on the Second Coming of Christ. Spiritual research at the present time shows us that after Kali Yuga had run its course, which lasted for five thousand years (from about 3100 B.C. to 1899 A.D.), new capacities begin to develop in man. These will at first appear in single individuals, in a few especially gifted ones only. It will come about, for instance, that persons will be able, through the natural evolution of their capacities, to see something of what is announced only by Anthroposophy, by spiritual research.

We are told that in future persons in whom the organs of the etheric body are developed will be found in increasing numbers, and will attain to clairvoyance, which can to-day be acquired only by training. And why will this be so? What will the etheric body possess for the perception of those few? There will be people who will receive impressions of which I should like to describe one to you. A man will do something in the external world and will then feel himself impelled to observe something. A sort of dream-picture will come before his eyes which at first he will not understand. But if he has heard something about Karma, of how everything in the world takes place in accordance with law, he will then learn to understand, little by little, that what he has seen is the karmic counterpart of his actions in the etheric world. Thus gradually the first elements of future capacities are being formed.

Those persons who receive a stimulus from Anthroposophy will, (from the middle of the twentieth century on), gradually experience a renewal of that which St. Paul saw in etheric clairvoyance as a mystery to come, the ‘Mystery of the Living Christ’. There will be a new manifestation of Christ, a manifestation which must come when human capacities so develop in the natural course, that the Christ can be seen in that world in which He always was, and in which since the Mystery of Golgotha He is to be found by Initiates. Humanity is growing into that world in order to be able to perceive from the physical plane that which could formerly only be seen from higher planes in the Mystery Schools.

The Mystery-training will nevertheless not become superfluous. It always presents things in a different way from what they are presented to the untrained soul. But that which is given in the Mystery-training will, by the transformation of the physical human body, show the Mystery of the Living Christ in a new way, as it can be seen perceptively from the physical plane, as it will be seen in the etheric, at first by a few and afterwards by more and more persons, in the course of the next three thousand years. That which St. Paul saw as the living Christ Who is to be found in the etheric world since the event of Golgotha, will be seen by an ever increasing number of people.

The manifestations of Christ will be ever higher and higher. That is the mystery of the evolution of Christ. At the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place men were to comprehend everything from the physical plane; it was therefore necessary that they should also be able to see Christ on the physical plane, to have news of Him there, and to testify to His power on that plane. But mankind is intended to progress, it is organized for the development of higher powers, and anyone who can believe that the manifestation of Christ will be repeated in the same form which was necessary nineteen hundred years ago, knows nothing of the progress of humanity. It took place on the physical plane because at that time the forces of man were adjusted to the physical plane. But those forces will evolve, and hence, in the course of the next three thousand years, Christ will be able to speak more and more to the more highly developed human forces.

What I have just said is a truth which has for a long time been communicated to a few individuals from within the esoteric schools, a truth which to-day must be found especially in the domain of Anthroposophy, because Anthroposophy is to be the preparatory school for that which is to come. Humanity is now organized for liberty, for the personal recognition of that which is developing within it, and it might occur that those persons who will come forward as the first pioneers of the Christ-vision, will be shouted down as fools, that what they have to offer to mankind will not be listened to, and humanity might sink still further into materialism than it has already done and trample under foot that which could become the most wonderful manifestation for mankind. Everything that may happen in the future is to a certain extent subject to the will of humanity, so that men may also miss what is for their salvation. That is extremely important: Anthroposophy is a preparation for what is to be the new Christ-revelation.

Materialism may make a mistake in two different ways. One—which will probably be made by reason of the Western traditions—consists in considering as mere folly, as wild fantasy, everything that the first pioneers of the new Christ-revelation will announce in the twentieth century as the result of their own vision. Materialism has now invaded all domains. It is not only at home in the West but it has also taken hold of the East; there, however, it assumes another form. It may happen that oriental materialism may cause men to fail to recognize what is higher in a manifestation of Christ at a higher stage, and then will occur that which has so often been spoken of here, and will again and again be repeated, that materialistic thinking will transform the appearance of Christ into a materialistic view.

It might occur at that time, under the influence of scientific spiritual knowledge, that persons may, it is true, speak of Christ manifesting Himself, but will at the same time believe that He will appear in a material body. The result would then be another form of materialism. It would only be a continuation of what has happened for centuries. Certain people have always profited by this false materialism, and indeed, there have always been individuals representing themselves as the re-appeared Christ. The last important case of such an one was in the seventeenth century, when a man called Sabbatai Zevi, of Smyrna, represented himself as the re-appeared Christ. He made a great stir. Pilgrimages were made to him not only by those in his immediate neighborhood, but also by people from Hungary, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and northern Africa. All these looked upon Sabbatai as the physical incarnation of a Messiah. I should not care to relate the human tragedy connected with the personality of Sabbatai. In the seventeenth century the tragedy was certainly not so great, for man was not then so entirely in possession of his free will, although by means of his perception—which was a spiritual feeling—he could recognize what was the truth; but in the twentieth century it would be a great misfortune if, under the pressure of materialism, the teaching that Christ will manifest Himself were to be taken in a materialistic sense, as though He would return in a physical body. That would only prove that humanity has not acquired any perception or insight as regards the real progress of the human development of higher spiritual forces. False Messiahs will certainly appear, and on account of the materialism of our day they will be believed, just as was Sabbatai in the seventeenth century. It will be a trial, a severe test for those prepared by Anthroposophy to recognize where the truth lies, a test as to whether a spiritual, vital feeling really fills the spiritual theories, or whether they only contain a hidden materialism. It will be a proof as to the further development of Anthroposophy, whether by its means a sufficient number of persons will be developed enough to understand that they have to see the spirit in the spirit, that they have to look up into the etheric world for a new manifestation of Christ; or whether they will remain at a standstill on the physical plane, determined to look for a manifestation of Christ in a physical body. The Anthroposophical Movement will yet have to undergo this test. But this we may say, that nowhere has the ground been better prepared to recognize the truth on this very subject, than here, where the Germanic Scandinavian mythology developed.

In that which has come down to us as the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ there is contained a significant vision of the future, and herewith I come to a chapter the starting-point of which I have already indicated. I have told you that when a community of people have so lately left their clairvoyant past behind them, that then a clairvoyant sense is also developed in their guiding Folk-spirit, by means of which the things we now find clairvoyantly can again be understood. Now if a people experiences the new age with new human capacities, on the very ground on which bloomed the Germanic Scandinavian mythology, it ought then to understand that what was formerly the old clairvoyance must take a different form after man has gone through his development on the physical plane. Here, for a while, that which spoke out of the old clairvoyance remained silent; then the world of Odin and Thor, of Balder and Hoeder, of Freyr and Freya withdrew for a while into the background, away from human vision. But that world will return after a period when other forces have meanwhile been at work upon the human soul.

When this human soul gazes out into the new world, with the new clairvoyance which begins with etheric clairvoyance, it will see that it can no longer retain the old forms of the forces which educated the soul. If it were able to do so, all the opposing forces would come into play against that force which in olden times had to educate the powers of man up to a certain height. Odin and Thor will again be visible to the eyes of man, but that will then be because the human soul will have gone through a new development. All the forces that are opposed to Odin and Thor will appear to the human soul. Everything which has developed in the way of opposing force will be once again visible in a mighty tableau. But the human soul would not progress, it would not be able to defend itself against injurious influences if it were only to be subject to the forces seen by the old clairvoyance. Thor once upon a time gave man his ‘I’; that ‘I’ has been educated on the physical plane, has evolved out of what Loki, the Luciferic power, left behind in the astral body, viz., the Midgard Serpent. That which Thor was once able to give, and which the human soul is growing away from, is in conflict with what proceeds from the Midgard Serpent. In Scandinavian mythology that appears as Thor fighting the Midgard Serpent. They balance each other, that is to say, they slay each other. In the same way Odin wrestles with the Fenris Wolf, whereby they annihilate each other. Freyr, that which for a while developed the human soul-forces, had to be subdued by that which had been given from the earth-forces themselves to the ‘I’, which had in the meanwhile been educated on the physical plane. Freyr was overcome by the flaming sword of Surtur, who sprang from the earth.

All these details which are set forth in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, correspond with that which is to appear to mankind in a newer etheric vision, which in reality refers to the future. The Fenris Wolf will still remain. Oh, there is a deep, deep truth concealed in this account of the Fenris Wolf remaining behind in conflict with Odin. In the near future of mankind there will be no danger so great as the tendency to remain satisfied with the old clairvoyance,—instead of developing the new by means of new forces—the danger that man might be tempted to remain satisfied with what the old astral clairvoyance of primal ages could give, namely, soul-pictures such as that of the Fenris Wolf. It would also be a severe trial for that which has to grow up in the domain of Anthroposophy, if in that, the tendency towards all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance should arise, and an inclination to value the clairvoyance illuminated by reason and science less highly than the old chaotic one which does not possess this prerogative.

These remains of the old clairvoyance would wreak a fearful vengeance, by confusing the vision of men with all sorts of chaotic pictures. Such clairvoyance cannot be met by that which itself proceeded from old clairvoyant power, but only by that which during the Kali Yuga has been developed as a healthy force into a new clairvoyance. The power given by the old Archangel Odin, the old clairvoyant powers, cannot save man; something very different must come in. And what that is, is, however, known to Germanic Norse mythology,—it is well aware of its existence. It knows, that there exists the etheric form in which will embody that which we shall once again see as the etheric form of Christ. And this alone will succeed in driving out the confused clairvoyant power which would bewilder mankind, if Odin did not overcome the Fenris Wolf, which represents nothing but the backward clairvoyance. Vidar, who has kept silence all the time, will overcome the Fenris Wolf. That also is told us in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’.

Anyone who recognizes the importance of Vidar and feels him in his soul, will find that in the twentieth century the capacity can again be given to man with which to see Christ. Vidar, who belongs to us all in Northern and Central Europe, will again stand before him. He was kept secret in the Mysteries and secret Schools as a god who would receive his mission only in the future. Only indefinite statements are made even regarding his picture. This may be seen from the fact that a picture has been found in the vicinity of Cologne, of which no one knows whom it represents, but which is none other than a likeness of Vidar.

All through the Kali Yuga the powers were acquired which will make the new men capable of seeing the new manifestation of Christ. Those who are destined to point out from the signs of the times that which is to come, know that the new spiritual investigation will re-establish the power of Vidar, who will drive out of the minds of men all the remnants of the old chaotic clairvoyant power which might act in a confusing way, and who will arouse the new gradually evolving clairvoyance in the human breast, in the human soul.

Thus we see, when the wonderful figure of Vidar shines forth to us out of the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, that a hope for the future shines towards us as it were out of the Germanic Norse mythology. When we feel ourselves to be related to this figure of Vidar, of whom we are now trying to understand the deeper side, we hope that that which must be the central nerve and the vital essence of all Anthroposophy, will result from those forces which the Archangel of the Germanic Scandinavian world can contribute to the evolution of modern times. One part only of a greater whole has been accomplished for the fifth post-Atlantean civilization in the way of development of humanity and the spirit; another part has still to be accomplished. Those Northern Germanic peoples will best be able to contribute to this who feel that they have within them fresh elemental nation-forces. But this will to a certain extent be put into the souls of men. They themselves will have to make up their minds to work. One can go astray in the twentieth century because what has to be attained is to a certain extent subject to man's free will and must not be compulsory. It is therefore a question of having a proper understanding of that which is to come.

So you see, that when our Anthroposophy of to-day announces the knowledge of the Christ-Being, and when our hopes for the future are connected with that true knowledge of this Being which we look for in the substance of the European people themselves, that there is then no question of any sort of predilection or temperamental predisposition.

It has sometimes been said that one might call what we may describe as the greatest Being in the evolution of humanity, by any name one likes. (Never will one who recognizes the Christ-Being insist upon retaining the name Christ.) But if we understand the Christ-Impulse in the right way, we shall not say as follows: A Being lives in human evolution, in the humanity of the West and that of the East, and it must be such an one as to correspond to the sympathies of mankind for this or the other truth. That is not ‘occultistic’. What is ‘occultistic’ is, that the moment one recognizes that this Being must be called by the name Buddha, that should unreservedly be done, quite regardless of whether this is sympathetic to one or not; it is not a question of sympathy or antipathy, but of the truth, of the facts.

The moment the facts should teach us otherwise, we should be ready to act differently. The facts and the facts alone must be decisive for us. We shall bring neither Orientalism nor Occidentalism into that which we look upon as the real life-blood of Anthroposophy, and if we are to find in the world of Northern Germanic Archangels that which may yield a fertile seed for true Anthroposophy, that seed would not be given on this ground to one particular people or tribe, but to humanity as a whole. What is given to all mankind, and must be given, can only spring up at a certain place; but it must be given to the whole of humanity. We recognize no difference between the East and the West; we accept with great love that which we recognize as the overwhelming greatness of the primal culture of the Holy Rishis in its true form; we lovingly accept the Persian culture, and that which we know as the Egyptian-Chaldæan and the Græco-Latin cultures, and with just the same objectivity we also accept what has grown up for us from the soil of Europe. The necessity of the facts alone compels us to speak on these matters in the way we have done in these lectures.

If we accept from the whole of mankind all that each religion has contributed towards the civilizing process of mankind, and carry that into what we recognize and know to-day as the common possession of humanity, then, the more we do this, the more are we really active in the sense of the Christ-Principle. As this is capable of development, we must therefore overcome that which it had to go through during its early centuries and millennia, when the Christ-Principle was only understood in its most imperfect beginnings. We do not look into that past, nor are we guided by it. We lay no store by this tradition; the chief thing for us is, that which can be discovered and examined in the spiritual world. Hence the most important thing about the Christ-Principle to us is not what has been—however often tradition may affirm that—but what is yet to come. We do not depend so much upon historical tradition, but we endeavor to know what is to come. That is the essential thing in the Christ-Impulse, which came at the beginning of the Christian era, and we do not attach much importance to the external and historical. After Christianity has passed through its childish ailments, it will develop further. It has also gone out into foreign lands and wished to convert people to that which consisted of the several Christian dogmas of a particular age. But we have before our souls a Christianity of which we know that Christ was active in all the ages, and that we shall find Him in all places, whither-so-ever we go; that the Christ-Principle is the most anthroposophical principle there is. And if Buddhism only counts those persons as Buddhists who swear by Buddha, then Christianity will be that which swears by no prophet, because it is not under the influence of a founder of religion belonging to one particular people, but it recognizes the god of humanity.

He who is acquainted with Christianity knows that it refers to a Mystery, which at Golgotha became manifest on the physical plane. It is the vision of this Mystery which leads us in the direction I have described. We may also know that the spiritual life at that time was such, that this Mystery had then to be experienced in the way it actually was experienced by humanity. We allow no dogmas to be forced upon us, not even those of a Christian past, and if a dogma should be thrust upon us from one quarter or another, we should in accordance with the rightly understood Christ-Principle reject it. However many people may come and force a denominational acknowledgment of the historical Christ upon us, or say that what we see as the future Christ is wrong, we shall not allow ourselves to be led astray by being told that He must be like this or like that, even if it is said by those who ought to understand Who Christ is. In the same way the Christ-Being must not be limited and narrowed by Eastern traditions, nor be colored by the dogmas of Eastern dogmatism. That which is drawn from the sources of occultism will appear before mankind free and independent of every tradition and of all authority, in what it has to say about this evolution of the future.

It is wonderful to me how well people understand each other here. Friends who have journeyed here have said to me again and again in these last few days how free they feel with the people of the Scandinavian North. Many have expressed that feeling. It is a proof that we shall be able, though some may not be conscious of it, to understand each other in the deepest essence of our Anthroposophical knowledge; it is proof of how we shall understand each other, especially in that which I mentioned at the last Theosophical Congress at Budapest, and which I repeated during our own General Meeting in Berlin, when we had the great pleasure of seeing friends also from the North among us. It would be a bad thing for Anthroposophy if one who cannot yet see into the spiritual world were obliged to accept in blind faith what is being said. I beg of you now, as I did in Berlin, to accept nothing I have ever said or ever shall say, on authority or in blind faith. It is possible, even before a man has reached the stage of clairvoyance, to test what is obtained through clairvoyant observation. Whatever I have said about Zarathustra and Jesus of Nazareth, about Hermes and Moses, about Odin and Thor, about Christ Jesus Himself, I beg of you not to believe it or accept my words on authority. I beseech you to dis-accustom yourselves from the principle of authority, for that principle would be an evil one for us.

I know very well, however, that when with an unprejudiced sense for truth you begin to reflect, when you say, ‘We have been told so and so; let us search the records accessible to us, the religious and mythological documents, let us ascertain what natural science can tell us,’ that then you will perceive the correctness of what has been said. Make use of all the means you can bring to your assistance, the more the better. I am not afraid. That which comes from the sources of Rosicrucianism may be tested in every way. Test by the most materialistic criticism of the Gospels what I have said about Christ Jesus, test by means of all the sources at your disposal what I have said about history, test it as minutely as possible by all the means at your disposal on the physical plane; I am convinced that the more minutely you test it, the more you will find, that what has been said out of the sources of the Rosicrucian Mystery will be found to correspond to the truth.

I count upon the communications made from Rosicrucianism not being believed, but proved, not superficially by the superficial methods of present-day science, but ever more and more conscientiously. Take all that the most modern science with the newest methods can offer you, take everything which the historical or religious investigations have yielded; the more you test it, the more you will find confirmation from this source. You must take nothing on authority. The best Anthroposophists are those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first place, and then place it at the service of life, so as to prove it by life itself. For in life also, at every stage of it, you can test that which has been said out of the sources of Rosicrucianism. It is far from the intention underlying these lectures to set up a dogma and say: This or that is so and so, and must be believed. Test it by the healthy and mentally vigorous people whom you know, and you will yourselves find confirmed what has been said as a prophetic indication of the future manifestation of Christ. You need only open your eyes and without prejudice test it; we make no appeal to belief in authority. The test is a sort of basic attitude, which should, like a golden thread, run through the whole.

So now I should like you to lay this to heart: that it is not ‘anthroposophical to accept a statement as dogma because this or that person made it, but it is anthroposophical to let oneself be stimulated by, Spiritual Science, and to test what one receives by life itself. Then what ever might color our anthroposophical view from one quarter or another, will vanish away. Neither Eastern nor Western shades should color our views. One who speaks in the sense of Rosicrucianism knows neither Orientalism nor Occidentalism; both are equally sympathetic to him; he only states the truth according to the inner nature of the facts.

That it is which we must bear in mind, particularly at such an important moment as this, when we have indicated the Folk-spirit who rules over all the Northern lands. In these lands lives the Germanic Scandinavian mythological Spirit; and although at the present day he still lives below the surface, yet he is spread out much more widely in Europe than one might suppose. If a conflict were to arise between the peoples of the North, it could not consist in one people disputing with another about what is to be given, but in each people practicing self-knowledge and inquiring, ‘What is the best that I can give?’ Then to the common altar will flow that which leads to the common progress, to the common welfare of mankind. The sources of what we are able to contribute lie in the individuality. The Germanic Scandinavian Archangel will bring to the collective human culture of the future, just what he is most fitted for according to the capacities he has acquired, as we have sufficiently described. He is, however, specially capable of bringing about that which could not yet be given in the first half of the fifth post-Atlantean age of civilization but which may still play its part in the second, viz., the spiritual element which we pointed out as being prophetically germinal in the Slav philosophy and national sentiment. While this was in a state of preparation the first half of the fifth post-Atlantean age of civilization had to be passed through. All that could be attained then to begin with was a very sublimated spiritual perception in the form of philosophy. This must then be grasped and permeated by the forces of the people, so that it may become the common possession of mankind, and become comprehensible in all parts of our earth-life.

Let us endeavor to understand one another on this subject, and then this otherwise somewhat dangerous theme will not have borne evil fruit, if all who have assembled here from the North, South, East, West and Centre of Europe become aware that it is important for the whole of humanity that we should feel that the great peoples as well as the smaller subdivisions of peoples all have their mission, and have to contribute their part to the whole. Sometimes the smaller peoples that have been separated off, because they were to preserve either the old or the new characteristics of soul, have to contribute something most important. Thus, although we have made this dangerous question the subject of our lectures, nothing else can come of it than the basic sentiment of a community of soul among all those who are united in the sign of anthroposophical thought and feeling and of anthroposophical ideals.

Then, only if we are still guided by our sympathies and antipathies, if we have not clearly grasped the kernel of our anthroposophical world-movement, could misunderstandings arise from what has been said. But if we have grasped the spirit presiding in these lectures, then the things we have heard may also help us to make the firm resolution and hold the high ideal,—each one from his own standpoint and his own ground,—to contribute to the common goal that which lies in our own mission. This we can best do with that which originates in ourselves, with that to which we are predisposed. We can best serve mankind as a whole if we develop that, so as to embody it in the whole of humanity as a sacrifice which we bring to the progressive stream of culture. We must learn to understand this. We must learn to understand that it would be a bad thing if Anthroposophy did not contribute to the evolution of man, Angel and Archangel, but were to contribute to the overcoming of the convictions of one people by those of another. Anthroposophy is not here to assist one form of religion which rules in one part of the earth to prevail over another. If the West were ever to be conquered by the East, or vice versa, that would absolutely not be in accordance with anthroposophical sentiment. That alone is anthroposophical, that we should give of our best, that which is purely human, to the whole of humanity. And if we live entirely within ourselves, not, however, for ourselves but for all men, then that is true anthroposophical tolerance. These words I had to add to our somewhat dangerous subject.

By means of Anthroposophy—as we shall see more and more clearly—all splitting-up will cease. Therefore it is now just the right time to know the Folk-souls, because Anthroposophy is here to teach us not to place them in opposition to one another, but to call upon them to work in harmonious co-operation. The better we understand this, the better Anthroposophists we shall be. This should be the note on which, for the present, these lectures close. For finally the knowledge we gather must really work in our feelings and our thinking, and in our anthroposophical idea. The more we live up to this the better Anthroposophists we are.

I have found that many of those who have accompanied us to the North have received the best possible impression, which was expressed in the words, ‘how much they liked being here in the North.’ And if exalted forces are to be aroused in mankind in the future, if we would speak with the words of Vidar, the silent Asa, whom we shall most certainly see before us, he will then become the active friend of co-operative work, of cooperative industry, for which purpose we have all been assembled here. Let us in this sense part from one another in space, after having been together for a few days, but let us in this sense always be together in spirit. Wherever we Anthroposophists go, whether far or near, may we always find ourselves together in harmony, even when we have to discuss the special nature of the peoples inhabiting the various countries of the earth. We know that they are only individual sacrificial flames which do not separate from one another, but which will unite in the mighty sacrificial fire that must unite for the good of mankind through the anthroposophical view of life which is so dear to our hearts and is so deeply rooted within our souls.

To-day we must again refer to the old and important teaching contained in the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, and, starting from that we shall carry forward our vision to our own times and the near future.

The Sermon on the Mount as reported in St. Matthew's Gospel can only be understood if we grasp the whole spirit of it, in the sense of the development of all humanity. Let us briefly recapitulate what was put before us in the last lecture: that the old dim clairvoyance of man had gradually receded and that the capacities and knowledge of man had to be more and more limited to the physical plane, and that for this reason the connection of man with the Spiritual worlds had to be based on an event on the physical plane. If we recollect all this we shall understand that the Divine-Spiritual Being whom we have characterised as the Christ, had to embody Himself in a physical body at the very time when the perception of man had become limited to the physical plane. This was done so that the most essential part of the life of this Divine-Spiritual Being could be described in words and expressions used on the physical plane. The important point is not so much that few persons (in comparison to the whole of humanity) were able to have a bodily perception and observation of Christ Jesus, as that what is related of Him is a presentation of events on the physical plane. For it cannot be said that the earlier records of other Divinities related in words belonging to the physical plane refer to actual physical events. In everything that we are told of these, words can only be useful as indications;—for what occurred with respect to these Divinities can only be understood by one able to apply the words to the events of higher planes. The life of Christ Jesus can however, be understood by anyone who can apply what is told to the events of the physical plane. In reference to this we can say: The Christ-Being descended into a physical embodiment, into complete life in a physical body. That had to be because human capacities at that time were of this nature, and because the human ego as such had to become conscious of its being if evolution was to go forward in the right way.

We have seen that the most important of the older intermediaries for the event of Golgotha was Zarathustra or Zoroaster. In order that he might become what he was to be, at that time a body had to be prepared, containing an extract, as it were, of what had been given to a whole people, a people who had to give to humanity the qualities which can only be communicated through physical inheritance. We have seen that the most essential thing in the old Hebrew people was the duty of developing in successive generations, from father to son, from son to grandson, and so on, those qualities which had to be inherited in a continually increased form, till they finally appear in their highest and best form in the body which was derived by inheritance from Abraham and Solomon and which was finally occupied by Zarathustra. We have a great deal more to learn through our studies before we shall be able to understand the full mission of the old Hebrew people, in all its details. This necessitates that we should gradually learn how the qualities needed for the body of Jesus were more and more ennobled in the course of the descent from generation to generation. It had to be made as perfect as possible for the fulfilment of its world-historical mission, for that mission could only be carried out if all that pertained to the body of the Solomonian Jesus Being was as perfect as possible in itself as regards those qualities. Now we know that the four principles of man's nature, the physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, are active in every human body; and that in time to come Spirit-self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-man, will also be active therein. This must not be taken to mean that the activity of the astral body will suddenly cease, or that the later is not being prepared in the earlier. In a certain respect everything that follows later must be prepared in what went before. Of course man cannot of his own strength so work upon himself to-day that the Life-Spirit, for instance, could come to particular expression within him; but in him work other Divine Spiritual Beings, with an activity which may be called an activity of the Life Spirit. This applies also to Spirit-man. Therefore, all the seven principles of the body, or rather of the human organism of Jesus of Nazareth had to be ennobled, as regards the qualities which had to be dealt with. This required very special preparation. This preparation may to-day give us an inkling of the secrets concealed in the development of humanity and of the earth.

The germs of the perfection in the body of Jesus of Nazareth had to be prepared long before. We have seen how during the first period (extending from Abraham to Solomon or David), the generations were worked upon just as a man's physical body is worked upon during the time between his birth and the change of teeth. This work was so performed by the forces active behind evolution, that at a certain time there was actually an ancestor of Jesus who already contained within him, capacities as nearly perfect as possible, and these re-appeared in the body which became the vehicle of Zarathustra. Thus in an ancestor of Jesus the foundations of a right development of all the seven principles of man's nature were present. In other words: If we trace back the ancestry of Jesus, we must find one ancestor who possessed the germ of the seven-principled-nature—although not so perfectly developed as in the body of Jesus of Nazareth—yet present in rudimentary form. Although not expressed in their external tradition, the secret doctrine of the ancient Hebrews was cognisant of this fact. It was aware that once upon a time a man lived of whom it must be said that the seven principles worked in him in such a way that they had to be described as quite peculiarly worthy of note! The Initiates of the old Hebrew secret doctrine actually pointed to an ancestor of Jesus of Nazareth, knowing that be possessed these seven human principles in a quite remarkable degree!

They called the ego of this ancestor, ‘Itiel,’ to indicate that in him the ego must have possessed that force (for Itiel signifies something like ‘possessor of force’). He must have possessed that dauntlessness, which would, when carried down through the generations, become the proper ego-vehicle for the high being who was to reappear in Jesus of Nazareth. In the same way they called the astral body of this ancestor ‘Lemuel’; that would more or less describe an astral body so far developed that it does not merely feel the law, the conformity to law, outside itself, but feels that it bears the law within it. They called the etheric body of this ancestor ‘Ben Jage’; that would signify an etheric body as far as possible transmuted within, which having attained a certain perfection, is able to take habits into itself. The physical body of this ancestor they called ‘Agur’, because the physical activity, the capacity of this ancestor on the physical plane, consisted in his having assimilated everything brought over from old tradition; for ‘Agur’ signified a collector. ‘All the ancient conceptions of the world, all the old traditions, were gathered together in Jesus; and the rudiments of this were already developed in this ancestor. What worked as Spirit-Man in this ancestor, was called, (because the Divine-Spiritual Beings gave loving attention to their work on the rudiments of Spirit-Man,) ‘Jedidjah’, a word signifying something like ‘the darling of the Gods’. What worked in this ancestor as Buddhi or Life-Spirit, was called ‘Kohelet’; for it was said: ‘In this ancestor there must have worked a Life-Spirit which was able to act as a teacher to the whole nation, so that its content could be poured out to them all’. And finally, Manas or Spirit-self in this ancestor was known by the word, ‘Salomo’, which signifies inner balance, for they said: Such a Spirit-self must have had within it the rudiments of being inwardly whole, of being in a state of balance within. Thus this ancestor, who is usually known only by the name of Schelomo, Schleimo, or Solomon, has three principal names: Jedidjah, Kohelet, Salomo; and four additional names: Agur, Ben Jage, Lemuel and Itiel, for these names signify the four coverings, whereas the three first names signify the divine inner part. The secret doctrine of the old Hebrews had seven names for this person. If later, people were dissatisfied with Solomon, as was the case even among certain sects of the Jews themselves (whether rightly or wrongly cannot be gone into here), this can easily be accounted for. In Solomon there were great, important rudiments, which were to be further propagated for a distinct purpose. Now an individual human being, at a definite stage of his evolution, does not always display in his outer life the germs of the qualities he is to bequeath to his descendants; perhaps for the very reason that such great forces are within him he may even be more subject to failure in this direction. The lack of morality to be observed in Solomon is not in contradiction to what the old Hebrew secret doctrine saw in him; on the contrary it would explain his failings.

Thus the old Jewish secret doctrine looks back to an ancestor of Jesus, fully conscious of his significance for the whole mission of their people. All that was but rudimentary in this personality, was propagated by descent through the generations, and appeared in its essence when it was required and made use of in the course of the world's history. This may give us an inkling of the secrets, regulated by laws, which lie behind the evolution of mankind.

Now if the mission of the old Hebrew people pre-eminently consisted in the fact that through the physical inheritance certain capacities are, as it were, instilled into their blood, capacities to be given to all mankind from the Spiritual world through this people, then, at the time of the appearance of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, humanity ought to have been sufficiently advanced to be able, through these ennobled capacities, to reascend into the Spiritual world; in other words it ought to have been able to take up the Christ-Impulse. I have told you all this to show what preparations were necessary in order, in the development of physical humanity, to create a sheath capable of enclosing the Christ-Being.

We can now perhaps feel and realise the intrinsic nature of the progress in the mission of humanity brought about by the descent of the Divine mission into physical matter, in the Jewish people. We can feel how the Divine was carried down into the depths of physical matter, in order that from this turning-point man might reascend so much the higher, from the now finer physical into the Spiritual. The ascent into the Spiritual had to begin from that time. For this however, an impulse had to be given to mankind which should to some degree place all that man can desire or expect from evolution into that deepest centre in man's being which can be designated as the ego. Through Christ, the impulse was to penetrate to the depths of man's inner being, out of the body of Christ there spoke such an impulse as called to the deepest part of man's nature. What was to be made different by this impulse?

Before this impulse came, all that brought happiness to men, that gave them bliss and made them feel ‘filled with the Divine,’ came to them in a sense from without; they expected it to come thence. If we do not merely study the history of the world from external documents but according to what the Spiritual records can give us, we must say that we look back to ancient times, when man ascended to the realm of Spiritual beings through arousing in himself,—whether by normal means or not,—the gift of clairvoyance. But this vision awoke in a dreamy way; Divine-Spiritual forces worked in it and the ego was suppressed. Man was more or less outside his ego. Although in his normal state he was not so conscious of his ego as he became later, yet he was then in the age when the spirit worked within him and carried him outside himself, without his ego into the Spiritual world. He yielded himself completely, either to the external Divine-Spiritual or to the Divine-Spiritual within his soul. But during that time of ecstasy, of enchantment, he was not in any sense conscious of his condition. The time was still to come when man would realise the relation to the spirit in his own ego, and thence permeate the deepest core of his being with the consciousness: I belong to a Divine-Spiritual kingdom. That could only come about through Christ pouring His own Being into the earth-being, so that the ego could permeate itself with what was the pattern of Christ. That enabled man to say: ‘I am now in a Spiritual realm, in the Kingdoms of Heaven with my ego, ‘whereas man formerly entered the Kingdoms of Heaven while outside it. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near, was the teaching given. For this the minds of men had to be changed, they were no longer to believe that they could only enter the Spiritual world in a state of ecstasy, for they would be able to find their relation to the Kingdoms of Heaven in full ego-consciousness.

We can see that this had to take place, for the old clairvoyant condition had, in the course of thousands of years, grown worse and worse. Whereas in olden times man, when in ecstasy ascended to the good Divine-Spiritual powers, that which still remained of the old ecstatic condition at the time of the founding of Christianity, had become such that when man was now outside himself he did not ascend to the good but to the evil spiritual powers. That is the great difference between the two states of development. In ancient times when man dreamily rose into the Spiritual worlds by the suppression of his ego—‘mediumistically’ as we should say to-day—he was then in the company of the good Spiritual beings. This had become different at the time when man was to find the way into the Kingdom of Heaven with his ego; when he now sought or brought about the states of ecstasy, they are described as being states of ‘obsession,’ which brought him into connection with evil hostile spiritual powers. So at the time of the appearance of Christ Jesus the following had to be proclaimed as a healing doctrine: ‘It is not right for you to try without your ego to get into a condition in which you can become aware of the Spiritual worlds; the right way now is to seek contact with the Divine-Spiritual worlds in the deepest core of your being!’

This is essentially the teaching contained in the Sermon on the Mount of St. Matthew's Gospel. We might re-write it thus: In olden times there was a dream-like clairvoyance. In this man was, in ecstasy, transported into the Spiritual worlds. At that time he was rich in Spiritual life; he was no beggar in the spirit as he became when Christianity was founded. When in olden times he was filled with the spirit, with what the Greeks called ‘Pneuma’, he was transported into the Spiritual worlds. Christ could not now say: ‘Blessed or God-filled are those who in their ecstatic states become rich in the spirit, for these are the very ones who will certainly be healed’! He now had to proclaim: ‘The time has come when blessed or God-filled are those who have become beggars in the spirit!’ That means, those who can no longer rise into ecstatic dreamy clairvoyant conditions, but who are obliged to seek the Kingdom of Heaven within, from out of their ego.

Formerly, when man was placed amidst the sorrows and sufferings of earth, he only had to call forth within him the state in which he could be transported into the Divine-Spiritual worlds. He was not obliged to endure suffering, for when it came to him, he could at once seek the state in which he was filled with the spirit, God-filled, and in that state—severed from his ego—he could find balm for the sorrows and sufferings of earth. Christ Jesus had to proclaim that this time too was now past and over. Those would now be blessed, or God-filled, who, while they could no longer look outside for help for their sufferings, might through the strengthening of their own ego seek within themselves the power to find the Paraclete in their inner being. ‘Blessed (God-filled) are they who do not banish sorrow by ecstatically raising themselves to the Divinity, but who endure it, developing the power of the ego whereby they can find within themselves the Paraclete, known later as the Holy Ghost who reveals himself through the Ego. ‘Even Buddha in his time did not recommend that sorrow should be endured, but that it should be thrown off, with all the thirst of earth. Even six hundred years before Christ Jesus, Buddha described sorrow and suffering on earth as the worst consequences of the longing for existence. Six hundred years later, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ in the second Beatitude proclaimed that sorrow must not be done away with in that way, but must be endured, that it was a trial through which the Ego might develop the strength it can find within itself: the inner support of the Paraclete. This is literally contained in the second sentence of the Sermon on the Mount, even to the expression; Paraclete. It is only necessary to read these things in the right way. That is precisely the task of our age; we must learn, through what is given to us in Spiritual Science, to read the great scriptures of old aright, through the teachings of Spiritual Science.

A third point is this. In olden times, when men could permeate themselves with what came to them in ecstasy and which the Greeks called ‘Pneuma’ or Spirit, they were then guided instinctively in their course. All their impulses, actions, emotions and desires—in fact, all that dwells in the astral body of man—was instinctively guided, when man was able to raise himself to the good Spiritual beings. He had not yet tried from his own ego to control and purify his inner passions and desires and to bring them into balance. Now, however, the time had come—and Christ was to proclaim this—when men having tamed, purified and balanced the passions, desires and impulses of this astral body—would of themselves reach the goal for the humanity of to-day, to which we give expression by pointing to the great progress of evolution. This has often been presented to us in the following way. Man began his existence on ancient Saturn; he continued it through the Sun and Moon-existence, until on the earth the ego was added to him. Only when he becomes conscious of this ego, when he tames and balances what was added to him by the astral body on the Moon, can he really attain to the goal of the earth-mission. Those who are able to control and balance the desires in their astral body can be blessed (God-filled), for by this means they will, through themselves, discover the Earth. Thus the third sentence of the Sermon on the Mount, which as usually translated contains a meaningless word, tells us the following: Those who ‘balance’ their passions desires and emotions (not make them ‘meek’) to them shall be given—or they shall ‘inherit’—the earth.

Thus the three first sentences of the Sermon on the Mount in their worldwide significance, place before us the following summary.

The first sentence of the Sermon on the Mount refers to the physical body, and informs us that it was formerly possible, in the olden times of humanity through a particular training of the physical body to perceive the Spiritual in clairvoyant dreamy conditions, but the physical body has now become poor as regards the inner possession of the spirit.

As regards the etheric body, through which man becomes conscious of suffering—although he is first aware of it in the astral body—the indication is given that men must learn to develop in themselves a force which will enable them to find help for the suffering which is given them as a trial.

Thirdly, we come on to the astral body, concerning which we are told, that through the taming and purifying of his impulses and passions man will find in his inner being the strength which will enable him to become a real ego, one to whom the earth mission is then allotted as his portion.

When we now ascend to the Ego, we know that this works in the sentient soul, intellectual soul and spiritual soul. The ego works in the sentient soul, that is: it spiritualised it. This enables man to feel the outpouring of human brotherly love—which becomes universal through the spreading of Christianity—as righteousness: ‘hunger and thirst after the all-ruling righteousness’. The sentient soul otherwise feels only in the physical body; it must now, through Christianity, learn to feel for spiritual things: to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Those who are able to find their human centre in the ego, will, as a result of their work on themselves, satisfy the longing in their sentient soul for an all-ruling earthly righteousness. ‘Blessed are they who, through the Christ-Impulse, learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they will find a strong force in their inner being whereby, because they are working for the righteousness of the world, they shall find within themselves the satisfaction of this quality.’

We now come to the intellectual soul. We have often emphasised the fact that whereas in the sentient soul the ego is as yet but dimly brooding, in the intellectual soul it begins to shine forth, later to attain full consciousness in the spiritual soul where it first becomes a pure ego. In the intellectual soul something very singular happens: the human ego—i.e., that wherein we each resemble all other men, for each of us bears the ego within him—shines forth. No matter in what part of the world we meet with our fellow-man, through the fact that an ego shines out of his intellectual soul he is a human being like ourselves. Something shines forth from our intellectual soul, and if we receive it as well as we can and carry it out into the world, we can enter into the right relation with our fellow-men. In our intellectual soul we are to develop something which we must pour forth into our surroundings and which must flow back to us again. That is why this is the only occasion in the Sermon on the Mount when the subject of the Beatitude is like the predicate, ‘Blessed (or God-filled) are they who develop love; for as they radiate forth love, it will return to them again. ‘This shows the infinite depths of such a spiritual document, for it can be understood by the very way in which the sentences are constructed, it can be understood even down to the smallest details, if gradually, year after year, one collects all that Spiritual Science can give for the understanding of man. The difference between the fifth Beatitude and the others, in all of which the subject and the predicate are different, cannot in the least be understood without knowing that the fifth Beatitude points directly to the intellectual soul, or Mind-soul. We will now ascend to the work of the ego on the Spiritual or Consciousness soul. Here at last the ego is pure and unalloyed; only here can it become conscious of itself. This is beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, in the verse which expresses that only in the ego can the divine substance in man come to life. ‘Blessed are they, who are pure in blood or in heart (which is the expression of the ego), who allow nothing to enter there but the pure ego-nature; for they will recognise God therein, they will perceive God!’

The Sermon on the Mount now rises to that which refers to the Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man. Here man can no longer work through himself alone; at this stage of his evolution be must appeal to the divine Spiritual worlds, which, through Christ, have been brought into connection with the earth; he must look up to the renewed divine spiritual worlds. Whereas in former times strife and disharmony entered humanity through the ego-nature—as indeed it still does to-day—peace will be poured out over the earth through the Christ-Impulse. And those who take up the Christ-Impulse will become the founders of peace in that part of human nature which in the future will gradually develop as Spirit-Self; they will thus in a new sense become the sons of God, in that they will bring down the spirit from the Spiritual Realms—‘Blessed are they who bring peace—or harmony into the world; for they shall thereby be the sons of God!’ Thus must they be called, who are really filled inwardly with a spirit self which is to bring peace and harmony on the earth.

Now, we must clearly understand, that of all that develops on the earth, some part survives into later ages. This, in a certain respect, is hostile to what implants itself as a germ in later ages. What the Christ-Impulse brings, enters into the whole evolution of humanity—it does not, however, enter all at once, but rather in such a way that something still remains from the earlier stages of evolution. It is therefore necessary that those who first understand this Christ-Impulse should stand firm on the basis thereof, quite permeated inwardly with its force. If they are inwardly permeated by the force that proceeds from the seed that has come from the Christ and stand firm on that foundation, they will then be blessed in a new sense; in this they develop the force of firmness. ‘Blessed are they who stand under the new order, who stand under Christ and who suffer persecution from that which remains over from the old order!’ And the last of the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount points straight to the Christ-Impulse itself, for He says to the Apostles: ‘Blessed are ye, who are especially called to carry the Name of Christ out into the world!’

Thus we see how the Sermon on the Mount directs Christianity from out of the great teachings of cosmology and humanity, while everywhere directing attention to the force within, the centre point of which must be found in the Ego itself. The time has now come when this must be understood, and understood in such a way that people must not believe themselves to be true Christians because they try to find Christianity in some dogmatic collateral signification or side issue, but rather those are true Christians who understand the meaning of the text: ‘Change the disposition of your souls, for the kingdoms of heaven have descended even into the ego!’ Those persons can be called ‘Christians’ in the true sense who realise that this is the essential point, and who further understand that this had to be put at the beginning of our era in a different way from that in which it must be given out now! It would be a mistaken idea of Christianity to believe that what was considered Christian in the words spoken two thousand years ago has not since then undergone further development. Christianity would stand for nothing but a dead stream of culture. But it is a living one! It is developing, and will continue to develop! Just as it is true that Christianity had to start from the time when man had descended right down to the physical plane, when a Divine Being became man in a physical human body, so it is also true that at our present time man must learn to rouse himself to the understanding of Christianity and of the Christ Being Itself, from a Higher Spiritual Standpoint!—What does this mean?

Just as it is true that the old dreamy clairvoyant forces had been lost, so that at the time of Christ those persons who were filled ‘with God’ in the old sense could no longer be described as ‘blessed,’ but only such as formed the kingdoms of Heaven within them, it is also true that the ego of man will reascend into the Spiritual world in full consciousness and will develop ever new forces and capacities. Just as it is true that the time of the Baptist was the time when those capacities which led down to the physical plane had reached a crisis in humanity, it is also true that we have now again reached an important time. What is called the ‘Dark Age,’ which began in the year 3101 B.C. and reached its height at the time of the Incarnation, came to an end at the close of the 19th Century. The Kali-Yuga was concluded in 1899! We are now approaching a time when new forces and capacities will be developed by man and these will be distinctly apparent in the last half of our present century. These new forces and capacities must be understood. Particularly those persons who have studied and understood Anthroposophy must realise that such an uplifting of humanity towards the Spiritual has again become possible. For during the important times that will follow after 1930, single individuals will find it possible to develop higher forces in their nature, whereby what we know as the etheric body will become visible. A certain number of people will develop etheric clairvoyant powers.

One of two things will then be possible, either the materialism of our age will continue, in which case when these forces are manifested men will fail to understand that they lead into the Spiritual worlds; they will then be wrongly understood and so be crushed. Should that occur, would not people, speaking in a materialistic sense at the end of the year 1940, be justified in saying: ‘Now see what fantastic prophets those were who spoke at the beginning of the 20th century! Nothing of what they foretold has been fulfilled.’ But if the new capacities have not appeared, that would not contradict what may be said now, and must indeed be said; it would only prove that people without the right understanding have choked them in the bud and that they have missed something which humanity must possess if its further evolution is not to collapse into dissolution and decay. That is the great responsibility of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy has sprung from a knowledge of the necessity for an advanced preparation for something which will come, but which might be overlooked and suppressed. Anthroposophy has the task of bringing about an understanding of the Spiritual forces developing in man. If these forces are suppressed humanity will sink deeper into the mire of materialism.

On the other hand, Anthroposophy may be successful in spreading through its teachings an understanding of the fact that man must rise into the Spiritual worlds; it may succeed in lifting mankind out of the materialistic frame of mind. For this, however, something must now come forth from the anthroposophical movement, something that was prepared centuries ago, but which must now, in our own age, evolve to a particular and important turning-point.

The centuries that lie behind us were fitted for cultivating to an increasing extent the materialistic ideas of man. Under this materialistic influence it was easy to believe that the Christ-Impulse and the Christ-Being would come into touch with the world by incarnating once again—or perhaps oftener—in a physical, material body. Instead of acquiring clear notions of the fact that men must grow up as regards their capacities so that a great number, and finally all, might experience the Event of Damascus—that is: might experience the Christ in the atmosphere around the earth, and see Him in His etheric body—it was believed that Christ would descend again in a physical body, for the materialistic satisfaction of those who refuse to believe in the spirit, and who will not believe what St. Paul saw in the Event of Damascus: that Christ is in the Earth-atmosphere and that He is always there! ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ Those who develop the methods of clairvoyant vision into the Spiritual world will find what, could not be found there in the pre-Christian time: the Christ in His etheric body. That is the important progress in the evolution of humanity; before the first half of our century has elapsed, those faculties by means of which the event of Damascus becomes a personal experience, will develop naturally as it were, and men will see the Christ in His etheric body. He will not descend into flesh, but man will ascend when he has acquired understanding of the spirit.

That is the manner of Christ's return in our own age, for in this 20th century men must work their way up out of the Kali-Yuga into a century of clairvoyance. They must ascend to Christ by means of the capacities which they will develop; they must ascend to the Christ where He is and where He can be seen, at first sight, by those in the vanguard, those who through the teachings of Anthroposophy can be guided to what in the course of the next 2,500 years will be experienced to a greater or less degree by every human soul.

The great event which awaits mankind in the near future is, that those who raise themselves—with full Ego-consciousness—to the etheric vision of Christ in His etheric body, will be ‘God-filled’ or blessed. For this, however, the materialistic mind must be thoroughly overcome, and men must acquire understanding of Spiritual doctrine and Spiritual life.

In bygone centuries it was, comparatively speaking, not harmful for men continually to return to the materialistic conception of the so-called return of Christ. Particularly at the small times of transition, when that which has now reached its climax in a materialistic sense was being prepared for, as, for instance, in France in 1137, when a Messiah was expected, and was awaited by many in wide circles. A Messiah did actually appear then, but he led the people astray, because the belief in him had arisen through their materialistic ideas, for it was believed the Messiah would come in the flesh. Thirty years before, another Messiah appeared in Spain; there, too, it had been foretold that a Messiah would come in the flesh. At about the same time another new Messiah appeared in North Africa; there, too, it had been prophesied that one would come from the East, and appear in the flesh. Throughout the whole time during which the materialistic mind was being prepared, in that the highest things were being grasped by it, there appeared such prophets whose coming was foretold. Such phenomena are well known to those who understand the times, and they continued into the 17th century, when the approaching appearance of a sort of Christ, a Messiah, was proclaimed far and wide. This again found acceptance by the materialistically religious minds of men. Based on these prophecies, a false Messiah was thus able to arise in Smyrna, in 1667, bearing the name of Shabbathoi Zewi. He wrote letters and epistles at that time from Smyrna, which, although they contained nothing but false matter, being written in a materialistic sense, shook the world as greatly as had once the Epistles of St. Paul. In the 17th century there went forth from Smyrna the proclamation that in that city there dwelt a Messiah in the flesh! And Shabbathoi Zewi, the ‘just man of God’ was so considered, that it was said the whole world-reckoning would now take on another form. ‘He will pass through the world with his faithful disciples and all must believe in him who are willing to see the truth, who wish to see Christ in the flesh!’ It was preached to the people that his birthday must be held as the greatest Festival on Earth! Whole hosts of people undertook pilgrimages there—not only from Asia and Africa, but also from Poland, Russia, Spain, France, and so on; great numbers of persons traveled as pilgrims to Smyrna to see Shabbathoi Zewi, who was supposed to be Christ in the flesh, until the thing grew beyond all limits and he was arrested by order of the Sultan! This, said the people, was but the fulfilment of the prophesy, for it was foretold he would be in prison for nine months! The Sultan could think of no other method than to have him brought forth and stripped, saying: ‘We will see whether thou be a Messiah, a Christ; I shall have thee shot!’ And so it was finally proved that Shabbathoi Zewi was only an ordinary Ba Rabbi after all!

Such impersonations are the result of the materialistic thinking of our times, and there will be more of the kind, for the materialistic mind will make use of men.

What I am now saying will often and often be said during the next few decades: that the capacities of man will develop up to seeing the Etheric vision of Christ, in the reality of which they can then believe, just as firmly as did St. Paul himself! This is the immediate future of man, and this it is for which Spiritual Science must prepare him. But on account of the materialistic thoughts of men the time will also come when strong temptations will arise; false Messiahs will appear in the flesh. It will then be proved whether Anthroposophists have rightly understood Anthroposophy. Those who have not will be so adversely affected by the materialistic mind that they will succumb to the temptation. Although they believe in Christ they will believe in an incarnated Christ. But those who have gained understanding of true Spiritual life will realise that the ‘second Coming of Christ’ in our century, that greatest of Events, signifies that He comes to man in the Spirit, because mankind in the course of its development will have developed up to the Spiritual, will have evolved up towards Christ! Therefore in our century, the Sermon on the Mount undergoes a complete modification. It must be entirely re-modeled, so to speak. Those persons will be God-filled (or blessed) who, through having been beggars for the spirit in their past incarnations, have now advanced so far as to be able to ascend to that part of the kingdom of Heaven where Christ will appear before their spiritual sight!

Every single sentence of the Sermon on the Mount in its present form might be reconstructed in this sense. Christianity will only re-conquer its ancient documents when they are grasped in a living sense, when it is realised that they are living, not dead writings. When the time comes—and that time is here now—when materialistical research extends to the Gospel and takes away the tradition of Christ, then, as we have often stated, Spiritual research will give back the Gospels to mankind! This coincidence will not be accidental, it will come of necessity. It may be that in our own time—during which the materialistic mind having gone as far as it can, will reach a crisis—certain unfortunate persons having, through their mistaken philosophy been led into curious ideas, may conclude that effects may be produced without causes, and that there never was an historical Jesus-Christ. This should be comprehensible to Anthroposophists. They ought, indeed, to feel a certain pity for those poor men who, notwithstanding their philosophy, are so entangled in materialistic thought that they have altogether lost the faculty of imagining the existence of spirit, and who, consequently, keep flying in the face of the saying, that there is no effect without a cause. Christianity as an effect could not have existed without a cause! Anthroposophy, speaking from spiritual investigation, will tell men of Christ in the form in which He now lives, if they will but listen with an understanding mind. The understanding must be sufficiently matured to recognise definitely that the Christ will reappear, but as a reality higher than a physical one, a reality to which one can only look up, after first having acquired a sense and an understanding for spiritual life.

Inscribe in your hearts that Anthroposophy must be a preparation for the great epoch of humanity which is immediately ahead of us. Do not in this look upon it as matter of the first importance whether the souls now incarnated are still incarnated in physical bodies when Christ appears in the manner described, or whether they will then have already passed through the Portal and stand in the life between death and rebirth. For that which takes place in the 20th century is not of importance to the physical world alone, but to all the worlds with which man is connected. Just as those persons who will be in incarnation between 1930 and 1950 will experience the vision of the Etheric Christ, so a mighty revolution will also take place in the world in which man lives between death and rebirth. Just as Christ after the Mystery of Golgotha descended into the underworld, so will the effects of the Event which will occur for the inhabitants of the physical plane, rise into the spiritual plane. Those people who have not been prepared for this by Spiritual Science will miss the great and mighty Event, which will also take place in the Spiritual worlds in which man then lives. Those persons will have to wait for a new incarnation to experience on earth what makes them capable of receiving the new Christ-Impulse. For it is on earth that we must acquire the capacity of grasping all the Christ-Impulses, no matter how high they may lead us! Not in vain has man been placed in the physical world; for it is here we must acquire that which leads us to an understanding of the Christ-Impulse! For all the souls now living, Anthroposophy is the preparation for the Christ-Event that awaits us in the near future. This preparation is necessary. Other events will follow this Christ Event in the course of the development of mankind. It will therefore be a great omission, if those who have the opportunity of raising themselves during this century to the Christ-Event, do not take advantage of it.

Only if we look upon Anthroposophy in this way and inscribe it in our souls, can we realise what it means to each human soul and what it ought to become to all humanity.

Our lecture to-day will consist of a kind of summing up of all we have heard in the course of the various lectures given here this winter, which may be taken as a continuation of the lectures on St. Luke's and St. Matthew's Gospels and of what was given here with reference to the lectures on St. John's Gospel which I gave in Stockholm. From the way in which these lectures were given, it will be clear that there never was any question in a narrow sense of explaining the Gospels, but rather that from the truths which in the first place are truths in themselves and as such can be found in the Gospels if rightly understood, light can be thrown in different ways upon other riddles of life.

When we go back beyond the founding of Christianity, we find two different kinds of Initiation: that of the North, described in more detail in the above-mentioned Stockholm Lectures, and that of the South, the chief characteristic of which is its connection with the Egyptian methods of Initiation. In the world of the ancients there were two different methods by which they could penetrate into the Spiritual world. In old Egypt a candidate for initiation had to descend into the depths of his own soul, beyond all that plays its part in the ordinary soul-life, as thinking, feeling and willing, and the like. There he found that from which the soul itself came forth: the divine Spiritual life of the world. A descent beneath those regions of the soul which are illuminated and permeated by the Ego, was the essential point in the Egyptian, or indeed, in any southern Initiation. In the Northern Initiation, on the other hand, the object striven for was that man should come out of himself, and expand into the phenomena of the world in a state of ecstasy. This was especially the case in the Germanic Druidic Mysteries and those of the Trotten. We heard how these two kinds of Initiation were combined in one stream, in what we call the Christian Initiation, and how this represented a higher unity combining the ecstatic Initiation of the North with the mystical contraction of the South. This gives an indication of a deeper foundation of cosmic Mysteries, permeating all existence. In reality this is in itself as great and mighty a fact as the fusion of the two different forms of Initiation of ancient times into the one single form of Christian Initiation; it is an example of a great and still more comprehensive law permeating all human existence, and also interwoven in the existence of all the outer world-phenomena, in so far as these are known to man. Everywhere we find ourselves confronted by opposites, by two parts of a duality. The Northern and Southern initiations offer one example of two opposite sides—polarities, as we might call them—that confront us in the life of the world. The other, the Christian initiation—in which these two forms of initiation flow together and as it were celebrate a Spiritual marriage—is an example of how opposites, dualities of any sort, reunite. This takes place without cessation; unities are always separating into dualities for the purpose of furthering evolution, while dualities unite again, and once more form unities. We can point externally to one great and mighty fact, extending beyond human evolution, which is an example of this division of unity into a duality, and of the streaming back of the two into one.

We have often thrown light on the Lemurian Epoch, which experienced, among other things, that great fact in the evolution of the world, the separation of the Moon from our Earth. That epoch also saw the first beginnings of that which in the present day sense of man's development, we may call the two opposites: man and woman; whereas in the ages preceding that of Lemuria we should only find unity of sex. There was an original unity, which separated into man and woman. We have already indicated, moreover, that in a future age the two sexes will once more become one, that the duality will again become a unity, a unity will come forth from a duality. That is the external indication of a far-reaching series of facts connected with the relation of two to one, or one to two.

What we thus meet with in the development of mankind is actually the expression, the image, of a still greater cosmic polarity rooted in a unity; greater than the example in our present-world life, of the two that in a distant future will be fused into one. It is necessary that we should take every one of the thoughts given us by Spiritual Science in its full depths, not allowing ourselves to form a habit of taking such thoughts in the same superficial way as other thoughts and conceptions which prevail in the world to-day, and which our present civilisation in its hasty and superficial triviality accepts. The thoughts of Spiritual Science must be taken as earnestly as possible. Therefore such a thought as that often spoken of and which indeed underlies all our teaching—that man as a little world, as a microcosm, is born out of the Macrocosm, the great world—must not simply be taken as an abstract thought, for in its content it is manifold and infinite. Above all, we must realise that the world contains more depth than is supposed; and that even when we have grasped a polarity or a truth in one of its aspects, that does not by any means signify that we know the last truth about it; rather must we patiently wait and observe, so that when we know one side of a thing, we should try to learn what refers to the other side of it.

Man is born out of the whole Cosmos; he must look up it to as to his Father-Mother, of whom he himself is an image. Yes, man is an image of the whole world with which he is acquainted, there is nothing in the being of man which does not in some way relate to what can be found in the great Cosmos. If we compare man, as seen to-day in the light of Spiritual Science, with the human forms of early ages, we find among others one characteristic feature of immense importance for the understanding of the nature of man. This sign can teach every one of us that, as regards what we have known about the world, the fact that some things that have been said are true, is not of sole importance; there is something else besides, something very different. When a man has proved the truth of a thing, he has not even then told us what is of greatest importance in it. For example, there is much truth in what a trivial natural scientist will tell about the resemblance between man and the higher mammals. It is an indisputable truth that man has the same number of bones and muscles, and so on. But after this has been proved, the last word on the subject has not been said. Man must learn, through the deepening and inwardness of Spiritual Science, to acquire a feeling for the value of a particular truth, to sense whether or no it is important and essential for the elucidation of a matter. People come along to-day and speaking from their trivial consciousness, keep on assuring us of the truth of their assertions. We have no wish to contradict them. But the point is, of what value are they for the understanding of the world? Now there is a certain fact—which is undeniably true, and with which everyone is acquainted, because we meet with it over and over again every day—the value of which, in its significance to man should be realised and felt in the right way. That is, the fact that man stands and walks upright and can gaze out into space around him. Man alone is capable of that! For we must say that even though the apes look as though they might possess this power, they have somehow missed it, for they cannot walk upright. Man is the only being who has achieved this, and who has succeeded in raising his countenance freely into the space around him. This fact is immeasurably more important than all those that a trivial Natural Science tells us as to the position occupied by man among the animals. What science says is true, but this is of much greater importance. If we wish to feel the force of this, we must make ourselves acquainted with the reason why man is a being that walks upright, a being certainly still bound to the earth, but one who, through his mental outlook and even through his sense-perceptions, raised himself into an upright position in space. The reason is that there is a certain polarity, a duality in the Cosmos, which corresponds to another duality in man. We can point to a duality in the universe and to a duality in man, as two opposites, existing in the microcosm and the macrocosm. The one alluded to in the macrocosm, in the great world, is that of the Sun to the Earth; and the same polarity that exists between Sun and Earth exists also in man. It is that between his head and his hands and feet; between his head and his limbs. As time goes on these things will be gone into more fully, but we must in the first place make ourselves acquainted with them and learn to feel that in a certain respect the head and limbs of man bear the same relation to each other as the Sun does to the Earth in our solar System. There are, in fact, in our earth those forces which in the course of the ages have brought about the whole form and movement of our hands and feet through certain mysterious forces which bind man to the Earth; while the forces which have lifted his countenance up in space, and which have transformed him from a being which gazes on to the earth to one who can look out into the infinite distances of cosmic space,—these forces have their seat in the Sun. Anyone who really has the right feeling will have the same impression when contemplating the self-evident polarity between man's head and his limbs, as he will if he turns his attention to the polarity between the Sun and Earth. This polarity will some day become a unity in the life of man, just as the Cosmic polarity will do.

Even as the Sun and Earth were once a single being which later divided into a duality, so will they some day be re-united; and the polarity in man between head and limbs will also some day become unity, difficult to imagine as it may seem to the man of to-day, who is not accustomed to such concepts.

We have thus pointed to a polarity in man and to its correspondence in the universe. There are, however, other polarities in man, which also have their corresponding counterparts in the universe. As regards the polarity between the head and limbs, all human beings on the earth are alike. It exists equally in man and woman. In this respect there is no difference between them; for every other polarity, for example that in the configuration of the soul, is not affected by this. If there were no other polarity but that existing between the microcosm and macrocosm, man and woman would be alike, but as it is they form another polarity in the being of man. Now we may ask: can we not also find a polarity in the universe corresponding to that between man and woman in human life? That can be found too. But before we are able to look for it we must make ourselves to some slight extent acquainted, in an occult sense, with the polarity between man and woman. In so doing we must not fall into the error of our materialistic age, which applies the polarity between man and woman—taking it simply as a question of sex—to the whole universe. Not only is that a trivial thing to do, but our learned men are taking a liberty when they consider that what is found in one domain is applicable to every other.

The corresponding polarity in the universe to that existing on our earth between man and woman cannot be called male and female. That would be nonsense. We must investigate the occult foundations of this other polarity. The polarity between male and female in our earthly evolution does not, of course, apply to the ‘human being.’ The human being as such is the same in both man and woman. When we speak of man and woman we only refer to the configuration of their physical and etheric bodies. This has nothing to do with the inner being of man; so that we cannot, in an occult sense, speak as our materialistic age does. A man and woman each possesses an astral body and an ego, but the ordinary perception knows nothing of that which makes a man or woman a human being, it can only speak of them as it sees them. We are not now speaking of the human being as such in man or woman, but of what constitutes a man or a woman, which is merely their outer sheaths. This must be thoroughly understood; for if what is about to be said were to be applied to the human being as such, it would be completely wrong. The polarity between man and woman within the above-named limits is as follows:—

In primeval ages the external human form was totally different. The present human forms—male and female—have gradually evolved out of an earlier single form, which had not yet divided into two. There was formerly a unity, where now there is a polarity, between man and woman. Now we know too, that the earlier uni-form was of a finer, more spiritual kind. Only in the course of ages did man develop a dense material form. When we look back not only do we find uni-form, but one which was more spiritual than the human form to-day. We have a primeval human being neither man nor woman, unity as yet undivided, and finer, more etheric, more spiritual than the later and more material human being, now separated into man and woman. What was the cause of the original unity having later developed into Man and Woman? This cause came about because, when the unity became a duality, the woman formed a physical body for herself which, if we may say such a thing, did not completely pass from the earlier form into the normal material form. The body of woman remained at a more spiritual stage, it did not fully descend into the material. It has certainly become dense and material, but at the same time it has retained an earlier, more spiritual form. Thus a spiritual stage has become material. The body of woman has, as it were, retained an earlier, more spiritual form, which has not descended completely into matter. Though it has become material, it has not done so as regards its form, for it still retains the form the human being originally possessed. Hence we may say: Woman is a manifestation of an earlier formation which was intended to be Spiritual and which, as seen to-day, is actually false, a maya, an illusion. If we accept the idea of a certain point in evolution when a spring-forward was made and when matter was crystallised, we can say: -the woman did not press forward as far as that point, she crystallised an earlier form. To one who can really perceive the facts of life, or who learns them through imaginative cognition, a woman's body is a somewhat truer imprint of the Spiritual behind it only as far as the head and limbs are concerned, that is to say, that her head and limbs alone express in their material appearance, something of a resemblance to their spiritual counterpart. The Spiritual behind the material form does not look like that, because the latter is not a true form.

Thus the saying that the world is ‘Maya’ can be applied to every region of life. It is very easy simply to state that ‘the world is Maya,’ but a man cannot grasp its meaning, if he does not go seriously into it, inquiring: ‘In how far are forms illusion?’ Some are more so and others less. There are those which at any rate approximately do in their outer semblance express the Spiritual behind them; these are the head and limbs. Others there are which are completely wrong and out of drawing; to these belong the rest of the human body, which is quite out of drawing. When the world understands these things it will no longer speak as foolishly as it does to-day, for it will then see that a certain deep, yet more delicate artistic sense tells us that the female form, with the exception of the head and limbs, is out of drawing, and if it is to be artistically represented the defects must be corrected. In better and more artistic times this was actually done, for no one who really has an eye for form can fail to observe that in the Venus of Milo the form has to a certain extent been corrected; but this as a rule is not noticed.

In this way we have divided the human being into two parts, consisting of those members of the body which are less of an illusion and those others that are more so and quite out of drawing. This does not apply to woman alone; but where a man is concerned the whole thing is reversed. He is the opposite pole. Just as the female form did not descend so far as the normal point necessary for rightly expressing the spirit in matter but crystallised at an earlier stage, so the male body on the other hand sprang just as far beyond that normal point as the female form stopped short of it. Thus the male body descended more deeply than the normal into materiality, and manifests this in its outer form. It would have quite a different appearance if it had not sprung beyond the middle point. Only as regards the head and limbs does the human body even approximately correspond to truth. As regards the rest of its form we must say that the female body, having reached a certain point, remained at a standstill; it consolidated before the waves of material existence broke over it; hence it manifest quite a different form from that which we should have seen if it had but waited till it had come in contact with material life before crystallising. The male body on the other hand plunged too deeply down and is just as greatly out-of-drawing as that of woman. Thus the woman's body manifests a distorted form in the Spiritual, while the man's body is distorted in the material. The true form would be between the two; it would consist of a happy average of both. Of course this affects the whole human being in his earth-life, in so far as he has a physical covering. What I have just said has nothing to do with the polarity between the head and limbs, it refers to the whole human being in one incarnation between birth and death. We incarnate either as man or woman. In so doing we have to take into account that which is out-of-drawing in the man or woman; but that extends to the whole human being, and the consequence is that if in one incarnation one has the body of a woman, the whole of this female body is influenced by the fact of its having remained behind at an earlier stage when the form was more pliable. In a male incarnation the whole physical body is permeated with the effects of having plunged down too strongly into coarse solid matter. If people had even the smallest inkling of what it means to think in the spirit, to live in the spirit, using the physical body only as an instrument,—so that one does not feel firmly fastened into it, identifying oneself with it—they would sing psalms about the misery of having to use a male body in an incarnation, for of course these material effects have also filtered into the brain. One observes that the forms of the male brain, through having been deeper into matter, are more difficult to manage than the more flexible forms of the female brain. It is truly a more difficult matter to train a male brain for the ascent into the higher worlds, and to translate the truths into thoughts, than it is to train a female brain for the same purpose. ‘For this reason it is not surprising to people who think, when a new conception of the world arises such as that of Spiritual Science, it is more easily grasped by the more manageable female brain; for it is more difficult for the male brain, being less pliable and obedient, to free itself from certain thoughts which it has absorbed. Hence Spiritual Science will not find an easy acceptance amongst the men who are to-day the leaders of culture and of the cultured ideas prevalent in our day. We must realise how awkward an instrument is the brain of a learned man to-day, not only for the acceptance of Spiritual Science, but also for thinking along those lines. But we must not look at these things in a wrong way and draw our own conclusions—rather should we look upon it as all the more significant that there are so many men whose brains are so pliant that they have become intimately acquainted with Spiritual Science.

These things can at first merely be hinted at, but if you allow them to work on you and then reflect over them, you will find immense perspective opening out regarding the life of man.

When we think of human life in its two opposites of man and woman, we are confronted with two forms, one that has remained at a standstill at an earlier stage, and one which has jumped on beyond the present stage and which draws into the present a form intended for the future, but presents it as a caricature. The female has preserved an earlier form and the male has taken on a later form, but has made it what it must not be in the future. The male form is incorrect, because it has brought later conditions of life into an age as yet too early for them.

Can we find a correspondence in the Cosmos to the polarity between male and female. Is there anything in the Cosmos which on the one hand shows us a development which has retained earlier forms and carried these over into a later age? And are there on the other hand forms which have transcended a certain stage, thus representing the caricatured form of a future state? If we bring to mind the concrete development which we know from the Akashic Records, we may put the question thus: Is there anything in the Cosmos outside, resembling an old Moon-existence which would not enter the Earth-existence, but retained from the old Moon something feminine in the Cosmos?

Is there anything which carries into the present time something like an old Moon existence belonging to an earlier stage? And is there in the Cosmos anything which has gone beyond a certain stage, and has condensed and thickened, so that it represents a later condition, a Jupiter condition?

There is! There is in the Cosmos the same polarity as we have described between male and female; and that is the polarity between a Comet and the Moon. If we wish to understand the nature of a Comet, wandering as it does in cosmic space regardless of the other laws of the Solar System, we must be clear as to the fact that the Comet carries the laws belonging to the old Moon-existence into our own. Those laws it has preserved, and with those it enters our existence. It has taken on the present substance of the solar-terrestrial system; but, as regards its motion and its nature, it has remained behind at that stage of natural law which prevailed in the Solar System when our earth was still Old Moon. It carries a former condition into a later, into the present; just as the woman's body carries an earlier condition into present-day existence. The nature of the Comet is one part of a polarity, and that of the Moon represents the other pole. When, in the Lemurian age the Moon evolved out of the Earth, it took with it certain portions, which had to be removed in order that the human being as such might develop. The earth was not to become as dense as it must have become if it had retained the Moon within it. The Moon actually represents a caricature of the Jupiter-condition. Just as a fresh ripe fruit is found in a petrified state in a stalactite, so the Moon in its configuration transcended the middle form, as has the male form of the human being. Exactly the same polarity that we find in human life between the male and the female, we can find in the Cosmos between the natures of Moon and Comets.

Thus are these things connected: as sun to earth, so head to limbs,—as Moon to Comet, so man to woman in the human being. Here again we must not go home and say:—well, now, we have some nice polarities to observe!—We must take these things very seriously and remember that on other occasions I said something more besides this. We must take into consideration the fact that a man is only male as regards his physical body, for as regards his etheric body he is female; and the woman on the other hand is only female in her physical body. A woman can only be said to be female as far as her physical body is concerned and that can be said of the etheric body of a man; so that the relation of the etheric body of a man to the etheric body of a woman is as that of Comet to Moon. If you like you may perhaps say: this makes everything confused again! But these things are so. In a culture which has created its ideas with a densified brain, those same ideas tend to create dense outlines which cannot be modified, so that when ideas are once formed they must be held on to. But the spirit does not admit of this. That is mobile, and when we form ideas, we must keep them plastic. So we must apply what has just been said as to the relation of the Moon and Comets to Man and Woman, to the male in the woman and the female in the man. It applies to the male and female elements in the human being but not to man and woman as we meet them externally.

We have now found some extremely interesting connections between the development of the human being and that of the Cosmos. Of course, as I have already observed: Those who sit in the high places of ‘true scientific observation’ will consider what has just been put forward about the Comet and the Moon, as utterly wild and absurd. That cannot be helped. They do not desire to investigate the truth. But on the ground of Spiritual Science, we can build a bridge between that which comes from the Spiritual and what is seen on the physical plane. Those others will not do this.

In the year 1906, during the Congress in Paris, I called attention to the fact that Spiritual investigation from its knowledge of the nature of Comets, was able to say: As the combinations of carbon and hydrogen play the same part on our earth as did the combinations of carbon and nitrogen (cyanogen) on the Old Moon, the cometary life must contain cyanogen compounds,—combinations of carbon and nitrogen. Those persons who have followed these things attentively will remember this. Our Spiritual Science, therefore, some time ago announced that the cometary nature must contain cyanogen in some form. During the last few weeks this fact has been mentioned in all the newspapers as an external fact discovered by spectro-analysis. This is only one case—hundreds of others could be quoted—in which Spiritual investigation builds bridges for the facts of external research. In this case spectro-analysis asserts what Spiritual Science stated years before. The results of external materialistic investigation never contradict those of Spiritual research. We may depend upon statements such as the above-mentioned, when those who sit in the high places of true science constantly point to the external facts. Only we must not confuse these facts with the limited conclusions which people draw for themselves. If everything in Natural Science to-day was really a fact, Natural Science would greatly contradict Spiritual Science; but their facts are no facts, only the corrupt conceptions of those who, through the conditions prevailing in our age, are called upon to deal with such matters.

Now, having brought before our minds the polarity to be found in human life as well as in the Cosmos, we may ask: What then is brought forth from the Universe as a result of this?

It is rather difficult to describe in a somewhat short time the immensity underlying such a fact. You will allow me, therefore, by way of example, to describe the life of man as it runs its course seen externally. First of all, we see something of which we may say, it pursues its course like the life of a good citizen, from day to day. He gets up in the morning, eats his breakfast and completes the rest of the day in accordance with the usual rules. There are certain events, however, which can intervene in a man's life at one fell swoop, and may bring about changes in the day's course. Take the case of a man and wife living for a while the life of good citizens with but little variety in the usual programme of their day, till something occurs which actually causes a leap in the ordinary external life of people in such circumstances. When a new human being incarnates, and enters life as a citizen of the world, the event causes a leap, a great change in the ordinary process of everyday life. When a new citizen of the world comes on the horizon of man and wife, something actually occurs which gives the whole family connection a new form. I brought this forward as an example by means of which we can gain some little understanding of the deep occult background of cometary life. In the Cosmos too, life goes on from day to day, from year to year—like the life of the good citizen—one day is like another; the Sun rises and sets, the plants blossom in spring, and wither away in autumn, and when there is rain or sunshine or hail or the like, these correspond to such events in ordinary life as, for instance, when instead of our ordinary five o'clock tea, we have a little party. We see these things happening as a matter of course. All this hangs together with the laws underlying the movements of Sun, earth, and so on, and the way in which these continue day by day and year by year. Into this regular process, there intervenes the rarer, yet in a certain respect recurrent, appearances of the comets. They come upon the process of Cosmic happenings like a new citizen entering the horizon of man and wife. Through the appearance of a comet in the cosmos, something is actually brought about in the life of humanity which could not occur in the ordinary process of life. If evolution is to continue, there must be, not only that which repeats itself day by day, but something new must be introduced into it. Just as something quite special enters the life of a family with the birth of a new earth-citizen, so something quite different enters the progress of the human race on earth through the appearance of a comet, which breaks through the ordinary process of cosmic existence. It is actually as though something new were born, when a comet appears.

One who can investigate these things spiritually is able to indicate quite definitely the different functions of the separate comets, and how each one has to introduce something spiritually new into the world. Thus Halley's comet is one of those which, in its periodic appearances, always introduces something specially new into the life of man. Whereas otherwise things recur in the ordinary way, this comet brings about a new birth in human inner life and culture. I can only characterise what I mean, by referring to the three last appearances of Halley's comet, in the years 1759, 1835, and the one we are now expecting. What are the tasks of these three appearances? Other comets have other tasks. New births in the universe are not always to be greeted with the same joy as the birth of a young citizen into a family. All sorts are born into the universe; those that bring humanity forward as well as those that drive it back. Now the appearance of Halley's comet, or what it signifies spiritually for the further evolution of humanity, is connected with that which humanity had to absorb out of the Cosmos at the various periods of Kali-Yuga in order that thought should descend more and more into materiality. With every new appearance of this comet a new impulse was born, to drive humanity further away from a spiritual cosmic conception by the Ego, and to urge it to grasp the world in a more materialistic way. This does not mean a descent into matter, but rather the driving of that Spiritual substance which the human Ego should draw from the universe for its Spiritual existence, down into the sphere of materialistic conception. All those conceptions of the second half of the 18th century, which are called shallow and superficial and which Goethe so ridiculed in his Truth and Poetry and which found their exponent for instance in Holbach's Systeme de la Nature, are understood in their cosmic sense through the appearance of Halley's comet in the year 1759. The commonplace materialistical literature of the second third of the 19th century was preceded by the appearance of that comet in 1835. Things that take place microcosmically on the earth are macrocosmically connected with events of the great world. A new impulse towards materialism was again given by the appearance of Halley's comet in 1835. Buchner, Vogt and Moleschott are examples of those who were influenced on the earth by what appeared with Halley's comet, as a mighty sign from the Cosmos. We are now to be confronted in the near future—for humanity must be tested, must rise out of itself, must feel the resistance to Spirituality so that it may unfold all the more forces for its re-ascent—we shall be confronted with the forces which the new appearance of this comet will send forth from the universe, forces which may lead humanity down into a still more arid and dreadful materialism. Something may be born, which even the most arid and driest thoughts of the Buchner school could not have imagined. but this possibility is a necessity, for only if man overcomes the opposing forces can he acquire the strong force able to lead him up again.

If we bear this in mind, we shall then encounter in the right way what we call ‘Signs from the Heavens.’ This is really a fact; though what I have said must not be taken in a superstitious sense, as though God were pointing with a wand from Heaven to show men what they have to do! The approaching appearance of Halley's comet is one of these signs, and notice should be taken of it. For a mighty ascending impulse must follow it that we may rise from the depths of materialism into which we have sunk, into Spirituality. Just as we are given the possibility of being swamped in materialism, we are also given the chance to ascend into clearer, spiritual heights.

It was clearly and distinctly indicated in the last lectures that during the first half of the 20th century an etheric clairvoyance will develop in a few single individuals, as a natural capacity. In order that man may not sink more deeply into the materialism indicated by the present sign of 1910, those who have understanding of Spiritual Science have the possibility of developing those forces in the human soul which can lead man beyond materialism. If a man understands these forces, they will teach him how he may himself see the etheric nature of Christ. We are living at an important crossing-point, when men will be taught, even by signs from heaven, that in one direction the path will lead deeper into the mire, while the other path leads to the development in themselves of the forces which, at the conclusion of Kali-Yuga, will lead to etheric clairvoyance. The cry of John the Baptist: ‘Change the disposition of your souls,’ applies to us to-day! This may really be said. Just as on the one hand we are given the possibility of perishing in the materialistic morass, on the other it is possible, through the Sun reaching a certain point in the Constellation of Pisces at the Vernal Equinox, that a certain etheric clairvoyance may be acquired. For the spiritual ascent there are also signs, to show us how the forces come from the Cosmos. If a man is a student of Spiritual Science he will of necessity grow to understand this decision; if he does not, that means that he has not understood Spiritual Science aright. We must pass through the test submitted to us by the sign in the Heavens which we now recognise to be the appearance of Halley's Comet.

Let us now picture the vision of Christ, as it will appear to the first fore-runners during the next 2,500 years, and as it appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus. Man will ascend to a cognition of the spiritual world and will see the physical world permeated by a new ‘country,’ or new realm. Man's physical environment will present a totally different aspect in the course of the next 2,500 years, through the addition of an etheric realm, which indeed is already here now, but which he will learn to perceive. This etheric sphere is even now spread out before the eyes of those who have carried their esoteric training as far as ‘Illumination’—as was the case with the Initiates even in Kali-Yuga. That which men will see more and more in the future is visible in its greatest heights to the Initiates. The Initiate draws from thence at repeated intervals, the forces he requires. When he has to carry out some special work, he draws his forces from those realms within the earth's circuit which are visible to him, but which can only be seen by those who have the vision. It will help us to understand this, when we know that a part of that land from which the Initiate drew his forces during Kali-Yuga, will be thrown open to a great part of humanity during the next 2,500 years. Formerly, in the days of primeval clairvoyance, man, though then without the strong Ego-consciousness, could see into the Spiritual world—and in a way he saw more or less what he will see now,—but he will now enter it with his newly acquired self-consciousness. At that time he saw it in dream-like ecstatic conditions, or by looking into his own soul. That world which during Kali-Yuga became physical was then open to man's gaze. Hence the traditions, which have preserved recollections of the old clairvoyance, tell us of an unknown Fairy-Land which has now disappeared from sight. There are wonderful documents in Eastern literature full of a peculiar tragical enchantment, and telling us that at one time it was possible for human beings to travel to a land where the Spiritual flowed into the physical. It is that Land from whence at certain times the Initiates—and at all times the Bodhisattvas—drew fresh forces. The Eastern writings speak with deep sorrow of that land, asking: ‘Where is it? We are told the names of places, paths are named; but the Land itself is concealed, even from those most initiated among the Lamas of Thibet!’ Only to the highest Initiates is it accessible. But it is always stated that some day this Land will return to earth. That is true; it will return to earth! And the guide thereto will be He Whom men will see, when, through the vision of the Event of Damascus, they reach the Land of Shamballa. ‘Shamballa’—for so this Land is called—has withdrawn from the sight of man. It can only be entered to-day by those who, as Initiates, go there from time to time to be strengthened. The old forces can no longer lead man thither. That is why Eastern literature speaks with such tragic despair of the vanished Land of Shamballa. But the Christ-Event, which will be vouchsafed to man in this century through his newly-awakened faculties, will bring back the Fairy-Land of Shamballa, which through the whole of Kali-Yuga could only be known to the Initiates.

Thus humanity is now called upon to make a decision, whether it shall allow itself, through what comes with the Halley Comet, to be lead down into a darkness even lower than that of Kali-Yuga, or whether through an understanding developed by Anthroposophy it shall not neglect to cultivate the new faculties by which it may find the way to the Land which according to Eastern Literature has disappeared, but which Christ will once more reveal to mankind;—the Land of Shamballa. That is the great question of the dividing of the ways: either to go down or to go up. Either to go down into something which, as a Cosmic-Kamaloka lies still deeper down than Kali-Yuga, or to work for that which will enable man to enter that realm, which is really alluded to under the name of Shamballa.

At the close of yesterday's exposition we indicated the intention to consider next the cardinal issue within the Christ impulse: the Death on the Cross and its significance. But before turning to a delineation of the death of Christ, and thus to the climax of this study cycle, we must discuss today the true meaning and significance of much that we find in the John Gospel itself, as well as its relation to what the other Gospels offer. In the last few days we have been endeavoring to comprehend the Christ impulse and to establish it as an actual event in human evolution by means of quite a different source: by clairvoyant reading of the akashic record; and in a sense we referred only to those passages in the Gospels which appear to confirm what clairvoyant research justifies us in stating as truths.

Today, in order to follow up our studies, we shall consider the John Gospel itself and characterize this important document of mankind from a certain aspect. We said yesterday that the theological research of our time, in as far as it is affected by materialism, can find no points of contact with this John Gospel, is unable to see its historical value; but regarded with the vision of spiritual science this Gospel proves to be one of the most marvelous documents possessed by the human race. It is not too much to say that not only as a religious document but—to use a profane expression—among all purely literary works in existence it is one of the greatest. Let us now approach it from this literary angle.

From the very first chapters—if rightly understood and if one knows what all lies concealed in the words—this Gospel of St. John shows a rounded beauty of style equal to any in the world, although a superficial study does not reveal this fact. What superficial observation discloses first is that in enumerating the miracles the writer of the John Gospel, whose back-ground we now know, mentions precisely seven up to the Lazarus event proper. (The significance of the number seven will be treated in the following lectures.) What were these seven signs?

1. The sign in connection with the Marriage in Cana in Galilee.

2. The sign given in the healing of the nobleman's son.

3. The sign given in the healing of the man who had lain sick for thirty-eight years by the Pool of Bethesda.

4. The sign given in the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

5. The sign given in the vision of Christ walking on the sea.

6. The sign given in the healing of the man born blind. And finally:

7. The greatest of the signs, the initiation of Lazarus, the transformation of Lazarus into the writer of the John Gospel.

These are the seven signs. But now we must ask ourselves, What about these signs, this question of miracles? If you listened attentively to a number of things that were told you in the foregoing lectures you will remember having heard that the state of human consciousness has kept altering throughout the entire course of evolution. We cast our gaze back to remote times and found that men did not issue from a merely animalistic stage of development, but from a form in which they possessed the power of clairvoyance as a congenital endowment. People of that time were clairvoyant, even though their consciousness still lacked the ability to say “I am”. The capacity for self-consciousness was something they had to acquire gradually, and for this they had to forfeit their old clairvoyance. In the future the time will come again when all men are clairvoyant, but without loss of self-consciousness, of the “I am”. Those are the three stages which humanity has in part passed through, in part still has ahead of it.

In Atlantis men still lived in a sort of dream consciousness, but this was clairvoyant. Then they gradually achieved self-consciousness, outer objective consciousness, in exchange for which, however, they gave up the old gift of dim clairvoyance. And finally, what man will have in the future is clairvoyant consciousness coupled with self-consciousness. Thus man traverses the path from an ancient dim clairvoyance through an opaque objective consciousness, finally ascending to conscious clairvoyance.

But in addition to consciousness, everything else about man has changed as well. The belief that conditions must always have been as they are today is due to nothing but human shortsightedness. Everything has evolved. Nothing has always been as it is today, not even men's relation to each other. You have already gathered from intimations in the last lectures that in older epochs—up to the time when the Christ impulse entered human evolution—the influence of soul upon soul was much stronger. Such was human disposition at that time. A man did not merely hear what was told him in externally audible words: in a certain way he could feel and know something that the other felt and thought vividly, livingly. Love meant something quite different from what it does today, albeit in those times it was largely a matter of blood ties. Nowadays it has taken on more of a psychic character, but it has lost its strength. Nor will it regain this until the Christ impulse shall have entered all human hearts. In olden times active love possessed at the same time a healing property, a powerful balm, for the soul of its recipient.

Coincident with the development of the intellect and of cleverness, qualities that came into being only gradually, these ancient direct influences of soul upon soul dwindled away. The gift of acting upon the other's soul, of causing one's own soul force to stream into it, was unquestionably peculiar to the older peoples; and you must therefore imagine the force that one soul could receive from another as much greater, the influence one soul could exert upon another as much stronger, than is the case today. The external historical documents may report nothing of all this, the tablets and monuments may not mention it; but clairvoyant study of the akashic record nevertheless discloses the fact that in olden times the healing of the sick, for example, was extensively accomplished through a psychic influence passing from the one to the other. And the soul possessed many other powers as well. Though today it sounds like a fairy tale, it is a fact that in those times a man's will, if he so desired and had specially trained himself for the purpose, had the power to act soothingly upon the growth of a plant, to accelerate or retard it. Today but scanty remnants of all this are left.
Human life, then, was very different at that time. No one would have been surprised—given the right mutual relationship—at the passing over of a psychic influence from one person to the other.

It must be kept in mind, however, that two or more are needed if the exercise of a psychic influence of that sort is to take effect. We could imagine the possibility of a man imbued with the power of Christ entering our midst nowadays; but those with the requisite faith in him would be very few in number, so that he would not be able to achieve all that can be accomplished by the influence of one soul upon another. For not only must the influence be exerted: someone must be present who is sufficiently developed to be affected by it. Remembering that formerly those who could receive such influences were more numerous, we should not be surprised to learn that for the healing of the sick there indeed existed the means by which psychic influences could take effect; but also, that influences which today can be transmitted only by mechanical means were at that time applied psychically.

We should keep in mind that the Christ event entered human evolution at a very special point in time. Only the very last remnants, so to say, of those soul currents that flowed from man to man were left as a heritage of the old Atlantean age. Humanity was about to descend ever deeper into matter, and the possibility for such psychic currents to be effective constantly diminished. That was the moment at which the Christ impulse had to enter, the impulse which in its nature could accomplish so very much for those who were still sufficiently receptive.

Those who are really familiar with evolution as it applied to mankind will therefore find it quite natural that the Christ Being, having once entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth in about the thirtieth year of His life, could unfold very special powers in this sheath, for the latter had been developing since time immemorial. We mentioned yesterday that this individuality of Jesus of Nazareth had in one former life been incarnated in ancient Persia, and then, passing through one incarnation after another, had continued to rise in its spiritual development. That is why the Christ could dwell in such a body, and why this body could be sacrificed to Him. This the Evangelists knew well, hence they presented the entire narrative in such a way as to be wholly comprehensible for spiritual research. Only, we must take everything in the Gospels literally—that is, we must first learn to read them. As has been said, the deeper meanings of the miracles we shall learn in due time; but here we can ask, for example, why, precisely in the first of the miracles, it is specially emphasized in dealing with the Marriage in Cana of Galilee that this took place in Cana “of Galilee”. Seek as you will, you can find in old Palestine within the radius then known no second Cana; and in such a case it would seem superfluous to specify the locality. Why, then, does the Evangelist tell us that this miracle occurred in Cana "of Galilee"? Because the important point to be stressed was that something occurred which had to take place in Galilee. It means that nowhere else but in Galilee could Christ have found just those people whose presence was indispensable. As I said, an influence implies not only the one who exerts it, but the others as well—those who are appropriately fitted to receive it. Christ's first appearance would not have been possible within the Jewish community proper, but it was possible in Galilee with its mixture of many different tribes and groups. Just because members of so many peoples from various parts of the world were assembled in one spot, there was far less blood relationship, and above all, far less faith in it, than in Judea, in the narrow circle of the Hebrew people. Galilee was a heterogenous racial mixture.

But what was it to which Christ, in view of His impulse, felt Himself particularly called? We have said that one of His most significant utterances was,

Before Abraham was, was the I am

;

and the other,

I and the Father are one

.

By this He meant: among those who cling to the old forms of life the ego is entrenched in a system of blood relationships. The words I and Father Abraham are one aroused a very special feeling in the true confessor of the Old Testament, a feeling nowadays very difficult to share. What a man calls his own self, circumscribed by birth and death, he sees as transitory. But one who had true faith in the Old Testament, who was influenced by the widespread teachings of that time, asserted—not allegorically, but as a fact: As regards myself I am isolated; but I am a member of a great organism, of a great living whole reaching back to Father Abraham. Just as my finger can remain a living member only as long as it is part of my body, so my memory is contingent upon my feeling myself a member of the great folk organism that goes back to Father Abraham. I am part of the great complex, exactly as my finger is part of my body. Cut off my finger and it ceases to be a finger: it is safe only as long as it is part of my hand, my hand part of my arm, and my arm part of my body; it ceases to have meaning if severed from my hand. And in like manner, I myself have meaning only when I feel myself a member of all the generations through which the blood flows down from Father Abraham. Then I feel sheltered. My individual ego is transient and fleeting, but not so this whole great folk organism way back to Father Abraham. When I sense and feel myself wholly embraced by it I conquer my temporally transient ego: I am sheltered in one great ego, the ego of my people that has come down to me from Father Abraham through the blood of the generations.

That represents the conviction of the Old Testament adherents: all the great events narrated in the Old Testament, everything that today seems miraculous, occurred through the power of the inner experience contained in the words, I and Father Abraham are one. But the time came when men were destined to relinquish this state of consciousness for another, hence it gradually disappeared. That is why Christ could not address those who, on the one hand, had lost the magic power of influencing by means of blood ties, and on the other, still believed only in the common bond with Father Abraham. Clearly, among these Christ could not find the faith necessary for enabling His soul to flow actively into other souls; and for this purpose He had to turn to those who, owing to their mixed blood, no longer clung to this old belief: to the Galileans. That is where His mission had to commence. Even though the old state of consciousness was generally on the wane, still He found in Galilee a medley of peoples that stood at the beginning of the era in which blood became mixed. From all quarters tribes assembled here that had previously been governed solely by the forces of the old blood ties. They were on the point of finding the transition. They vividly retained the feeling that their fathers were still endowed with the old consciousness states, that they possessed the magic powers which act from soul to soul. Among these people Christ could inaugurate His new mission, which consisted in endowing man with an ego consciousness no longer bound to blood relationship; an ego consciousness which could say, It is within myself that I shall find the connection with the spiritual Father Who, instead of letting His blood flow down through the generations, radiates His spiritual force into each individual soul. The ego which is within me, and which is in direct communion with the spiritual Father, was before Abraham was. It is for me, then, to infuse into this ego a force that will be strengthened through my being aware of my connection with the spiritual Father force of the world. I and the Father are one. No longer I and Father Abraham—that is, a physical ancestor.

Such were the people to whom Christ turned, people who had arrived at the point of understanding this, people who, having broken away from the blood ties by intermarriage, needed to find the strong force—not in consanguinity, but in the individual soul: the force that can lead men gradually to express the spiritual in the physical.—Do not ask, Why do we not see things happening today as they happened then? Aside from the fact that he who has the will to see them can see them, we must remember that men have emerged from that state of consciousness and descended into the world of matter; that the period in question represented the boundary line; and that Christ used the last representatives of the previous epoch of human evolution in whom to demonstrate the power of spirit over matter. The signs that were done while the old state of consciousness was still present, but disappearing, were intended as an example and a symbol—a symbol of faith.

Now let us turn to this Marriage in Cana of Galilee itself. If I were to develop in detail all the implications indicated in the John Gospel, in the entire Gospel content, fourteen lectures would certainly not suffice: several years would be needed. But such a literal development of the subject would only serve to confirm what I can suggest in brief elucidations.

The first thing we are told in connection with this first sign is:

There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee

.

Here we must stop to realize that the John Gospel contains not one word that has not a definite meaning. Well, then: why a marriage? Because a marriage brings about on a single occasion what the Christ mission effects with such far-reaching results: it brings people together. And then, a marriage “in Galilee”? It was in Galilee that the ancient blood ties were severed, that mutually alien bloods came to mingle. Now, Christ's task was intimately connected with this mixing of blood, so we are here dealing with intermarriages having the object of creating progeny among people who are no longer related by blood.

What I am now about to say will seem very strange to you. What would people have felt in such a case in very old times when there still prevailed the close or endogamous marriage, as one is inclined to call it in the spiritual-scientific sense? We must realize that the transformation of this close marriage into a distant or exogamous marriage is very much a part of human evolution, and that what I have already said explains what an endogamous marriage means. Among all people of ancient times it was contrary to law to marry outside of the tribe, away from consanguinity. People related by blood, members of the same tribe, intermarried; and this custom of marrying within the tribe, within blood relationship, resulted in the marvel of engendering intense magical force. This can be verified at any time by means of spiritual-scientific research. The descendants of a blood-related tribe possessed, as a consequence of such intermarriage of relatives, magical powers that permitted one soul to act upon another.

Let us imagine that in ancient times we had been asked to attend a wedding, and that the customary drink—in this case, wine—had given out. What would have happened? Provided the right relations existed among the blood-related members of this wedding party, it would have been possible, through the magical power of love arising out of consanguinity, for the water—or whatever was offered later in place of wine—to be sensed as wine as a result of the psychic influence of the people present. Wine is what they would have been drinking if the right magical influence had been exerted by the one person on the rest. Do not tell me this wine would still have been but water! A sensible person would reply to that: For the human being, things are of the nature in which they communicate themselves to his organism: they are what they become for him, not what they look like. I believe that even today many a wine lover would like water if, by means of some influence or other, it appeared to be changed into wine; that is, if it tasted like wine and produced the same effect in his organism. Nothing else is necessary than that a man should take water for wine.—What, then, was required in olden times to render possible such a sign as that of the water in the vessels becoming wine when it was drunk? The magical power deriving from blood relationship, that is what was required. And furthermore, those assembled at the Marriage in Cana of Galilee possessed the psychic capacity for sensing that sort of thing. Only, a transition had to be brought about.

The story continues in the John Gospel:

And the mother of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

And since they lacked wine, the mother of Jesus drew attention to this, and said to Him:

They have no wine.

I said that a transition must be effected if such an event is to take place: the psychic force had to be assisted by something. By what, then? Here we come to the utterance which, as it is usually translated, is really a blasphemy; for I believe it will strike any sensitive person as offensive when, to the statement “they have no wine”, Jesus replies: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.” From any angle it is impossible to accept that in a document of this sort. Imagine the ideal of love, as the Gospels describe the relations between Jesus of Nazareth and His mother, and then try to imagine Him using the expression, "Woman, what have I to do with thee"! It is not necessary to say more: the rest must be felt. But the point is, these words are not in the text. Examine this passage in the John Gospel and then look up the Greek text. This contains nothing more than the words employed by Jesus of Nazareth in indicating a certain event:

Woman, this passeth over from me unto thee.

What He referred to was that subtle, intimate force which passed from soul to soul, from Him to His mother; and that is what He needed at this moment. Greater signs He was as yet unable to perform: for this the time must gradually ripen. Therefore He says: My time—the time when I shall work through my own force—is not yet come.—For the present, that magnetic psychic union between the soul of Jesus of Nazareth and His mother was still indispensable.

“Woman, this now passeth over from me unto thee.” Otherwise—well, after an utterance like “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” why would she turn to the servants and say, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”? She had to possess the old forces of which nowadays people can have no conception; and she knew that He referred to the blood tie between them, to the bond that should then pass over into the others. Then she knew that something like an invisible spiritual force held sway, capable of effectuating something.—And here let me beg you to read the Gospel—really to read it. I ask how anyone can come to terms with the Gospel who believes that something happened at that wedding—I really don't know what—that six ordinary jars stood there “for the purifying of the Jews”, as we are told; and that according to ordinary observation—without reference to anything such as we have just been considering—the water turned into wine. How could such a thing have come about externally?

What is the meaning of this miracle? And what is the belief in it held by him who stands before you—in fact, the only faith anybody can have in a miracle? Can it be that here one substance was transformed into another for the benefit of those present? No ordinary interpretation will get us far.—We must assume that the jars which stood there contained no water, for nothing is said about their being emptied. But it says they were filled, so if they had been emptied and then refilled—assuming the water had really been changed to wine as by a sleight of hand trick—one would really have to believe that the water which had previously been in the jars had been turned into wine. You see, this does not help: nothing squares.

We must understand that the jars must obviously have been empty, because a special significance attached to the filling of them. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it,” the mother had told the servants. What sort of water did Christ need? He needed water fresh from the sources of nature; and that is why it was necessary to specify that the water had just been drawn. The only water suitable for Christ's purpose was such as had not yet lost the inner forces that are inherent in any element so long as it is united with nature. As has been said, the John Gospel contains not one word that is not fraught with deep meaning. Freshly drawn water had to be used because Christ is the Being Who had but recently approached the earth and become associated with the forces that work in the earth itself. Now, when the living forces of the water work, in turn, with “that which flows from me unto thee”, it becomes possible for the event described in the Gospel to take place. The governor of the feast is called, and he is under the impression that something unusual has occurred. He does not know what this was—it is specifically stated that he had not seen what happened—only the servants had seen it; but under the influence of what has taken place he now takes the water for wine. That is stated clearly and distinctly, so we know that through psychic force even an outer element—that is, the physical component of the human body—was affected.

And what did the mother of Jesus of Nazareth herself have to possess in order that at this moment her faith might be sufficiently great to produce such an effect? She needed just what she did indeed possess: the realization that He Who was called her son had become the Spirit of the Earth. Then her strong force combined with His, with that which acted from Him upon her, developed so mighty an influence as to produce the effect described.

Thus we have shown, through the whole constellation of conditions surrounding this first sign, how the unison of souls which results from blood ties produces an effect even in the physical world. It was the first sign, and the Christ force is shown at its minimum: it still needed the intensification resulting from contact with the mother's psychic forces, as well as the additional strength residing in certain forces of nature that remained intact in the freshly drawn water. The active force of the Christ Being is here shown at its least; but what is stressed as especially important is its influence upon the other soul and its calling forth from it an activity which the latter is fitted to perform. The essential point is that the Christ force had the power to render the other soul capable of exerting influences: it engendered in the wedding guests as well the ability to taste the water as wine.—But every real force increases through its own exercise, and the second time it is called upon it is already greater. Just as any ordinary force increases with exercise, so is especially a spiritual force strengthened when it has once been successfully applied.

The second of the signs, as you know from the John Gospel, is the healing of the nobleman's son. By what means was he healed? Here again the right answer will be found only by reading the Gospel in the right way and by concentrating on the crucial words of the chapter in question. In the fiftieth verse of the fourth chapter, after the nobleman had told Jesus of Nazareth his story of distress, we read:

Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth.
And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken
unto him, and he went his way.

Again we have two souls in accord, the soul of the Christ and that of the boy's father. And when Christ said, Go thy way, thy son liveth, what effect did this have? It enkindled in the other soul the force to believe all that Christ's words implied. These two forces worked together. Christ's utterance had the power so to kindle the other soul that the nobleman believed. Had he not believed, his son would not have recovered. That is the way one force acts upon another: two are needed. And already here we find a greater measure of the Christ force. At the Marriage in Cana it still required the support of the mother's force in order to function at all. Now it has progressed to the point of being able to impart the kindling word to the nobleman's soul. We behold an intensification of the Christ force.

Passing to the third sign, the healing at the Pool of Bethesda of the man who had lain sick for thirty-eight years, we must again seek the most important words that throw light on the whole subject. They are these:

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

Speaking of his being forced to remain prone, the sick man had previously said that he could not move:

Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

But Christ spoke to him—and it is important that it was on the Sabbath, a day of general rejoicing and great brotherly love—clothing His injunction in the words, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. This utterance we must take in conjunction with the other equally important one in which He tells him:

Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

What does that mean? It means that there was a connection between the man's sickness that had persisted for thirty-eight years, and his sin. We need not enquire at the moment whether the sin had been committed in this life or in a former one. The point is that Christ infused into the other's soul the force to accomplish something that reached right down into his psycho-moral nature. Here again we see an intensification of the Christ force. Previously, all that was involved was something intended to produce only a physical effect; but here it is a question of a sickness of which Christ Himself said that it had to do with the man's sin. At this moment Christ was able to intervene in the sick man's very soul. The previous sign still required the presence of the boy's father, but here the Christ force acts directly on the sick man's soul.

A special magic is lent this event by reason of its having been enacted on the Sabbath. Present-day man no longer has any feeling for such things, but the fact that this happened on the Sabbath meant something to a believer in the Old Testament: it was something out of the ordinary; hence the reason why the Jews were so indignant at the sick man was that he carried his bed on the Sabbath. That is an extraordinarily significant detail—people should learn to think when they read the Gospels. They should not consider it a matter of course that the sick man could be cured, that one now walked who for thirty-eight years had not been able to walk. What they should do is ponder a passage such as the following:

The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, it is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.

What struck them was not that the man had been cured, but that he carried his bed on the Sabbath.

So it was an integral part of the healing of this sick man that the whole scene should play on the hallowed day. Christ Himself harbored the thought, If the Sabbath is indeed to be dedicated to God, the souls of men must enjoy special strength on this day by virtue of the divine force.—And it was by means of this force that He worked upon the man before Him; that is, it was transmitted to the sick man's own soul. Hitherto the latter had not found in his soul the force that would overcome the consequences of his sin, but now he has it as an effect of the Christ force. Another intensification.—As I have said, the essential nature of the miracles will be dealt with later, and for the moment we will pass on.

The fourth sign is the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Again seeking the most significant passage, we must bear in mind that an event of this sort should not be viewed in the light of present-day consciousness. Had those who wrote about Christ at the time the John Gospel was written believed what our materialistic age believes today, their narratives would have been very different, for quite other things would have struck them as important. In this case they were not particularly surprised even at the phenomenon of five thousand being fed from so small a supply; but what is most important and specially emphasized is the following passage:

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

Just what is it that Christ Jesus does here? In order to bring about what was to take place He makes use of the souls of His disciples, of those who had been with Him and had by degrees matured to the level of His stature. They are a part of the procedure. They surround Him; and in their souls He can now evoke the power of charity: His force flows forth into that of the disciples. Of the manner in which this event could take place we will speak later, but here we must again observe an increase in the Christ force. At the previous sign He infused His force into the man who had lain sick for thirty-eight years, whereas here it acts upon the force of His disciples' souls. What is active here is the intensification of forces that proceeds from the soul of the master to the souls of the disciples. The force has expanded from the one soul to the souls of others: it has grown.

Already at this point, then, there dwells in the disciples' souls the same principle that dwells in the soul of Christ. Anyone inclined to ask what happens as a result of such an influence should observe the facts, should consider what actually occurred when Christ's powerful force acted not alone but kindled the force in other souls, so that it then worked on. There are none today with such living faith: they may believe theoretically, but not with sufficient strength. But not until they do so will they be able to observe what occurred there. Spiritual research knows very well what occurred.

So we observe a step-by-step increase of the Christ force.—The fifth sign, told in the same chapter, begins:

And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.

Modern publishers of the Gospels assign to this chapter the highly superfluous title, “Jesus walks on the sea”—as though that were stated anywhere in this chapter! Where does it say, “Jesus walks on the sea”? It says, “The disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea.” That is the point. The Gospels must be taken literally. It is simply a case of the Christ force having again increased in strength. So powerful had it become as a natural result of its exercise in the previous deeds that not only could it now act from one soul upon another—not only could the soul of Christ communicate itself, in its force, to other souls—but the Christ could live in His own form before the soul of another who was ripe for it.

The event, then, occurred as follows: Someone who is absent possesses so great a force that it acts upon men at a distance, far away. But the influence of the Christ force is now so powerful that it does more than set free a force in the disciples, as had been the case with those who had sat with Him on the mountain: there the force had merely passed over into the disciples in order that the miracle might be performed. Now, although their physical sight could not reach the Christ, they had the power to see Him, to behold His very form. Christ could become visible at a distance to those with whose souls His own had united. His own form is now sufficiently advanced to be seen spiritually. At the moment when the possibility of physical vision disappeared, there arose in the disciples all the more intensely the ability to see spiritually—and they saw the Christ. But the nature of this seeing at a distance is such that the image of the object in question appears in the immediate vicinity.—Again an increase of the Christ power.

The next sign is the healing of the man born blind; and this narrative, as it appears in the John Gospel, is again particularly distorted. Doubtless you have often read the story:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did this sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

And then He healed him.

We need only ask, could any Christian attitude interpret the matter as follows? Here is a man born blind; his blindness is not a result of his parents' sin, nor of his own; but he was rendered blind by God in order that Christ might come and perform a miracle for the glory of God. In other words, in order that a miraculous act might be ascribed to God, God had first to make the man blind.

The original passage was simply not read correctly. It does not say at all that “the works of God should be made manifest in him”. If we would understand this miracle we must examine the old usage of the word “God”. You can do this most readily by turning to another chapter in which Christ is positively accused of asserting of himself that He and God were one. How does He reply?

Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods?

What Christ meant by this answer was that in the innermost soul of man there is the potential nucleus of a God: something divine. How often have we not pointed out that the fourth principle of the human being is the potential human capacity for the divine! “Ye are Gods.” That is, something divine dwells in you. It is not the human being but something different, not the person of a man as he lives on earth between birth and death; and it is different also from what man inherits from his parents. Whence derives this element of divinity, this human individuality? It passes through repeated earth lives from incarnation to incarnation: it comes over from an earlier earth life, from a previous incarnation. Hence we read, not the man's parents have sinned, nor has his own personality—the personality one ordinarily addresses as “I”; but in a previous incarnation he created the cause of his blindness in this life. He became blind because out of a former life the works of the God within him revealed themselves in his blindness. Christ Jesus here points clearly and distinctly to karma, the law of cause and effect.

What principle in man had to be worked upon if this kind of sickness was to be healed? Not upon what lives as a transitory ego between birth and death: the forces must penetrate deeper, must enter the ego that continues from one life to another. Again the Christ force has increased. Hitherto we have seen it influencing only what is directly before it; now it acts upon the principle that survives human life between birth and death, that continues from life to life. Christ feels Himself the representative of the I Am. As He pours His force into the I Am—as thus the exalted God of Christ communicates Himself to the God in man—the blind man receives the force enabling him to heal himself from within. Now Christ has penetrated to the innermost being of the soul. His force has acted upon the eternal individuality of the sick man and strengthened it by causing His own force to appear in this individuality, thereby influencing even the consequences of former incarnations.

What intensification still remains for the Christ force to achieve? None but the ability to approach another and awaken in him the capacity for enkindling the Christ impulse in himself, so that his whole being is saturated with it and he becomes another, a Christ-permeated man. And that is what occurred in the Raising of Lazarus, where we find still another increase in the Christ force. It has progressed step by step throughout.

Where else in the world could you find a lyrical document of such glorious composition? No other author has mastered composition on such a plane. Who would not bow down in reverence when reading the marvellous step-wise upbuilding in the narrative of these events! Even contemplating the John Gospel only as an artistic composition we cannot but feel deep reverence. It all grows step by step and rises steadily.

One point remains to be elucidated. We have pointed out a number of isolated features tending to show the intensification in the sequence of signs, of miracles; but the narrative embraces a great deal in between, and we must examine the organization of the whole. Tomorrow it will be our task to show that, in addition to the admirable intensification in the miracles, there is definite purpose in the way all the connecting links are embodied: we realize that these could not possibly have been filled in better than was done by the writer of the John Gospel. Today we have considered its artistic composition and found it unthinkable that a work of art could be more perfectly or beautifully composed than is the John Gospel up to the description of the Raising of Lazarus; but only one who can read aright and knows what is essential senses its great and mighty meaning. It is the mission of anthroposophy to bring this meaning before our souls. But this John Gospel contains more. Our expositions of it will be followed by others imbued with a wisdom loftier than ours; but this wisdom will in turn serve to find fresh truths, just as during the past seven years our wisdom has served to find what cannot be found without anthroposophy.

We have arrived at an important point in our studies—a sort of climax—hence we may expect to encounter various difficult passages in elucidating the Gospels. I may therefore be permitted at the beginning of these expositions, to preface the continuation of what was said yesterday with a short survey of the salient features thus far treated.

We know that the nature of mankind's development was essentially different in remote times from what it is today, and we know that the human being shows an increasingly different form as our retrospect reaches farther and farther back to earlier conditions. It has already been mentioned that from our own time, which we may call the Central European cultural epoch, we can look back successively to the Greco-Latin time, to the Egypto-Chaldean period, and then to the era in which the ancient Persian people was led by Zarathustra. Beyond that we arrive at the remote Indian civilization, so very different from ours; and that brings us to a period of cultural evolution that followed immediately upon a great and mighty catastrophe. This cataclysm, running its course in tempestuous events in the air and in the water element, led to the disappearance of that continent which mankind had inhabited before the Indian civilization—ancient Atlantis, situated between Europe-Africa, and America—and to the migration of its people, westward to America and on the other side to the lands of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had gradually taken on their present configuration. This Atlantean age, especially in the early part, produced human beings who were very differently constituted in respect of their soul from present-day mankind; and what interests us primarily in human evolution is precisely what pertains to the soul, for we know that everything corporeal is a result of psychospiritual development.

What was the nature of the soul life in this ancient Atlantean age? We know that at that time human consciousness was very different from what it became later, and that in a certain respect man had an archaic clairvoyance, but that he was not yet capable of any pronounced self-consciousness, of ego-consciousness. This is achieved only by learning to distinguish oneself from outer objects, and people of that time were not quite able to do this.

Let us imagine for a moment what would happen in our time if we were unable to distinguish ourselves from our surroundings—let us consider the matter in a concise way. Nowadays we ask, Where are the confines of my being? And with a certain justification we answer, from our present-day standpoint, The confines of my human entity are where my skin divides me off from my surroundings. People imagine that they consist only of what their skin encloses, and that everything else is made up of outer objects which they perceive and from which they distinguish themselves. They believe this because they know that if some part is removed from within their skin they are no longer a complete human being, nor can be. From a certain standpoint it is quite correct to say that if you cut off a piece of a man's flesh he is no longer a whole human being.

On the other hand, we also know that we inhale air with every breath; and to the question, where is this air, the answer is, all around us—everywhere where our environment makes contact with us: that is the air we will have within us in the next moment. Now it is outside us, now in us. Cut off this air, remove it, and you can no longer exist. You are less whole than you would be if the hand within your skin were cut off. So the truth of the matter is that we are not bounded by our skin. The surrounding air is part of us, it enters and leaves us, and we have no right arbitrarily to fix the skin as our boundary.

If people would come to understand this—it would have to be arrived at theoretically, as perception provides no means of observing it—it would lead them to ponder on matters not forced upon their attention by the outer world itself. If a man were at all times able to see the air current passing into him, spreading, being transformed, and passing out again, it would never occur to him to say, This hand is more a part of me than the air I inhale. He would count the air as part of himself, and would suspect hallucinations if he fancied himself an independent being capable of existing without his environment.

No such delusion could exist for the Atlantean, for his observation clearly showed him a different state of affairs. He saw the objects in his environment not in sharp outline, but surrounded by colored auras. He did not see a plant as we see it, but more as we see the street lamps on a foggy autumn evening: everything was surrounded by a great colored aura. That was because there is spirit—spiritual beings—in and among all things of the outer world, which the dim clairvoyance still existing at that time enabled the Atlantean to perceive. As the fog fills the space between the lights, so there are spiritual beings everywhere in space. The Atlantean saw these spiritual beings just as you see the fog, hence they constituted for him a kind of vaporous aura investing all outer objects. These themselves were indistinct; but because he saw the spirit he also saw everything of a spiritual nature that streamed in and out of him. And for the same reason he saw himself as a component of his whole environment. He saw currents flowing into his body from all sides, currents you cannot see today. Air is merely the densest substance that enters us: there are far more tenuous ones. Man has lost the power of discerning spirit because he no longer has the old dim clairvoyance; but the man of Atlantis saw the spiritual currents streaming in and out, just as your finger, were it conscious, would see the blood coursing through it and would know that it must wither if it were torn off. Just as the finger would feel, if conscious, so the Atlantean felt himself to be a member of an organism. He felt the currents streaming in through his eyes and ears, and so forth; and he knew that if he were to force himself out of their reach he could not remain a human being. He felt as though poured out into the whole outer world.

The man of Atlantis saw the spiritual world, but he could not distinguish himself from it: he lacked anything like a strong ego sense—self-consciousness in its present meaning. The opportunity to develop this was provided by the fading from his view of all that had emphasized his dependence upon his environment. The cessation of that awareness enabled him to develop his self-consciousness, his egoity, and to do this was the task of post-Atlantean man. After the great Atlantean catastrophe people were organized in such a way that the spiritual world receded from their consciousness, and that they gradually learned to see the outer physical world of the senses ever more clearly and distinctly. But nothing that evolves in the world takes place all at once, but step by step; it proceeds slowly and gradually; and thus the old dim clairvoyance vanished slowly and by degrees. Even today, under given conditions, it is still found as an old heritage in certain people and in mediumistic natures. Something that had reached its climax in a certain era gradually becomes extinct. In the earliest period of postAtlantean times, ordinary people still retained a great deal of the gift of clairvoyance; and what these people saw in the spiritual world was continually supplemented, expanded, and animated by the initiates who were guided to the spiritual world by the methods described in an earlier lecture, and who thus became the messengers of what in former times had been seen to a certain extent by all men.

Better than any external historical research, legends and myths—especially those linked with the oracle sanctuaries—have preserved for us what is true of those old times. In the oracle temples specially selected people were thrown into abnormal states—a dream state, or mediumistic state, as one might say—by reducing them to a consciousness state duller and darker than the ordinary waking state. They were in a condition of diminished consciousness, where they were surrounded by outer objects which, however, they did not see. This was not clairvoyance as it had once existed, but an intermediate state, half dreamlike, half in the nature of clairvoyance. Now, if information was sought concerning certain particular circumstances in the world, or the right mode of procedure in some special matter, the oracles were consulted; for in them was to be found the dim clairvoyance as a heritage of the ancient faculty.

At the beginning of his evolution, then, man was endowed with wisdom: wisdom streamed into him. But this wisdom gradually dwindled away: and even the initiates in their abnormal states—of for they had to be led into the spiritual world by the withdrawal of however, those who were not only initiated in the old sense, but who had advanced with the times and were prophets of the future, realized that a new impulse was indispensable for humanity. An ancient heritage of wisdom had been bestowed upon mankind when it descended from divine-spiritual heights, but it became ever more obscured. In the beginning all men possessed it, then but the few who were thrown into special states of consciousness in the oracles, then only the initiates, and so forth.

The day must come—thus spoke the old initiates who knew the signs of the time—in which this ancient heritage will have dwindled to the point where it is no longer capable of leading and guiding humanity; and this would mean that man would fall a prey to uncertainty and doubt in the world. It would express itself in his willing, his acting, and his feeling. And with the gradual dwindling of wisdom men would become their own unwise leaders: their ego would wax increasingly strong, so that with the recession of wisdom every individual would seek truth in his own ego, would develop his own feelings and will—every man for himself—and men would become ever more isolated, more alienated from each other, and they would understand each other less and less. Since each wants his own thoughts—thoughts that no longer flow out of a unified wisdom—none can understand the other's thoughts; and human feelings, no longer guided by universal wisdom, must eventually come into mutual conflict, as must also human actions. All men would act, think, and feel in opposition to each other, and ultimately mankind would be split up altogether into an aggregation of quarrelling and fighting individuals.

And what was the outer, physical sign that appeared as the expression of this development? It was the transformation mankind experienced in the blood. In very ancient times, as we know, endogamy was customary: people married only within the blood-related tribe. But this custom yielded increasingly to exogamy: the blood of mutually alien tribes became mixed; and that explains the decrease, the dwindling, of the heritage deriving from a remote past.

Let us once more recall Goethe's words which we quoted yesterday:

“My father gave my build to me,
Toward life my sober bearing.
From mother comes my cheerful heart,
My joy in storytelling.”

We connected this assertion with the fact that what the etheric body comprises derives from the maternal element, as handed down from generation to generation, so that every man bears in his own etheric body the legacy of the maternal element, and in his physical body, that of the paternal element. Now, by reason of consanguinity the inheritance, perpetuating itself from etheric body to etheric body, was very potent, and from it derived the old faculty of clairvoyance. The offspring of endogamy inherited with the related blood the old capacity for wisdom in the etheric body. But as blood became more and more mixed—as a result of increasing intermarriage among tribes—the possibility of handing down the ancient wisdom diminished; for as we said yesterday, human blood gradually altered, and the mixing of different bloods obscured the ancient wisdom more and more.

In other words, the blood—bearer of inherited maternal attributes—became ever less fitted to transmit the old faculty of clairvoyance. It simply developed in such a way that people became ever less able to see into the spiritual world. Physically considered, therefore, human blood altered in a manner to render it increasingly incapable of bearing the old wisdom that once had guided man so surely, falling instead more and more into the opposite extreme, becoming the bearer of egotism—that is, of a quality that leads men, as egos, to individual isolation and mutual antagonism. And for the same reason it gradually lost its power of uniting men in love.

We are, of course, still involved in this process of deterioration taking place in the human blood because, in as far as it has its origin in an ancient epoch, it will follow its lingering course to the end of Earth evolution. Therefore an impulse was needed in humanity capable of counteracting this condition. Through consanguinity men would have been led into error and misery, as the old wise men tell us in legends and myths, Men could no longer rely on the legacies of an ancient wisdom: even the oracles, asked for information and advice, divulged only what led to savage conflicts and quarrels. The oracle had foretold, for example, that Laios and Jocasta would have a son who would kill his father and wed his mother. Nevertheless, in the face of this legacy of oracle wisdom, nothing could at that time prevent the blood from falling more and more a prey to error: Oedipus does kill his father and does wed his mother. He commits parricide and incest.

What the old sage meant was this: Once upon a time men possessed wisdom; but even had it been preserved, the development of the ego must inevitably have proceeded, and egotism would have grown so strong that blood would rage against blood. Blood is no longer fitted to lead men upwards when it is guided only by the ancient wisdom. And thus the clairvoyant initiate who gave us the original picture of the Oedipus legend wished to set up a warning for mankind, saying: That is what would happen to you if nothing came to supersede the old oracle wisdom.—And in the Judas legend there is preserved even more clearly an indication of what the old oracle wisdom would have led to. Judas' mother, too, was prophetically told that her son would kill his father and wed his mother, thereby conjuring up untold misery; and it all came to pass in spite of the foreknowledge. This means that the primeval, inherited wisdom is not capable of saving man from the abyss into which he must fall unless a new impulse reaches mankind.

If we now look more closely into the causes of all this we must ask, Why was it inevitable that the ancient wisdom should become unfitted to dominate humanity? The answer to this question can be found by examining nature carefully the origin of the old wisdom in its relation to mankind I have already indicated that in the old Atlantean age a connection existed between the physical body and the etheric body of man that differed greatly from the later relation. In regard to two of the principles of man's nature it can be said that the physical and etheric bodies are so related that they approximately coincide, especially in the region of the head; but this is only the case in our own time. Looking back to the Atlantean period we find the etheric head protruding far beyond its physical counterpart: the etheric body extended past the physical body, particularly in the head region. Now, in the Atlantean epoch human evolution proceeded in such a way that the outline of the physical and of the etheric body became more and more coincident, especially in the head: the etheric body kept withdrawing into the physical body, thereby naturally altering this member of the human being.

That, then, is the essential feature of this phase of human evolution: the etheric body of the human head withdraws more and more into the physical aspect of the head until the two come to coincide. Now, as long as the etheric body was outside the physical head it was subject to conditions quite different from the subsequent ones: it was in touch, on all sides, with currents, with other spiritual beings; and the substance of what thus streamed in and out provided the faculty of clairvoyance in Atlantean times. So the capacity for clairvoyance was due to the incomplete coincidence of the physical and etheric bodies in the head region, a condition admitting from all sides currents endowing the etheric head with clairvoyance. Then followed the time when the etheric body withdrew into the physical body. In a certain way—not completely—it tore itself away from these currents; it began to cut itself off from the currents which had provided the capacity for clairvoyantly penetrating the wisdom of the world. Conversely, when in the old initiations a man's etheric body was withdrawn, his etheric head became interpermeated once more with the surrounding currents, and clairvoyance set in again.

Now, had this contact between the etheric body and the outer world been severed at one stroke, in the middle of the Atlantean age, the old clairvoyance would have vanished far more rapidly than was actually the case. No remnants of it would have remained for the post-Atlantean time, nor would mankind of a later age have retained any recollection of it. As it occurred, however, man preserved a certain contact with the outer currents. And something else took place as well: this etheric body that had cut itself off from the currents of its environment retained, nevertheless, certain remnants of the former capacity for wisdom. Keep well in mind that at the end of the Atlantean epoch, after man had drawn his etheric body into himself, there remained in it a sort of fund, the residue of what had once come to it from without—a small saving, if I may use the term: as if a son had a father, the father is earning money, and the son draws upon him according to his needs. In the same way, man drew upon his environment for all the wisdom he needed, up to the time when his etheric body severed the connection. Keeping to our simile, let us now assume that the son loses his father, there remains for him but a certain portion of his father's money, and he earns nothing to add to it. In time he will come to the end of it and have nothing left. That is the position in which the human being found himself. He had torn himself loose from his father-wisdom, had added nothing to it through his own endeavor, and subsisted on it into the Christian era—indeed, even now he is still living on his inheritance, not on anything he has earned. He lives on his capital, so to speak. In the earliest part of post-Atlantean development a bit of the capital was still left, though without his having himself earned the wisdom: he lived on the interest, as it were, and occasionally requested an additional sum from the initiates. But ultimately the coin of ancient wisdom lost its currency; and when it was given to Oedipus it no longer had any value: this old wisdom did not save him from the most frightful transgression, nor did it save Judas.

That is what took place in the course of human evolution. How did it come about that man gradually exhausted his capital of wisdom? Because in the past he had given access to two kinds of spiritual beings: the Luciferic beings, and later, as a consequence of these, the Ahrimanic or Mephistophelean beings. These prevented him from adding, by his own labor, to the store of old wisdom, for they acted upon his being as follows: the Luciferic beings tended to corrupt his passions and feelings, while the Ahrimanic, the Mephistophelean beings were more concerned with outwardly distorting his view of the world. Had the Luciferic beings not intervened in Earth evolution, man would have developed no such interests in the physical world that drags him down beneath his true status; and if, as a result of the Luciferic influence, the Mephistophelian, the Ahrimanic, the Satanic beings had not taken a-hand, man would know, and would always have known, that underlying every object of the senses there is spirit, and he would look through the surface of the sense world upon the spirit. But Ahriman infused into human observation something like a dark smoke cloud that prevents penetration to the spiritual. Through Ahriman's agency man is enmeshed in lies, in maya, in illusion.—These are the two beings that prevent man from earning any increment to the store of ancient wisdom once bestowed upon humanity; and as a consequence, this heritage has dwindled away and gradually become wholly useless.

Nevertheless, in a certain other respect evolution held to its course. During the Atlantean time the human etheric body merged with the physical body; and it was man's misfortune, so to speak—his fate—to be forced to experience the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in his physical body in this physical world just at a time when he was God-forsaken, as it were. The result was that the old heritage of wisdom became useless precisely by reason of the influence of the physical body, of living in the physical body. How did this happen? Formerly man did not live in the physical body: he gathered his wisdom from his father's treasury, so to speak—from the ancient fund of wisdom. His source of supplies was outside his physical body, because he himself was outside it in respect of his etheric body; and this source finally dried up. In order to augment his fund of wisdom, man would have needed a treasury in his own body. But this he did not have; and consequently, in default of an inner source of wisdom, there remained less and less of it in his etheric body every time he abandoned his physical body at death. After every death, every reincarnation, the sum of wisdom in his etheric body was less: the etheric body became ever poorer in wisdom.

But evolution advances; and just as in the Atlantean age evolution was such that the etheric body withdrew into the physical body, so future development will proceed in such a way that man will gradually emerge again from his physical body. Whereas in a former age the etheric body kept drawing into the physical—ever deeper, up to the coming of Christ—the time then arrived in which the course of evolution changed. At the moment in which Christ appeared the etheric body began to retrace its course; and already in our present time it is no longer as closely bound to the physical body as it was when Christ was present on earth. And as a result the physical body has become even denser than before. The human being, then, is moving toward a future in which his etheric body will increasingly protrude, and in time it will extend as far as it did in the Atlantean epoch.

Here we can pursue our simile a bit further. If the son, who had formerly lived on his father's fund, spends it all and earns nothing additional, his prospects will become increasingly dismal. But if this man now has a son of his own—that would be the grandson—the latter will not be in the same position as his father. The father at least inherited something and could go on spending, but there remains nothing at all for the grandson, nor does he inherit anything: for the time being he is left with nothing whatever. And in a certain way that describes the course of human evolution. When the etheric body entered the physical, bringing along a supply of divine wisdom from the treasury of the Godhead, it still provided wisdom for its physical body. But the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits prevented all augmentation of this wisdom in the physical body—contrived that none should be added. When now the etheric body begins to emerge again it takes nothing with it from the physical body, and the consequence is that if nothing else had intervened man would be heading for a future in which his etheric body, though belonging to him, would contain no vestige of wisdom or knowledge. And with the complete desiccation of the physical body the etheric body would be destitute as well, for nothing could be drawn from the dried-up physical body. Therefore, if the physical body is not to desiccate in that future period, the etheric body must he provided with strength, with the strength of wisdom. Before emerging from the physical body the etheric body should have been endowed with the power of wisdom. Within the physical body it must have received something it can take out with it. Then, when it emerges—provided it has acquired this wisdom—it can react on the physical body, giving it life and preventing its desiccation.

The future evolution of humanity can take one of two courses, of which one is as follows: Man develops without Christ. In this case the etheric body could bring with it nothing from the physical body, because it had received nothing from it: it emerges empty. But conversely, the etheric body cannot animate the physical body, having nothing to give: it cannot prevent the attrition, the withering, of the physical body. Man would gradually forfeit all the fruits of his physical life: they could furnish nothing out of his physical body, which he would therefore have to abandon. But the very purpose for which man descended to earth was to acquire a physical body in addition to his other principles. The germ of the physical body originated in an earlier period, but without its actual formation man would never fulfill his mission on earth. But the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman have entered the picture; and if man acquires nothing in his physical body, if his etheric body withdraws again with nothing to take with it—having even used up the old store of wisdom—then the earth's mission is doomed: the mission of the earth within the universe would fail of fulfillment. Man would carry over nothing into the future but the empty etheric skull which had been abundantly filled when he originally brought it into earth evolution.

But now let us suppose something were to occur at the right moment which would enable man, as his etheric body emerges again, to provide something for it, to animate it, to penetrate it with wisdom as of old: the etheric body would continue to emerge just the same; but now, endowed with new life, new strength, it could employ these for vitalizing the physical body. It could send power and life back into it. But the etheric body itself must first possess these: it would first have to receive this strength and life; and if it succeeds in this the fruits of man's earth life are saved. The physical body will then not simply decay, but rather, this corruptible physical body will assume the configuration of the etheric body, the incorruptible; and man's resurrection, with the harvest reaped in his physical body, is assured.

An impulse had thus to come to the earth through which the exhausted treasure of ancient wisdom might be replenished, through which the etheric body might be endowed with new life, thus enabling the physical element—otherwise destined to corruption—to put on the incorruptible and to become permeated by an etheric body capable of rendering it immortal, of rescuing it from Earth evolution. And that is what Christ brought mankind—this pervasion of the etheric body with life. The transformation of the human physical body that would otherwise be doomed to death, its preservation from corruption, its ability to wear the incorruptible—all this is connected with the Christ. Life was infused into the human etheric body by the Christ impulse—new life, after the old had been spent. And looking into the future, man must tell himself: When my etheric body will ultimately have emerged from my physical body, I should have developed in such a way that it is wholly saturated by the Christ. The Christ must live in me. In the course of my earth development I must by degrees completely permeate my etheric body with the Christ.

What I have just described to you are the deeper processes that elude outer observation. They constitute the spiritual principle underlying the physical evolution of the world.

But what outer form did all this have to take? What was it that entered the physical body through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings? The tendency to decay, to dissolution—in short, the tendency to die. The germ of death had entered the physical body. Had no Christ come, this death germ would have developed its full power only at the end of Earth evolution, for then the etheric body would be for all time powerless to reanimate man; and at the completion of Earth evolution, that which had come into being as human physical body would fall into decay and the earth's mission itself would end in death. Whenever we encounter death today we can discern in our present life a portent of the universal death that would occur at the end of Earth evolution. Mankind's ancient heritage dwindles but slowly and gradually, and the possibility of being born again and again, of passing from incarnation to incarnation, is due to the life fund originally given man on his way. As regards his purely external life in the successive incarnations, the possibility for life to exist would not be fully exhausted before the end of Earth evolution; but as time goes on the gradual extinction of the race would manifest itself. This would occur piece by piece, and the physical body would continually wither. Had the Christ impulse not come, man would perish member by member as Earth evolution approached its termination.—At present the Christ-Impulse is but at the beginning of its development: only by degrees will it make its way among men; and only future epochs will reveal—and continue to reveal to the very end of Earth evolution—the full significance of Christ for humanity.

But the various human activities and interests have not all been affected alike by the Christ impulse. There are today many such that have not been touched by it at all, that must await a future time. I will give you a striking example of one whole sphere of human activity which at present has not been influenced by the Christ impulse at all. Toward the end of the pre-Christian epoch—say, in the 6th or 7th Century before our era—the primeval wisdom and power were on the wane in so far as human knowledge was concerned. In connection with other phases of life that wisdom long retained a fresh, young forcefulness; but it declined most noticeably in the matter of knowledge. From the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries B. C. there remained something that may be termed the remnant of a remnant. Were you to hark back even to the Egypto-Chaldean wisdom, not to say that of ancient Persia or India, you would find this wisdom everywhere permeated by true spiritual vision, by the fruits of primeval clairvoyance; and for those endowed to a lesser degree with this faculty the reports of the clairvoyants were available. Such a thing as science other than one based on clairvoyance never existed in the Indian and Persian epochs, nor in still later times; even during the early Greek period there was no science without a basis of clairvoyant research. But then the time approached when this fading clairvoyant research was lost to human science, and for the first time we witness the rise of a human science devoid of clairvoyance—or at least, a science from which clairvoyance was gradually cast out.

Clairvoyance vanishes, as does faith in the revelations of clairvoyants; and during the 6th or 7th Century before the appearance of Christ we see established something we can call a human science, from which the fruits of spiritual research are increasingly eliminated. And this becomes ever more the case: in Parmenides and Heraclitus, in Plato and even in Aristotle—everywhere in the writings of the old naturalists and physicians—you can find ample confirmation that what is known as science was originally permeated by the results of spiritual research. But spiritual science steadily deteriorated and decreased. In connection with our psychic capacity, our feeling and willing, it still endures; but as regards our thinking it is vanishing.

Thus with respect to human thinking, to thinking in terms of science, the influence of the etheric on the physical body had already begun to wane when Christ appeared. Everything of that sort comes about gradually, step by step. Christ came and gave the impulse; but naturally not everyone accepted it at once, and particularly was it rejected in certain spheres of activity. In others it was received, but in the field of science it was positively spurned. Examine for yourselves the science that prevailed in the time of the Roman empire. Look it up in Celsus, where you can read all sorts of rubbish about Christ. This Celsus was a great scholar, but he understood nothing whatever about human thinking as affected by the Christ impulse. He reports:

“There is said to have lived at one time in Palestine a couple known as Joseph and Mary, with whom the sect of Christians originated. But what is told about them is all superstition. The truth is that the wife of this Joseph was once unfaithful to her husband with a Roman captain named Panthera; but Joseph did not know the identity of the child's father.”

That was one of the most popular accounts of the time; and if you follow our contemporary literature you will realize that certain people of the present have not advanced beyond the standard of Celsus. Certainly there are fields in which the Christ-Impulse can take root but slowly, but among those now under discussion it has to this day found no foothold at all. There is one part of man we see withering: it is in the human brain; but when it shall have been influenced by the Christ-Impulse it will revive science in a very different form. Strange as that may sound in this age of scientific fanaticism, it is nevertheless true. That part of the brain assigned to scientific thinking is moving toward a slow death. This illustrates the gradual disappearance of the ancient heritage from scientific thinking. Aristotle still possessed a relatively large store of it, but we see science gradually being drained of it; and science, by reason of the accumulation of external data, will become God-forsaken in respect of its thinking, having nothing left of the old fund. And we see further how it is possible that, no matter how powerfully we experience the Christ, we can no longer establish any contact between the Christ-Impulse and what mankind has achieved in the way of science.

We have tangible evidence of this. Suppose that a man of the 13th Century had been profoundly affected by the Christ-Impulse and had said: We have the Christ-Impulse; like a flood of mighty new revelations it streams to us from the Gospel, and we can permeate ourselves with it.—And suppose further that this man had made it his mission to create a connecting link between science and Christianity: even as early as the 13th Century he would have found nothing in the current science that could have been used for the purpose. He would have had to hark back to Aristotle. Only by collaborating with Aristotle, not with 13th-Century science, would he have been able to interpret Christianity. Science simply became increasingly incapable of making any contact with the Christ principle; hence the 13th-Century scholars had to revert to Aristotle, who still possessed something of the old legacy of wisdom and could thus provide concepts capable of correlating science and Christianity.

But as science grew richer in data and observations it became ever poorer in ideas, until finally the time came when all concepts emanating from the old wisdom disappeared from it. Even the greatest men are, of course, children of their era as far as their scientific activity is concerned. Galileo, for example, could not think from an absolute background, but only as his age thought; and his greatness consists precisely in his having established God-forsaken thinking as such—pure mechanistical thinking. An important revulsion in thought set in with Galileo: the most commonplace phenomena treated by modern physics had quite a different explanation after Galileo's day from what they had previously. Say, someone throws a stone. Today we are told that the stone retains its motion until the latter is counteracted by the influence of another force, the force of inertia. Before Galileo's time a different opinion was held: people were convinced that if the stone was to keep moving it would have to be propelled—something active must be behind it. Galileo taught people to think in an entirely new way, but in a way implying that the world is a mechanism; and the ideal striven for today is a mechanical, mechanistic explanation of the world with the complete elimination of all spirit. And the reason for this is that those portions of the human brain, of the thought apparatus, which constitute the organ of scientific thinking, are already so shrivelled as to be no longer able to infuse new life into concepts, with the result that the latter become more and more poverty-stricken.

One could easily show that science, for all the isolated facts it keeps accumulating, has not enriched the life of mankind by a single concept. Note well that observations are not concepts! Do not imagine that such things as Darwinism and the like have provided humanity with concepts. That is something that others have done—not the scientists, but men who tapped quite different sources. Goethe was such a man: he enriched man's fund of ideas from altogether different sources; and consequently the scientists consider him a dilettante.

The fact is that science has not grown richer in ideas. Far more alive, loftier, grander are those of antiquity. The Darwinian concepts are like squeezed-out lemons: Darwinism merely collected the results of observation and then linked them with poverty-stricken concepts. This trend in science points clearly to the process of gradual death. In the human brain there is a part that is withering, and this is the part that in our time functions in scientific thinking. The reason for this is that the portion of the human etheric body which should animate this shrivelling brain has as yet not grasped the Christ-Impulse. No life will flow into science until the Christ impulse enters the portion of the human brain that is intended to serve science. That is a fact based on the great cosmic laws. If science continues in this way it will become poorer and poorer in concepts, and gradually these will vanish. And increasingly numerous will be the scientists who keep lining up their data, and who will be frightened out of their wits when someone begins to think. Nowadays it is a sore trial for a professor to discover a bit of thinking in a doctor's dissertation submitted to him by some candidate.

But we now have an anthroposophy, and this anthroposophy will increasingly clarify the Christ-Impulse for mankind, thereby imbuing the etheric body with ever more life—with such a wealth of it, in fact, that the etheric body will be able to restore flexibility to that rigid portion of the brain which is responsible for the present trend of scientific thinking. That is an illustration of the manner in which the Christ-Impulse, having in time laid hold on mankind, will reanimate the dying members of the body. The future of the race would see the withering of more and more members; but the flowing in of the Christ-Impulse will increase proportionately with the dwindling of each part; and by the end of the Earth evolution all the parts that would otherwise have perished will be revivified by the Christ-Impulse, which will have saturated the whole etheric body: the human etheric body will have become one with the Christ-Impulse.

The first impetus for this gradual revitalization of mankind, for the resurrection of humanity, was given at a particular moment during a scene most beautifully described in the Gospel of St. John. Think of the Christ as coming into the world a wholly universal Being, and commencing His great work by means of an etheric body completely saturated with His spirit—for the transformation brought about in the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth enabled it to animate even the physical body. At the moment in which the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth, in Whom the Christ now dwelt, became completely a life giver for the physical body, the etheric body of Christ is seen transfigured. And the writer of the John Gospel describes this moment:

Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered.

What is said is that those who stood by heard thunder; but nowhere does it say that anyone who had not been duly prepared had heard it.

Others said, An angel spake to him.

Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

Why? That what had taken place might be understood by all who were near. And Christ clarifies the event:

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

In that moment Lucifer-Ahriman was cast out of the physical body of Christ. There stands the great example which in the future must be realized by all mankind: through the Christ-Impulse the obstacles placed by Lucifer-Ahriman must be cast out of the physical body; and man's earth body must be so vitalized by the Christ-Impulse that the fruits of the earth's mission may be carried over into the time that is to follow this earth epoch.

In connection with what I said yesterday about our Appeal, I should like to emphasise again that in man's present conditions of life everything depends upon arousing, in as many people as possible, a right social understanding. You must not forget that the way the relations in life have recently developed has brought a great part of the civilised world into a state of chaos such as is only occasioned by what arises out of human souls. As the situation is at present, external means cannot greatly help mankind, whether this is in the form of laws or in the form of outward administration of the economic life. In individual States it is possible, of course, that for a time things may go on, but it would be a mistake to think conditions in these individual States can permanently remain as they are in the midst of the developing social upheavals encompassing all mankind. Help can come only when an understanding of the social relations is cultivated in men's souls.

What I have put in rather a complicated form can also be said more simply. We may say that what is now a striving for disorder will first take an orderly direction when men show themselves capable of producing order. They will be so only when they arrive at a real social understanding from which man today—of whatever party—stands very far removed. It is the most imperative task to spread this understanding. It is a fact of the utmost importance that what is agitating the souls of many millions of the proletariat is something very different from what lives in the souls of their leaders. The leaders have for the greater part inherited the bourgeois attitude to life, which they try to apply to the conditions of proletarian life adorned with a few flourishes of the agitator. This is an essential fact with which we act in accordance only when deciding to work above all for social understanding. Even when external conditions of life have to be recognised as being in still greater confusion and error than formerly, nevertheless the assumption that something can be attained by muddling through would be false. What modern man lacks is social understanding. And this lack is due to the whole of human thinking, feeling and willing having developed in recent times without being applied to this understanding. It is remarkably limited even in the many people today whose social impulses are strong.

Do not think that this social understanding needs some specially comprehensive and far-reaching knowledge for its development. That is not of any consequence; the point is that in contemporary mankind there is lacking even the elementary basis for such an understanding. People's thoughts are very different from those needed for grasping the most primitive social questions.—It is quite right today that attention should be given above all to finding a way to avoid the abstract sentimental concepts at present pacifying so many. It is widely believed that it is possible today to deal with the social problem from some kind of ethical or religious standpoint. This possibility does not exist. Today one cannot just preach religion or ethics, however excellent. This may just warm the feelings and, in an egoistic sense, have some effect. Concepts, however, must be made capable of gripping hold of the everyday affairs of human beings.

Infinitely much depends today on acquiring this understanding. I have said that men today in whom social impulses are flashing up have very often only primitive concepts. Many in leading circles as well as among the proletariat imagine that a simple reassortment of social levels can bring about real change;—for example, if those who were at the top, ministers and secretaries of State were to fall and those who were formerly proletarians were to rise, in effect, if there were a re-levelling. It would be quite a mistake to fancy that things could be changed thus. Many have this idea however much they may protest. Befogged by the outlook of some party or another they are unconscious of holding these views. It is a question, however, of coming quite simply to a clear understanding of the threefold social organism, often dealt with here and also in many public lectures. It is a question of every detail in social measures being so developed that they comply with the necessity inherent in the threefold order. Whether measures have to be taken to build a railway, either under a private company or the State, or a decision is to be made about the ways and means for paying an undertaking on some occasion (I am not speaking of labour-power but of undertakings) it is always a matter of carrying out the measures in the threefold direction, in accordance with the independence of the spiritual life, of the political life of rights and of the economic life. You can of course ask how this or the other should happen. But at the stage where the matter now stands those are for the most part the wrong kind of questions. The spirit living in the threefold order can perhaps be described like this, to take an example: What is the best system of taxation? Now today the important thing is not to think out a system of taxation but to work towards the threefold order. When this threefold membering of the social organism becomes more and more an actuality the best system of taxation will arise through this threefold activity. It is a matter of establishing the conditions under which the best social organisation can originate. Someone or other ruminating over what would be best is not of importance and is not in accordance with reality. But imagine that one of you were a genius, such a genius as has never before been seen in human evolution, and were therefore in a position to think out the best possible system of taxation. But what if you were to stand alone with your magnificently thought-out system and the others refused it, wanting perhaps something less good but anyhow not yours? You see it is not a matter of thinking out the best, but of finding what men as a whole would accept as a basis on which to do their best.

It is true that you may say here: One must begin somewhere. The threefold State must be set up even though men appear unwilling to accept it. That is something different, for there it is not a matter of what men can wish for or not, such as a system of taxation, but of what fundamentally all men would want were they to understand it. If you find the right way you can make it intelligible to them, for subconsciously men want it to be realised during the coming decades throughout the civilised world. That is not merely thought-out, but seen to be what men are wanting. And it is not because they lack the desire that countless men reject it, but because being still full of prejudices, they work in opposition to this matter, which in future will be fully realised. The essential thing is to pay heed to what is primary. The primary is that for which, in a longer or shorter period, understanding can be awakened when once the hindrances to this understanding have been removed. Naturally there are always leading personalities who stand in the way. These personalities are not to be convinced; they must first break their heads against the obstacles they meet. And there will be many such obstacles. On this account if at first the affair does not go as one had imagined, it need not be labeled a failure. Things of this sort must be prepared for. Something must be there when what is now brought about in a mistaken way will have led to an absurd situation, when much that now appears in the world is no longer there—just as the German princes are no longer there, who in 1913 never dreamed they would have disappeared by 1919—when what so many people now applaud is gone, then something on which they can fall back must at least be there in people is heads and hearts. Preparation must be made, the ground must be ready. When once you have penetrated long and deeply enough into this threefold membering of the spiritual life, the economic life and the political life, then the need will arise in you to have a more fundamental understanding of all this. This understanding is absolutely essential, otherwise even when spoken with all possible goodwill what is said will have no connection with reality. The social organism is subject to definite laws in the same way as the natural human organism. You gain nothing by acting against these laws even on grounds of principle. You can at best lead men into a blind alley.

Now do not say: Where is human freedom when man finds himself in a social organism with fixed laws? You might as well ask whether a man can be free when daily he has to eat. It does not make him free to refrain from eating. Things subject to certain laws—even men themselves—have nothing at all to do with the problem of freedom, just as little as our not being able to grasp the moon has to do with our freedom.

To gain a social understanding it is advisable for us to be in the position to go back to fundamentals, to primaries, rather than let our understanding remain bogged in secondaries or tertiaries, which are subsequent phenomena. We may give this example from a certain condition of life—a man needs a definite minimum, let us say in money—since we have converted our values into money—in order to support life. This subsistence minimum can be spoken of as referring to some special condition of life. But we can so speak of it that we say something apparently extremely obvious on the one hand, on the other, what is complete nonsense. I will try to make this clear to you by an example. Taking given conditions of life in any part of the world you may perhaps say with feeling that a manual worker needs so and so much as a subsistence minimum, otherwise he would be unable to live in the particular community. This can seem quite an obvious idea. But how is it then, in accordance with what has been assumed here, when this is not realisable within a certain social organism? The question that must first of all be answered is: What then if the realisation of this is impossible?

To reflect upon the matter thus is not the primary thinking I have represented. Thought out in the abstract, the subsistence minimum demanded does not lead us to fundamentals but ties us down to what is secondary, what appears as a mere consequence. To attain social understanding we have to be in a position to enter into fundamental things. It is fundamental to cultivate a practical view as to how there can be a subsistence minimum in accordance with conditions of life in the social organism. In this case I mean by ‘practical’ such a view that would result in humanly possible social conditions and social community life. This is the primary.

And now one comes to certain conceptions very unpopular with a great part of present-day mankind, because the basic teaching that should work towards such things, and really guide them in this direction, has been neglected. Men need to realise that even to be half-educated one should not merely know that three times nine is twenty-seven; one should also know, for example, what it is that we call ground-rent. I ask you, how many people today have any clear idea of what ground-rent is? But without considering the social organism in connection with such things, no human progress can be made.

The wrong-headed conceptions men hold today are due to confusion in this sphere. Ground-rent, which can be reckoned according to the productivity of a piece of land in a certain district, yields a certain sum for a State-bounded area. The land tapes its value according to its productivity, that is, in accordance with the way or the degree in which it is put to rational use in relation to the whole economy. It is very difficult today for anyone to gain a clear concept of this simple land value, since in the modern capitalistic economic life interest on capital, or capital in any form, has confused the whole picture of ground-rent, and the true concept of its economic value for the people has been blurred by phantoms in the form of mortgage law and the system of stocks and shares. Strictly speaking, everything has been forced into conceptions that are impossible and false. Naturally a true conception of ground-rent cannot be acquired in the twinkling of an eye. But think of it simply as the economic value of the land in some territory, with regard to its productivity. Now there exists a necessary relation between this ground-rent and subsistence what I have referred to as a subsistence minimum. There are many social reformers and social revolutionaries today who dream of the wholesale abolition of ground-rent, who believe, for example, that ground-rent will be done away with by all land being nationalised or communalised. Essentials, however, are never changed by a mere change of form. Whether a whole community owns the land or it is owned by a number of individuals makes no difference to the existence of ground-rent. It is simply obscured and takes on other forms. Ground-rent as I have defined it is always there. Take the ground-rent of a certain district and divide it up among the individual inhabitants, then you will get as quotient the only possible subsistence minimum. This is a law as definite and unalterable as a law of Physics. It is a primary fact, something fundamental, that in a social organism in reality no one deserves more than is yielded by the ground-rent being divided among the total population. What can be earned further arises through coalitions and associations in which conditions are established where one individual can acquire more value than another. But not a whit more can pass into the movable property of an individual man than what I have here indicated. From this minimum, which really exists everywhere even though the real conditions are obscured, arises all economic life in so for as it applies to an individual's movable property. It must have arisen from this basic fact. Hence it is that one starts not from something secondary but from this primary fact. This primary fact may be compared to any other, for example to a primary fact also valid for the economic life, that on a certain territory there is only a certain amount of raw product. Naturally you may think it desirable to have more of this raw product and to be able just to reckon how much more might be had from this land. But the raw product does not allow of any arbitrary increase; that is a primary fact. And it is a primary fact in the same way that, in a social organism, in reality nothing more can be earned through work—however hard this work may be—than can be yielded by the quotient I mentioned. As I said, all surplus is acquired through human coalition.

The social and political administration can be in contradiction to these facts. Therefore it is necessary to bring all organising thought into the direction that facts take. Man can find satisfaction only when these things are thoroughly understood. Then the organising factor, the thinking that has taken on reality, is brought into line with what the nature of the social organism demands, and other thinking adjusts itself to it, so that it cannot happen that one thinking considers itself prejudiced by the other. That is what lies as a law at the basis of the true life of the social organism. Right thinking, realistic concepts on such matters can be gained—as I showed by the example of the relation of a subsistence minimum to ground-rent—only when you make your start on the basic principles of the threefold order. For only under its influence is it possible for men to create measures by which human life in common on any given territory can be developed really productively. Life will develop most productively when it goes in a direction that accords with law and not in the opposite direction. Thus it is a matter of living in time with the social organism.

It is necessary to be quite clear about this—that you will never gain insight into the fundamentals of the Threefold Order by observing life externally, any more than observation of any number of right-angled triangles will give you the Pythagorean theorem. But once known it can be applied to any real right-angled triangle. It is the same with these fundamental laws. Once grasped correctly in accordance with reality, they can be of universal application. And in addition you have from the basis of Spiritual Science the opportunity to grasp the necessity of the Threefold Order. Consider what can be given through it—the life of earthly spirituality, if I may so call it, art, science, religion and also, as already mentioned, civil and criminal law; that is one sphere. The second is the political association of men and is concerned with man's relation to his fellows. And the third is the economic life, concerned with man's relation to the lower man, what man needs in order to raise himself to his true manhood. The Threefold Order has to do with these three spheres. Man should be established in the social organism in accordance with these three members; he must be so established. For the three members have each a quite distinct origin in regard to the human being as such. All life of the spirit on earth—and what I now say counts for our own age—is a kind of echo of what man lived through in the life before his descent through birth into physical existence. In that life the human being lived as a spiritual individual in a spiritual relation to the higher hierarchies, with those disembodied souls who were in the spiritual world and not at the time incarnated on earth. What man develops here as spiritual life, be it in devotion to religious practice or life in a religious community, be it in activity in the arts, or as a judge passing sentence on those of his fellowmen found guilty, everything lived out in this spiritual life has its origin in the forces acquired by man when, before he entered physical existence through birth, he lived with the higher hierarchies in the spiritual worlds. Here you must distinguish between life lived in common with other men in accordance with individual destiny, and that lived with others in accordance with what I have just described. In earthly existence we come into individual relations with one or other of our fellow-men. These relations depend upon our individual karma, and either trace back to earlier lives on earth or point to those coming later. But among these individual relations between human beings you must distinguish those, for example, that arise from belonging to a certain religious community. For in a religious community you think or feel as a number of other men do. Or suppose a book is published. Men read the book, take up thoughts from the book, and thus enter into a community. Spiritual life on earth, whether having to do with the bringing-up of children, education, or anything else of the kind, consists in our coming into relation with people and developing a life in common with them, in order thereby oneself to make spiritual progress. All that, however, is experiencing relationships in which, before descending into spiritual life on earth, we were in a quite different form. It has nothing to do with individual karma but with what was prepared during life in the spiritual world in the time lived through between death and a new birth. Thus, one has to seek the source of what I have called the spiritual sphere, in the life passed through by man before he prepared to descend. through birth into earthly existence.

Then there comes what is experienced simply by living on earth between birth and death. We grow into this life by degrees. When as an infant we enter into this existence through birth, we still bear—if I may make a foolish comparison—much of the egg-shell of the spiritual world around us, though it is not hard. The child is very spiritual in spite of its main task being the development of its physical body. In its aura there is much of the spiritual; what it brings with it is very nearly akin to the spiritual life on earth. Gradually, however, it enters more and more deeply into the life that belongs entirely to the time between birth and death.

Now the sources of the life of the political state are found in this life not chiefly concerned with the spiritual. The political state has to do only with what man experiences between birth and death. Therefore nothing should be involved in it save what concerns us as beings between birth and death in our mutual relations as man to man. If the state involved itself in anything other than what concerns the public life of rights between birth and death, if it spread its wings over Church and School, for example, well—in the places where there were people with a faculty for judging such things it used to be said: “There the Prince of this world holds his unjust sway!” Nothing belongs to all that is the object of state-organisation except what has to do with the life between birth and death.

The third member is the economic. This economic life, which we are obliged to lead because we eat and drink, clothe ourselves and so on, forces us as human beings to descend into the subhuman. It chains us to something beneath the level of our full humanity. By having to concern ourselves with life economically, by having to dive down into economic life, we experience something which, when observed socially, has more in it than is usually thought. In so far as we stand in the economic life we cannot live in the spiritual nor in the life of rights, but must plunge below the human level. But just by this plunging into the subhuman we take into ourselves something that thus has an opportunity to develop. Whereas in the economic life we are active and higher thoughts must be silent and even the human mutual relations play in only from another sphere, there is worked in our subconscious then what we then carry with us into the spiritual world through the gate of death. Whereas in the spiritual life on earth we experience the echo of what we lived through before our descent to earth, and in the life of rights of the political state experience only what lies between birth and death, in the economic life, into which we cannot enter with our higher self, something is being prepared that is also spiritual and carried by us through the gate of death. People would like the economic life to exist only for the earth. But this is not so. Just through our plunging down into the economic life something is prepared for us as human beings that is again connected with the supersensible world. Therefore no one should think of holding the economic life too lightly. However strange and paradoxical it may seem, this external materialistic life has a certain connection with the life after death. So that in actual fact, for anyone who knows man, the three spheres fall asunder—the purely spiritual sphere points to life before birth; the political sphere of the State points to life between birth and death; the economic life points to life after death. It is not in vain that we cultivate fraternity in the economic life. In all that we develop as brotherliness in the economic sphere lie the foundations and preliminary conditions of life after death. I am giving you only a first brief indication of how the threefold membering of the nature of the human being gives the spiritual scientist in these three distinct spheres the differentiation necessary for social life.

It is a particular characteristic of Spiritual Science that, when we come to deal with it, we find it directly practical. It sheds light on the life around us, and at the present time men have no other possibility of getting light on the real relationships of life than by in some way accepting spiritual knowledge. Thus it is desirable that those who are interested in the Anthroposophical Movement should let the light of their understanding ray out to others; for the Anthroposophist it is relatively easier to penetrate these things with insight. He knows something of life both before and after birth, for example, from the standpoint of Spiritual Science, and this shows him the necessity for the threefoldness in life from this point of view. This necessity can indeed be seen today. But we shall gain a deeper, more comprehensive insight if we have the anthroposophical basis of which I have been speaking here.

In the course of the last centuries how much has been spoken in a sentimental way, when men have held forth, for instance, about universal moral teaching and the like, and religion has been kept as far as possible apart from external daily life. We are now at a point of time when we have to develop concepts that can penetrate right into daily life and do not just extend to the promise of salvation or to the demand “Children love one another”. They do not do it in any case when they do not have to or when other business is on hand. The concepts we develop must have sufficient driving force to enable us really to understand our present-day complicated economic life. Thus, simply through knowledge of the nature of man we are shown the necessity for the sound social organism to be threefold.

It must become clear to as many people as possible today that this is the very foundation-stone of a new structure. just to prate about the spirit is, as I was saying yesterday, perhaps more harmful just now than the materialism which, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, has up to now continued to spread. For mere talk of the spirit, mere sighing after the spirit, mere worship of the spirit, no longer meet the needs of our epoch. In our epoch it is fitting that we realise the spirit, that we give the spirit the possibility of living in our midst. Today it does not suffice just to believe in the Christ; it is essential that men should now manifest the Christ in their deeds, in their work. This is the important thing. If man develops sound thinking and perceiving in this sphere, these sound thoughts and perceptions will flow into another sphere as well. Consider how a great many of the present official representatives of one or other of the Christian faiths speak today of Christ. But if asked: Why is He whom you call Christ, the Christ? they can give only a fictitious answer, what is indeed an inner lie. Many modern theologians talk of Christ, but were you to ask them: How does your concept of the Christ-being differ from your concept of the Jahve-God, the one God, weaving and creating throughout the universe? they would have no answer to give.

The great theologian Harnack, in Berlin, has written a book on The Being of Christianity. What he describes as the Being of Christianity is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, with all Jehovah's characteristics. It is inwardly a lie to describe Jehovah as Christ, And it is thus with hundreds, nay thousands, of those preaching Christianity today; they are simply preaching God in general, the God of Whom we can say ex Deo nascimur. Christ is discovered only when one has experienced a kind of new birth. We need only be healthy human beings to have to recognise the God of Whom we say ex Deo nascimur; for to be an atheist is in reality to be ill. But one can speak of the Christ only when in the life of soul one has experienced a kind of re-birth, in the way this happens in the present cycle of human evolution. For this, it is not enough that man is simply born as a human being.

Man as he is born today is necessarily full of prejudices; that is the nature of present-day man. And if we remain as we are born we carry these prejudices with us through life; we live in one-sidedness. We can save ourselves only by having inner tolerance, by being able to enter into the opinions of others even when we think them wrong. If we can bring a deep understanding for the opinions of other souls even when considering them mistaken, if we can take what the other thinks and feels in the same way as we take what we think and feel ourself, if we adopt this faculty of inner tolerance, we may overcome these prejudices due to the human cycle in which we were born. We then learn to say: What you have understood in this the least of my brethren, you have understood of me. For Christ did not speak to men in this way only at the time when Christianity began, but has made good His word “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of earthly time”. He still continues to reveal Himself. Once Be said: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto Me”. Today He tells men: What you understand with inward tolerance in the least of your brothers, even when he is mistaken, you have understood of Me, and I will let you overcome your prejudices when you convert those prejudices into tolerant reception of what others think and feel.—That is one thing; that, in regard to thinking, is the way to come to Christ. Then Christ can so permeate us that we not only have thoughts about Him but Christ can live in our thoughts. This, however, is only achieved in the way I have just described.

And secondly, in regard to the will. In youth the human being is sometimes idealistic. This is an inherent idealism and we have it simply by being born as human beings. Today, in this era, this idealism belonging to mankind is not enough. We now need a quite different kind—an idealism to which we educate ourselves; we do not have it simply by becoming human beings but by making an effort. It is this kind of idealism we need. We need the idealism we have ourselves acquired. It then becomes the idealism that will not vanish with youth, it will keep us young and idealistic throughout our life. If through training we make an idealism our own, then, on the basis not of logical law but of the law of reality, we bring to bear the driving force to place ourselves actively into the social organism in accordance with the very purport of this organism, instead of acting egoistically as an individual man. No one today who does not train himself to this self-acquired idealism will gain a true social understanding. The ex Deo nascimur is innate. The way to Christ is found on the one hand through supersensible thought, on the other hand through the will. It comes through the thought by our being convinced beforehand that nowadays we are born as men full of prejudice and must overcame our prejudice by tolerantly listening to the opinions of others, thus gaining right judgment. Where the way of the will is concerned, this will only be fired socially in the right way today when we have this self-acquired idealism, the idealism we drive into ourselves through our own activity. That is re-birth. And what we have found when we as men have gained it for ourselves leads us to the Christ. Not the God of Whom we say Ex Deo nascimur may we describe as Christ, for that is inwardly untrue. That God was known in the Old Testament. When we as men shall have transformed ourselves in life in the two directions mentioned, we shall clearly see the distinction between the God Who is pure Father and the God Who will then speak to us. For this God is the Christ.

Modern Theology actually speaks very little about this Christ. This Christ must eater men as a social impulse. What many people say today of Christ is intrinsically untrue. Now such things are not to be looked into as people today subtly present them, taking them logically, point by point. As I once told you recently, there is an understanding in accordance with reality different from one that is merely external and logical. But when man has developed in himself what I have called a re-birth, then human thinking will be brought near Christ, and we shall learn to think and feel as we must think and feel if, for the benefit and salvation of man, we are to place ourselves into human society. We shall also learn to think and feel rightly in other matters by thinking and feeling rightly on these fundamental things. From this, however, the spiritual life of modern mankind has travelled terribly far. And the reason is that this spiritual life has been absorbed by the political State. Man's spiritual life must be freed from the political State to become fruitful and full of impulse for human evolution. Otherwise all thinking will be dislocated and from this dislocation false realities will be created.

I have already referred to Wilson's definition of freedom. For anyone who has some understanding of philosophy it is not very important how a statesman of the day defines freedom. It is important, however, as symptom of what lives in a men when he has thoughts about freedom. Now Wilson says: We call free what adapts itself to certain conditions so that it can still move freely. Thus we say when in a machine the piston can move freely, when it does not knock against anything but can move without impediment—we say the piston runs free. Or a ship moves forward freely which is so built that it runs before the wind. If it run against the wind it is hampered and not free. So man is free when he fits in with the conditions of the social mechanism. There, then one can only speak of the social mechanism.

It is not very important that thoughts such as these live in a head and are realised; the importance lies in what is realised being experienced in such thoughts. Then one knows whether this is sound or the opposite of sound. The thinking is quite dislocated; and why? Now you need only reflect on the following with the experience you have gained from Spiritual Science: when you fit into the external conditions of your life, when your life is running according to this adapting oneself to conditions without impediment, then you are free, free as a ship is free when running with the wind. But man does not stand thus in the whole world: For if indeed the ship running before the wind does run freely, it must, however, sometimes also be able to stop. And that is just what is very important for man—that he can sometimes turn round and take his stand against the wind, so that he not only fits in with circumstances but can also adapt himself to what is within him. One cannot think of anything more foolish, more absurd, than Wilson's definition of freedom, for it is opposed to human nature and the very reverse of what lies at the basis of true freedom. If we compare a man with a ship running freely before the wind, we must also compare him with a ship that having run in a certain direction and not needing to go further, can turn to face the wind. For if a man has to proceed only in accordance with external conditions, he is naturally free in them but not in himself. We have completely lost sight of the human being today in our observation of the world and of life. He has dropped out of our considerations concerning life and the world. But he must once more be given a place in the world. [ Note 01 ]

This has its exceedingly serious side; here it is seen only as a symptom but it has a most serious side. For today the human being is placed into the social organism in such a way that really he is only running with the wind, and the capitalist ordering of economy has particularly destined the proletariat only to run with the wind, never to be able, as a rest, to stop and face the wind. In a public lecture in Basle I said that within the capitalist. economic system the capitalist uses only the labour of the workers; in a healthy social organism the capitalist must use the workers' leisure also. Abstract capitalistic capital needs only labour-power. Capital that, under the threefold order, will give back to men their purely human driving force will also use the leisure of the workers, the leisure indeed of all mankind. For that, capital must be placed into the social organism, it will know how it is to be sustained by the social organism and how it must in return sustain the organism.

It is a question of the proletariat being able to save their labour-power so as to be capable of taking part in the spiritual life; and it is a question of the will being there to allow the worker sufficient leisure, to leave him sufficient labour-power, that of himself he can join in this spiritual life. The bourgeois economic order has allowed a deep cleft gradually to arise. What it produces spiritually is valid only for this bourgeois order and is out of touch with proletarian life.

Capitalism has brought things to the point where only labour-power is considered and not the leisure of the proletariat. Today these matters still seem abstract. It should be so no longer, for upon understanding these things rightly depends the sound human evolution both of the present and the future.

Now I have once again given a few indications as to the relation to social life of some of the fundamental tenets of Anthroposophy. It would be very desirable if such a spiritual movement as ours should, as a little social organism in itself, cease this unhealthy separation—developed to man's hurt by appalling bourgeois concepts—of the economic life from the spiritual, and should seek health by permeating the concepts of practical life with the concepts of Spiritual Science. The social organism must so organise its different members that there will no longer be men who cut off coupons and in this coupon-cutting become nothing less than slave-drivers, since for the coupons they cut off, a number of people, with whom they have no connection, have to perform hard work. Afterwards the coupon-cutters go to Church and pray God to be saved, or they go to a meeting and talk theoretically about all sorts of beautiful things; but they have no conception of the foolishness of living such an abstract spiritual life that they can seek, on the one hand, a connection with a God, and on the other hand share in slave ownership and the exploitation of labour by this coupon-cutting. They separate these things in a way that is not salutary by not attempting to discover the salutary. This is what is in question, what has been neglected and what must be changed: this separation between the religion and ethics that float in a cloud-cuckoo-land, and the external life thoughtlessly pursued in the form given it today by an unsound social organism. Above all it must be recognised that the misfortunes of the present-day have come about through this separation by the bourgeoisie of the abstract from the concrete. If efforts are made to drive out all that shows itself in an unsound and sectarian form, it is in just such a movement as ours that there can be a first setting-up of a kind of small social organism that is sound. In our Anthroposophical Movement there is nothing from which we have had to suffer more than the repeated appearance of a tendency towards sectarianism. Without noticing it people strive towards some kind of separation. But Anthroposophy must be the reverse of sectarian. It will then meet the subconscious and unconscious contemporary demands which truly do not run to creating sects, but cultivate something that develops out of the whole man for all men and out of all men for the whole man.

Just consider how you, in your own souls, can get away from sectarianism. In countless souls today sectarianism lives like something atavistic, an unhealthy inheritance, because the will does not exist to carry the true life of the spirit into the conditions of external life. Only through such sectarian sentimentality could it happen that the Appeal of which I spoke yesterday should meet with the reproach that it was just from this direction that mention of the spiritual had been expected! But I have never been able to refer to the spiritual in the sense of these enthusiasts. When, in the beginning of the nineties, there spread in America the Adler-Unold Ethical Movement, I opposed it with all my might, because a movement for ethical culture was to be founded based on nothing, and connected with nothing in life, but a desire to give out ethical maxims. The understanding of life, life in its fundamentals, is what contemporary men need, not the fashioning of phrases as to how things should be done. In regard to the social organism, the threefold order is above all something to be studied fundamentally, investigated and given consideration, something to be taken deeply to heart, so that it may be mastered in the same way as the multiplication table is mastered.

Notes:

1. See lecture 13.1.23 (Anthr.Qtly VI.1.)

Also known as The Present Crisis in Man's Development and The Science of the Spirit, Education, and the Practical Life. From: Lectures on Spiritual Essence and Its Working. Lecture 13 of 18 from the volume: Man's Responsibility for World Evolution through His Spiritual Connection with the Planet Earth and with the Stars Above.

The times in which we live are so earnest that at present it is not in any way appropriate to think of personal matters. Allow me, first of all, to express briefly my heartfelt thanks to your esteemed president for her kind words and then to pass on to what I believe I must tell you, for it is a long time since we saw one another in Holland.

The times in which we live and its conditions are much more earnest than most people of the present are consciously aware of.

Here we can speak of these conditions of our times from those standpoints which result from a long study of the spiritual science of Anthroposophy. We know that we live in an epoch whose characteristic peculiarity began to be evident in the 15th century. It was then that it slowly began to develop its peculiarities. Those who are initiated into the spiritual conditions of human evolution and can therefore have an insight into this course of development, know that the second half of the 19th century indicates a specially low point of human evolution in the modern and particularly in European culture. This low point may be characterised as the rise of a particular inthrust of egoism in all branches of civilised humanity, an egoism of a kind that was never there before. This wave of a special course of development then sent its ramifications into the 20th century, and now these ramifications undoubtedly continue to hold mankind under their spell.

In saying that a wave of egoism came over the whole modern civilisation, I do not speak trivially of what one generally defines as egoism, but I speak of egoism in a special sense, into which we shall penetrate a little in the course of this morning's considerations, and in a way that will be evident to those who are initiated in the true mysteries of more recent human evolution.

We already know the members constituting human nature. We know that the soul-members of human nature have been engaged for a long time in a special process of transformation, in a special course of development. We know that when we go back to very ancient times of human evolution we have to do with a particular forming of man's etheric body, during a very old time of development in India; a particular forming of the astral body then began, and a certain intermediate course of development took place during that epoch of European development which began about the year 747 in the south of Europe and which closed in the first thirty years of the 15th century. That time was the beginning of that epoch of human evolution in which we are still living. In the year 747 before the Mystery of Golgotha, began that phase of human evolution in which the so-called intellectual and understanding soul (Verstandes und Gemütsseele) unfolded. Everything that humanity still prizes to-day as Greek culture; developed through the fact that at that very time the intellectual or understanding soul was in an ascending line of development. However, while the wonderful Greek culture was unfolding, that which we call intellectual or understanding soul was in an ascending line of development. It had not yet reached its climax. For such points are always in a certain way times of probation for the evolution of humanity. For the sake of their development, the Greeks had to pass through what one might call the youthful freshness of the intellectual or understanding soul. The Greek culture, so much admired by posterity, came into being out of this youthful freshness of an intellect that was not yet permeated by egoism, out of this youthful freshness of the human understanding. Of the characteristics pertaining to the intellectual soul, the Latin and Roman culture then took over something that was in a descending line of development and decadent. Those who have a deeper comprehension for that which lived in Roman culture know: There the intellect already reaches its culmination; there the intellect rises to a high point. On that account the Romans developed such abstract ideas; on that account the Romans developed something that did not as yet exist in the whole ancient East, that did not even exist, in the sense known in Europe, in the Greek culture: The Romans developed the ideas of jurisprudence, the juridical concepts.

To-day we consider the world very superficially and we translate our thoughts on “Jus”, on jurisprudence, which, in reality are the outcome only of the Roman intellectual soul, into something which we assume to have already existed in the ancient East, for instance in Hammurabi, and so forth. But that is not the case. The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments as well as the contents of other documents of that time, were, after all, something quite different from that which constitutes our modern juridical concepts. These are something abstract, something that is no longer so close to the human soul. Everything that thus constitutes the development of the intellectual soul reached its climax during a period in the civilisation of Europe which has really been studied very little from an external historical standpoint, although it is extraordinarily important and significant for those who wish to study human evolution in the meaning of spiritual science.

That striking year to which we can draw attention as being specially significant for European development is the year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha. The year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha is the middle of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. It is that point of time when a fluctuating knowledge of the universe lived in Europe simultaneously with a fluctuating knowledge of humanity. These had nothing of the penetrating character of the knowledge of the universe that the Greeks still possessed and no proper comprehension of man's inner world.

We find instead that man sways either towards the longing for an extensive knowledge of the universe, or towards the longing for self-knowledge, knowledge of his own self. The human soul of the European peoples indeed passed through a great deal during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Roman life was then entering into its decay; it bequeathed to European humanity nothing but its language; it left behind its more or less fundamental material of culture. The life of humanity thus entered the second half of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, lasting up to the 15^th century, when our present epoch began.

From the preceding epoch, in which most of us in some way passed through one or more earthly lives, we brought over—partly through physical heredity, but particularly through the fact that we ourselves formerly were those incarnated souls—into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the inheritance of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, and we took over this inheritance. This inheritance of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch lives in everything that constitutes our present civilisation.

We worked the intellect, the thinking, into our consciousness soul. That means a great deal. At the beginning of the fifth epoch, the consciousness soul enabling man to really permeate, really grasp his ego, first took hold of his thinking, his life of representations and his intellect. Humanity thus became intelligent and clever, but clever within the consciousness soul; within the evolution of humanity, this implies the finest possible elaboration of EGOISM.

We should not only rebuke this epoch of egoism, we should not only fall upon it with criticism, but in spite of the fact that it brings with it so many temptations and leads man into great soul-dangers and even into external danger, we should recognise this age of egoism as the one in which ego-consciousness comes to the fore with special incisiveness.

Man can thus take into himself a real feeling of freedom. This feeling of freedom is something that none of us possessed in our previous incarnations, in the earlier epochs of human evolution. We had to pass through egoism, that presents so many temptations, in order to reach that longing for freedom which is the prerogative of modern humanity. One of the most important things in Anthroposophy is the knowledge that we had to take in something in order to climb over an important stage in human evolution: the stage leading to the DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM. For this very reason we should be aware that this crossing over is connected, with many temptations, with many dangers of humanity, both soul-spiritually and bodily. A knowledge going in the direction of Anthroposophy must enable us to take in fully the feeling of freedom, but at the same time to ennoble it, to permeate it again with a spiritual knowledge of the universe, which—in spite of the now existing mature ego-feeling, mature ego-consciousness—induces mankind to solve tasks that are not only egoistic tasks, but tasks pertaining to the whole evolution of humanity, indeed to the evolution of the whole earth, to the evolution of the whole universe.

In this connection we are now facing a great turning point in the whole civilisation of more recent times. The time of probation has indeed come! Great tasks confront mankind. But the recognition of these tasks is extremely difficult and is rendered still more difficult through the fact that we have just passed through the age of the great egoism.

We say that we sleep from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. That is right. We are then in a state of dulled consciousness. Most of you know sleep only in its negative aspect, that it dulls consciousness. Yet we do not judge the waking state in the same way. The time of being awake, the time from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, was really quite different in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. To-day people believe that they are awake in the same way in which, for instance, the people living about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha were awake. That is not the case. Their whole soul-constitution was different. Man was then awake in a different way. He was much more strongly conscious of his body.

You see, modern man really knows very little indeed of his bodily processes. The Greeks, not the Greeks of a later time, but the Greeks of the pre-Socratic and pre-Platonic times, still knew a great deal of the processes of their own body. For example, the really cultured Greek looked up to the sun. From the sun he received the light. He received at the same time a feeling that he was drawing in something etheric, that the light was being led on into his inner being. And when he was thinking, he said: The light, the sun thinks within me. The Greek of pre-Socratic times still felt this in a living way. He did not think so abstractly about thinking as we do to-day. He thought: The sun thinks within me: it allows its light to be drawn in by me. The light that shines upon the things outside, that makes the things outside visible, is active within me, by reflecting itself, as it were, within its own being, so that thoughts spring up in me. For the Greek, the thoughts within him were the light of the sun. At the same time, they were for him that element which lived in the macrocosm thanks to the influence of divine-spiritual beings. At the same time, they were for him that which really raised him to the Divine, above his ordinary dignity as a human being. He felt himself lifted above the earthly, when he thus experienced the sun's light within him as thinking. And when a particularly cultured Greek ate, he indeed considered his food, in which he took in something that he did not receive directly from the sun, but that came from the earth, as a necessity of life, yet at the same time he felt himself changing into the food, that became he himself, as it passed through his mouth, his oesophagus and digestive organs. He felt that he was one with the food, in the same way in which he felt that he was one with the sunlight. While he was digesting, he felt the earth's gravity. He felt, as it were, similar to the serpent, that he did not as yet highly appreciate, but that he still observed rather timidly—the serpent that twists away from the earth and digests in a particularly visible way, after having swallowed its food. That is how the Greek experienced what went on in his body: whether he experienced what was thinking within him as the sun's bright light, or whether he experienced within himself what chained him to the earth; i.e. the taking in of food. Through the intimate way in which his understanding was connected with his body the Greek felt with particular energy that which also lived within him as physical human being. You may also deduce this from the following:

When we paint human beings to-day in the ordinary way, as numerous painters of the present generation have done year after year, decade after decade in painting portraits, we really lie. We look at people outwardly and believe that then we bring forth something of what we experience. It is not true at all that we can experience something in that way! We could experience it only if we were able to conjure up within us the whole way of identifying ourselves feelingly with the whole of Nature as human beings, as it was the case with the Greeks. First of all, we must learn this anew, along an entirely different path than that of the Greeks.

Since the middle of the 15th century, we have acquired in an abstract-theoretical way a soul-constitution that no longer allows us to really penetrate livingly into our body, but that lives instead in concepts that do not stand visibly before us, because we have conquered thinking for the egoity, for the ego. We should realise this. And we should realise that we must once more take in spirituality from an anthroposophical spiritual science, so that the ego may once more be filled with something, and so that that which really lives within us may once more—but now in a different way—enter our life: that which the Greeks experienced in an immediate, elemental way; but that could not continue.

When the Greek walked, he walked as if led by a necessity of Nature, like the lightning flashing through the clouds, or the rolling thunder! He knew nothing whatever of freedom, but he knew man! Indeed, he knew more about man than we think he did. For instance, he knew how to coin words clearly indicating that man still knew something of the connection between the soul-spiritual and the bodily-physical. The Greek words, or those derived from the Greek, indicate even to-day far more than those based on our therapeutic or pathological conceptions, that are no longer able to understand anything. Hypochondria for instance, means cartilaginosity of the abdomen. It is a name that the Greeks found through their full knowledge of the fact that in hypochondric people the activity of the soul-spiritual gives rise to cartilaginous formations in certain parts of the body. These names mean far more than modern men suppose, and more than can in any way be grasped through modern medicine, with its abstract way of thinking, even though it experiments, dissects, etc. We must first take up again everything that is real, that once more enables us to have an insight into the world! It is the task of a spiritual scientific deepening to reach once more real facts, realities.

You see, during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in which the human beings passed through what constitutes, as it were, a physical self-knowledge, an insight into the human body, during that time—one might say approximately, during the first third of that time, occurs the greatest event of the earth's evolution: the Mystery of Golgotha.

What is the condition of the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha occurred?—The further we go back, the more we find in ancient times—in the Greek epoch, the Egyptian-Chaldean, the Persian and the ancient Indian epoch—this immediate knowledge of the whole human being. Then, this knowledge of the whole human being disappears. The last remains of that knowledge may be found at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha appeared. Something of that instinctive, ancient knowledge of man still existed at that time. For instance, the personalities described in the Gospels as the Apostles, or the Disciples of the Lord, still possessed something of that old instinctive knowledge, which lived in their souls altogether instinctively, not clearly. Others too possessed such a knowledge. At that time it was to a great extent decadent, but at any rate it still existed. It was dying away, burning out, but enough remained of that ancient knowledge to enable a great number of men of that time to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha accordingly. This is particularly evident when the apostle Paul entered the evolution of the times, the apostle Paul who was initiated by divine powers and to whom the spiritual world became visible.

All this gave rise to conditions of time which still enabled man to understand the Mystery of Golgotha in a certain naive, instinctive way. Many people had already entered a later phase of development. Particularly the cultured Greeks and the cultured Romans had concepts that were already far too abstract in order [to] grasp the Mystery of Golgotha in a really living way. Yet certain people had preserved the last remains of an old clairvoyant knowledge, particularly clairvoyant traditions, and they were still able to grasp that a super-earthly power, the Christ, had connected Himself with an earthly man, Jesus of Nazareth.

The year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha, was, as it were, the year in which last stragglers of those who were still able to have a real understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could be found in Europe. But these stragglers could not understand it, for instance, through our anthroposophical spiritual science, for this did not, of course, exist at that time. They grasped it through an old knowledge that had remained from the Gnosis, and such like. A certain spiritual knowledge still existed. An ancient human inheritance lived in the human soul and this enabled man to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha.

What has remained of the Mystery of Golgotha? Intellectual traditions!—The Gnosis became theology, a mere logical way of grasping the divine. Theo-Logy: a mere logical way of grasping the divine, no longer a contemplation of the divine!

Since the year 333, the capacity of contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha in a direct way became more and more decadent, until the fateful time of the 9th century, when, in the year 869, the Eighth General Oecumenic Council at Constantinople gave out the dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and spirit, but that it is instead a Christian's duty to acknowledge that man consists only of body and soul, and that the soul possesses a few spiritual qualities. At that time, the trichotomy, as it was called, the only possible knowledge of the human being, according to which man consists of body, soul and spirit, was done away with dogmatically, and a dogma was enforced, according to which a Christian who truly believes must acknowledge that man only consists of body and soul.

Modern philosophers frequently state that their philosophy is based on an unprejudiced knowledge, and they speak on the one hand of the body, and on the other of the soul. They speak of the spirit in a very phraseological manner at the most, for they do not know the spirit. They would only know it, if they recognised the spiritual science of Anthroposophy. The “impartial philosophy” that is now being taught to such an extent—what is it, in reality?—It is the result of the dogma pronounced by the Eighth Oecumenic Council in the year 869.

We must see through this. We must be quite clear that when the modern civilisation arose, and even in the second half of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, it was considered as dangerous to speak of the spirit and to draw attention to it. But at the present time it is necessary that we should draw mankind's attention to the spirit,—the spirit that has been declared to be the devil for a long, long time, within the civilisation of Europe! After the year 333, nothing but traditions remained of the old Christological knowledge—nothing but traditions!

Everything that constitutes art shows us even more clearly that it has remained tradition! Observe, for instance, Cimabue's paintings; there you will see a world that took on a completely different aspect in Giotto's paintings. In Cimabue's paintings lived something that may also be seen in Dante, something that could no longer be experienced by the human beings of a later time! Later on, this living within a spiritual world, that may still be seen in Cimabue, ceased. Later on, it was a hypocrisy to paint a golden background, but for a Cimabue this was quite natural. And now observe a Russian icon; it is not in any way painted after a model, for it is something in which the old traditions are still alive, traditions that come from a clairvoyance still existing at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and enabling man to understand the Mystery of Golgotha.

Then came the time in which the traditions were maintained by using external instruments of power. And then came the 19th century, in which the ordinary soul-activity that brought forth such significant results in natural science and technology, was also applied to theology. But what became of theology through this? Christ-Jesus, the incarnation of a Being that does not belong to the earthly became “the simple man of Nazareth,” looked upon indeed as the most perfect man, but not as the bearer of a super-earthly Being. Theology became naturalistic. The more our modern theologians look upon Jesus of Nazareth as a human being, the less they feel induced to pursue Christological ideas, and the happier they are! Even in theology they do not wish to rise beyond the description of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, they do not wish to rise to an understanding of Christ as a super-earthly Being that dwelt in the man, Jesus of Nazareth.

To-day, those who have an insight into world-events from a spiritual standpoint, must see many things differently from the way in which they are judged by people who only see them outwardly. Central Europe, that is now passing through such a tragic destiny, was able—among other things which cannot be discussed here—to accept Adolf Harnack as a great scientist; the very man who reached the point of saying that God the Son should not be included in the Gospels! They should be read, he says, in such a way as to find in them only the man, Jesus of Nazareth, and this man's teachings concerning God the Father. Harnack's theology was intended to do away with our feelings of reverence for the spirituality of Christ. The theology which Harnack established in Central Europe really signifies the negation of Christianity, the denial of Christianity; it signifies the setting up of a world-conception clearly stating that we do not wish to have anything to do with the spirituality of Christ. It is significant to observe what has thus swept over modern humanity, with the result that the most distorted views now exist concerning the most important ideas of human life.

To-day we know what sleep is, from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. Yet we do not, as a rule, observe the other kind of sleep, in which we live from the moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, when we walk about in our everyday life, steeped in illusions and dreams in regard to its most important facts. Indeed, in these modern times, we do not only sleep when we lie in our bed at night (this is actually the better kind of sleep), but we are also asleep in the sphere of egoism, when we lock ourselves up in our inner being, unwilling to know our human body and, at the same time, unwilling to progress to a spiritual self-knowledge. We sleep another kind of sleep during the time from falling asleep to waking up.

In order to understand this, we must indeed observe the nature of sleep from the moment of falling asleep to that of waking up. What does then take place with the human being? Why does the modern intellect believe that as far as the human constitution is concerned sleep is the same for modern man as it was for the ancient Greeks?—The Greeks were not awake in the same way as we, and the Egyptians even less so, nor did they sleep as we do. This soul-constitution in particular should be studied for every epoch of time.

When, during sleep, the human soul, that is to say, the ego and the astral body, loosens itself from the physical and etheric bodies that remain lying on the bed—where does the soul, that is the ego and the astral body, really dwell while we are asleep?

Superficial explanations that a cloud may be seen hovering over the physical body (which is quite true, as far as an altogether external form of clairvoyance is concerned), do not suffice. This is not sufficient, for we must observe what takes place inwardly. We must observe what the soul really experiences from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. In these modern times, the human soul then passes through experiences that are also lived through by the souls that are not as yet incarnated on the earth. Consider the following: Take a case that came to my notice just now, before I began my lecture: A daughter was born to an anthroposophist; one year ago, this little girl lived in the spiritual world as body and soul, and has since then made the endeavour to descend to the physical world. All those decades, that make us so much older than this little newly born girl, during all those years it lived in the spiritual world. And while we were asleep, we lived from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, in the world in which the little girl dwelt before conception, or birth. That is the world in which we dwell, when we are asleep, and there, the souls that are not yet incarnated pass through many experiences. While we are asleep, we pass with them through the fifth post-Atlantean age and through events resembling their own experiences.

From the moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, we live, on the other hand, in a world that we sleep away during our waking life; we live in everything that we inherited from our past earthly existences. We live together with what has remained behind from ancient India, Persia, or Egypt; we live with what we have experienced spiritually here on earth, and this is cramped together egoistically in our inner being. We bring it along with us into our present incarnation. During the day, we live with all these things, and sleep away the present. Indeed, the present contains many things that can only be grasped spiritually. We cramp ourselves egoistically in ideas that come from the past and adhere to them obstinately even in our language, in our speech. Languages contain a great store of ancient crystallized wisdom. Yet we rebel against any kind of influence that may be exercised upon our souls by this ancient store of wisdom. For instance, to-day we use the words “Messer”, knife, or “Schere”, scissors. When we use the word “Schere”, scissors, we do not as a rule think that it comes from a kind of “Scheren”, or shearing, that is announced in every barber's shop! And when we use the word “Messer”, knife, we do not think that it is really based on a moral idea, for it is connected with “Maass”, measure, and “Zumessen”, to mete out, or cut to measure. When a knife was used in ancient times, it was really used to “mete out” a gift for someone. A store of wisdom lies crystallized in the words we use, and this ancient spiritual life that is contained in the words now uttered so thoughtlessly, lives in the depths of our being. Whenever we speak, we really experience the life of ancient epochs.

Spiritually, we pass through ancient epochs of the earth, from the moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, but we pass through them in a sleeping condition. And from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, we pass through events that are connected with the descent of human souls to their life on earth.

You see, these are realities, these are truths. These realities should be well impressed upon us, if we do not only wish to become acquainted with the forces of decay, but also with the forces of growth and progress. It would be so much better if, before going to sleep in the evening, a greater number of people were to do other things than those which they are accustomed to do! Consider what many people generally do, as last thing, before they go to bed! Yet a modern man should say to himself: I wish to enter the world that contains the forces of growth and progress, it is the world in which I can experience those forces that lead the human souls down to the earth, a world in which I can experience those forces spiritually.

From the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up we experience the forces pertaining to the future. For that reason, we should have a kind of craving for the teachings that speak of a spiritual world and that enable us to be conscious of the experiences of souls that are in a condition (but consciously) resembling that of souls who are asleep here on earth. The impulses for the progress of civilisation, for the healing of civilisation, must come from that world! The spiritual, political and economic impulses that should unfold as healing powers for our civilisation must come from that world! It is necessary, at the present time, that we should once more acquire the possibility of grasping the Mystery of Golgotha, of grasping it in a spiritual way.

What is the essential, or let us say, one of the essential things (for there are, of course, many essential things in it), in the Mystery of Golgotha?—That a God, a super-earthly Being, took up His abode in the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Beings of His kind have one characteristic quality: they cannot die. All those Beings of the higher Hierarchies, described in my “OCCULT SCIENCE”, the Angels, Archangels, etc. up to the highest Beings, the Cherubim, Seraphim, etc. do not die (read the description of their life's course in my books), they do not die as men die. What did Christ take upon Himself, Christ Who came from the higher Hierarchies?—He died within a human body. You see, here we have significant forces that pass over into the evolution of humanity upon the earth, Christ died in a human body; he passed through the experience of death, an experience unknown to the other gods who are connected with the earth. Up to the year 333, it was still possible to grasp this truth to a certain extent. Now we must learn to grasp it anew! We should grasp anew that a super-earthly Being shared with us the experience of death, thus passing over into the development of the earth. Yet at the same time we should have the great modesty of recognising that the experiences of this Being highly surpass what can be experienced through the soul-constitution of a human being.

The Christ descended from worlds where death is unknown. What Beings serve the Christ?—Among those who serve Him, there is not one who could make the same sacrifice, not one who could have come down to the earth, in order to pass through death. Beings that belong to the hierarchy of the Angeloi, right up to the higher Hierarchies, Beings connected with the evolution of the earth, are Christ's servants. We cannot perceive them, if we do not rise to a super-earthly knowledge of the higher Hierarchies. Through a knowledge of the spiritual worlds we should seek that which leads us to Christ. Spiritual science is needed above all in order to attain a new knowledge of Christ. For Christ is here, upon the earth, and He is surrounded by the world of the higher Hierarchies. Man's great temptation in modern times is the modern natural science with its great triumphs and its admission of purely external forces of Nature. Yet behind all these forces of Nature live the spiritual Beings! The assertions of natural science are certainly right, nevertheless the spiritual Beings that serve Christ live behind the forces of Nature, thinking and directing them. Christ lives in everything that constitutes the development of the earth. Super-earthly Beings serve Him—but these super-earthly Beings can only be recognised through spiritual science. Consequently an extremely important task evolves upon spiritual science: the renewal of Christianity.

All this shows you that to-day we cannot pursue spiritual science merely as a personal concern. To-day spiritual science concerns civilised humanity as a whole. Through an inner necessity, spiritual science was from the very beginning pursued in the circle that afterwards obtained the name of “Anthroposophical Society”, in a different way than in the Theosophical Society. The whole constitution of the Theosophical Society had, from the very outset, a sectarian character, something that reckoned with the egoism of modern times. Anthroposophy therefore had the task of taking into account the consciousness of modern times, that which constitutes the external culture of humanity, and of pouring into it the results of a spiritual manner of contemplation. Little differences and strifes are of no importance whatever in the face of such a task. It was essential for me to maintain the purity of a spiritual movement that reckons with the whole science of modern times. Whether this or that person may or may not accept one or the other truth, is of no importance to me. Even though the whole world may abuse spiritual science and criticize it, I do not consider this as essential, for the essential thing is that the spiritual science that I advance should really harmonize fully, with the modern, scientific mentality, with the moral conscience of modern times. For this reason, I had to publish my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” before revealing the truths of Karma. I have often listened with great pain to theosophists who said: If this or that man suffers, if he suffers socially and belongs to a lower class or caste, it is his Karma and he has deserved it. This interpretation of the idea of Karma corresponded to the egoistical requirements of men who lived in the 19th and 20th century. Yet they did not think that we do not only live through our present life on earth, but that we shall also live through a future life. To-day we should not always look back on what we once possessed in past lives on earth, but we should also consider that in future lives on earth we shall be looking back on what we are passing through now—and this will then be an entirely new experience. Freedom fully harmonizes with the idea of Karma ... Everything that appears in the account-book of life is karmically connected.

You see, if I reckon up the debit and credit sides of destiny and strike the balance, I obtain life's balance; but this does not entail that the single items are subjected to the necessity of Nature. Just as the single items of a commercial account book do not depend on diligence, and so forth, and finally enable us to strike a balance, so freedom can very well be connected with the idea of Karma. We should not adopt an easy fatalistic idea when advancing the view of Karma as a fully justified idea. Spiritual science should therefore be in full harmony also with the conscience and the moral attitude of modern humanity. For that reason it was necessary to work more extensively with spiritual science, also during the time in which the catastrophe broke out in regard to everything that has been caused by the egoism of modern humanity, both soul-spiritually and physically.

Would it have been honest and straightforward to continue preaching that spiritual science can help mankind, and yet advance no social ideas at a time when social requirements became as urgent as they are to-day? Would human love not have progressed in the direction of a social knowledge? Shall we content ourselves with declamations on human love? Or should we not rather progress to real social impulses?

The fact that we can only see Christ's ministering spirits, clearly when we look into the spiritual world, is a result and a fundamental knowledge of spiritual science, a result of what I have told you to-day concerning waking and sleeping, concerning sleeping wakefulness and the awakening from sleep through spiritual science. Spiritual science will also enable us to grasp once more the Mystery of Golgotha, in accordance with a modern mentality. And as a result, spiritual science must not restrict itself to some sectarian group, but if must be brought out into the world in the best possible way, according to our capacities and to our place in life! The centre at Dornach was not intended to be a sectarian centre, but one that renders fruitful every branch of science and life, social life and artistic life. Anthroposophy and its spiritual science must become a concern of the great masses of humanity, although its most important things and that which penetrates into the innermost depths of our heart, awakening our inner forces, are pursued within the narrower circles of our Groups. There, in those Groups, we gather forces, in order to develop a certain higher knowledge, which we must first take in there. It is a knowledge that must be developed, for to-day we live in a time in which mankind really does not know what it is seeking; it sleeps away the most important things of life. Nevertheless it is a time in which mankind seeks after a new knowledge of the spirit! Let us feel this deeply, as pioneers, I might say, of a spiritual renewal—as Anthroposophists.

For that reason I so warmly wish that also the Groups in Holland might pursue an earnest, diligent and untiring study of the knowledge that can be obtained in our movement, from out the spiritual worlds. I warmly wish that our Groups should study diligently. These studies should constitute the point of departure for bringing out Anthroposophy into the world—and each one must do this in his own way—so that mankind's longings may be satisfied through a spiritual contemplation directed towards Anthroposophy. For that reason, let us grasp the nature of the longings of modern man. Let us not think that we become materialistic, when we spiritualize matter! And let us clearly realise that mankind would face a great misfortune, if it fails to obtain the true knowledge that is able to avert that misfortune.

The Eighth Oecumenic Council of the year 869 drove away from human knowledge the contemplation of the spirit. Those who have an entirely materialistic mentality seek to prepare the next stage: they also wish to eliminate the soul and to establish the general dogmatic knowledge that man only consists of the body. Certain devilish initiates are now excogitating means of educating the human being materialistically, of preparing him materialistically as a body; they seek to attain their end not by means of psychic influences, but by means of ingredients and substances taken from Nature. They plan an experimental psychology and seek to adopt principles that are not those of the Waldorf School (for the Waldorf School principles are spiritual protests against modern materialism), and they already undertake all manner of experiments in order to test man's capacities. This is but a preliminary stage of what they really aim at. The child is no longer to be educated psychically, but with the aid of external, material means, so that its capacities may develop in a bodily way. Thus man would gradually become an automaton, unless we bear in mind at the right moment that the path that led to the elimination of the spirit must not be continued in the direction of the elimination of the soul as well. We must instead follow the opposite direction of the Eighth Oecumenic Council; we must once more follow the path enabling us to find the spirit anew, and to cultivate in human life, in every sphere of practical human life, only what we can discover through the spirit.

This is what I wish to implant into your souls, what I wish to implant into your hearts, my dear friends, after our long absence. Cultivate spiritual science first of all as a concern of the heart, in the way in which it should be cultivated individually, so that we may progress. Cultivate what you have thus taken in, and then bring it out to humanity in every sphere of life, bring out what you have thus taken in! You will then gradually find the path enabling you, in the present difficult and earnest time of probation, to do the right thing for humanity, according to your place in life.

I would like to respond to your kind invitation to speak here this evening by telling you something about how, through unmediated research, one can come to spiritual knowledge, and I would like to explain the educational consequences of that knowledge. At the outset today I would also like to say that I will be speaking primarily about the method for entering and researching super-sensible worlds; perhaps on another occasion it will be possible to impart some of the results of super-sensible research. Everything I have to say today will refer to the researching of spiritual, super-sensible worlds, not to the understanding of super-sensible knowledge. Supersensible knowledge that has been researched and communicated can be understood by ordinary healthy human understanding if this ordinary understanding has not lost its unbiased perspective. A biased view is present when the understanding takes as its starting point the proof or logical deduction appropriate for dealing with the outer world of sense. Because of this hindrance alone it is often said that the results of super-sensible research cannot be understood by anyone who is not a researcher of the super-sensible.

What will be imparted here today is the object of what is known as initiation knowledge. In previous ages of humanity's development this knowledge was cultivated in a form different from the form appropriate for today. As I have already said in other lectures, the things of the past are not to be brought forward again; rather the path of research into super-sensible worlds is to be entered upon in a way appropriate to the thinking and feeling of our age. When it comes to initiation knowledge, everything depends on the individual's ability to undergo a fundamental reorientation or revisioning of his entire soul configuration.

An individual possessing initiation knowledge is distinguished from those who have knowledge in the present-day sense of the word, not merely because his initiation knowledge is a step above ordinary knowledge. Of course, it is achieved on the foundation of ordinary knowledge; this foundation must be present; intellectual thinking must be fully developed if one wants to acquire initiation knowledge. However, a fundamental reorientation is then necessary. The possessor of initiation knowledge must come to see the world from a point of view altogether different from the way it was seen without initiation knowledge.

I can express the fundamental difference between initiate and ordinary knowledge in a simple formula: In ordinary knowledge we are aware of our thinking; indeed, we are altogether aware of the inner soul experience through which we, as the subject of knowing, acquire knowledge. For example, when we think and believe that we know something through thought we think of ourselves as thinking human beings, as subjects. We are looking for objects when we observe nature or human life or perform experiments. We always look for objects. Objects are supposed to present themselves to us. Objects should surrender themselves to us so we can encompass them with our thoughts, so we can apply our thinking to them. We are the subject and that which comes to us is the object.

With a man who strives for initiation knowledge an entirely different orientation comes into play. He must become aware that as a human being, he is the object; then, for this object, this human being, he must seek the subject. A situation exactly the opposite of ordinary knowing must occur. In ordinary knowledge we experience ourselves as subject and look for the object outside of us. In initiation knowledge we ourselves are the object, and we seek the corresponding subject; in other words, genuine initiation knowledge leads us to find subjects. But that would be the object of a later knowledge.

It is as though the mere definitional concepts already force us here to see that in initiation knowledge, we must actually flee from ourselves; we must become like the plants and stones, like thunder and lightning, which are, for us, objects. In initiation knowledge we slip out of ourselves, so to speak, and become objects that seek the corresponding subjects. If I may express myself somewhat paradoxically, I would like to say that from the point of view of thinking the difference is as follows: In ordinary knowing we think about the things; in initiation knowledge we seek to discover how we are being thought by the cosmos.

This is nothing more than an abstract guiding principle. But you will find that this abstract guiding principle is followed everywhere in the concrete methods of initiation. To begin with, if we want to receive initiation knowledge appropriate for today we must proceed from thinking. The life of thought must be fully developed if we want to come to initiation knowledge today. This life of thought can be especially well schooled through an immersion in the natural scientific development of the last centuries, the nineteenth century in particular.

People react in different ways to natural scientific knowledge. Some listen to the pronouncements of science with what I would like to call a certain naïveté. They hear, for example, how organic beings have developed from the simplest, most primitive forms up to the human being. They think about this development but have little regard for their own involvement in these ideas. They do not stop to consider the fact that they themselves unfold something in the seeing of external processes, something which belongs to the life of thought.

But someone who receives natural scientific knowledge with critical consideration of his own involvement must ask himself: What does it mean that I myself can follow the development of beings from the imperfect to the perfect? Or he could say to himself: When I do mathematics I create thoughts purely out of myself. Properly understood, mathematics is a web spun out of myself. I then apply this web to the outer world and it fits. Here we come to the great question, I would like to say the really tragic question: How do things stand with respect to thinking itself—this thinking that is involved every time I know something?

No matter how long we think about it we cannot find out how things stand with thinking; for thinking remains always stuck in the same place. We merely spin, so to speak, around the axis we have already built for ourselves. We must accomplish something with our thinking. With our thinking we must carry out what I described as meditation in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.³⁰

We should not think mystically about meditation but then neither should we think of it lightly. It must be completely clear what meditation is in the modern sense. It also requires patience and inner energy of soul. Above all there is something else that belongs to meditation, something that no one can ever give to another human being: the ability to promise oneself something and then keep that promise. When we begin to meditate we begin to perform the only really fully free act in human life. We always have the tendency toward freedom within us. We have also attained a good measure of freedom. However, if we stop to think about it, we will find we are dependent upon our heredity, our education, and our present life situation.

To what extent are we in a position to suddenly leave behind all we have acquired through heredity, education, and life? We would be confronted with nothingness were we to suddenly leave that all behind.

Although we may have decided to meditate mornings and evenings in order gradually to learn to see into the spiritual world, we can, in fact, on any given day, leave this undone. There is nothing to prohibit this. And experience teaches us that most people who approach the meditative life, even those with the best intentions, soon leave it again. In this we are completely free. Meditation is an essentially free act.

If we are able to remain true to ourselves despite this freedom, if we promise ourselves, not another but ourselves, that we will remain faithful to this meditation, then that is, of itself, an enormous power in the soul.

Having said that, I would like to draw your attention to how, in its simplest form, meditation is done. I can only deal with the basic principles today. This is what we are dealing with: An idea or image, or a combination thereof, is moved into the center of our consciousness. Although the content of this thought complex does not matter, it should be immediate and not represent anything from our memory. For this reason it is good if the thought complex is not retrieved from our memory but rather given to us by someone experienced in such things. It is good for it to be given to us, not because the one who gives the meditation wants to exercise any suggestion but because we then can be certain that what we meditate is, for us, something entirely new.

We could just as well find a passage for meditation in any old book that we know we have not read. What is important is that we not pull a sentence out of our subconscious or unconscious, which would then overwhelm us. We could never be absolutely certain about a sentence like that. All kinds of things left over from past feelings and sensations would be mixed in. It is essential that the meditation be as transparent as a mathematical equation.

Let us take something very simple, the sentence: “Wisdom lives in the light.” To begin with, the truth of this sentence cannot be tested. It is a picture. But it is not important for us to concern ourselves with the content in any other way than to see through and understand it. We are to dwell upon it with our consciousness. In the beginning we will only be able to dwell in full consciousness upon such a content for a very short period of time. But this period of time will get longer and longer.

What then is essential? Everything depends upon our gathering together our whole life of soul in order to concentrate all our powers of thinking and feeling upon the content of the meditation. Just as the muscles of the arm become strong as we work with them, so too soul forces are strengthened by focusing them on a meditative content again and again. If possible the content of meditation should remain the same for months, perhaps for years. For genuine super-sensible research the forces of the soul must first be strengthened, empowered.

If we continue practicing in this way, the day will come, I would like to say, the big day, on which we make a very special observation. Gradually we observe that we are in a soul activity entirely independent of the body. We notice that whereas previously we were dependent upon the body for all our thinking and feeling—for our thinking upon the nervous system, for our feeling upon the circulatory system, and so on—now we feel ourselves in a spiritual-soul activity that is fully independent of any bodily activity. And we notice this because we are now in a position to cause something in our head to vibrate, something that had remained entirely unconscious previously. We now discover the strange difference between sleeping and waking. The difference consists in this: when man is awake there is something vibrating throughout his entire organism—except in his head. What is otherwise in movement in all the rest of the human organism is, in the head, at rest.

We will better understand what we are dealing with here if I draw your attention to the fact that, as human beings, we are not these robust solid bodies that we usually believe ourselves to be. We are actually made up of approximately 90 percent fluids; and the 10 per cent solid constituents are immersed in the fluids, they swim around in the fluids. We can only speak of the solid part of the human being in an uncertain way. We are, if I may put it this way, approximately 90 per cent water; and to a certain extent, air and warmth pulsate through this water.

If you can imagine the human being this way—to the least extent solid body and to a greater extent water and air with warmth vibrating therein—then you will not find it so difficult to believe that there is something even finer and more rarefied within us. This finer element I will call the etheric body. This etheric body is more rarefied than air. It is so fine that it permeates us without our being aware of the fact—at least in ordinary life. This etheric body is what is in inner movement when we are awake—in a regular movement throughout the entire human body, except in the head. In the head the etheric body is inwardly at rest.

In sleep it is otherwise. Sleep begins and then continues when the etheric body also begins to be in movement in the head. So that in sleep the whole human being—the head as well as the rest of the human being—has an etheric body that is in inner movement. When we are dreaming, for example, just upon awakening, we are then still just able to perceive the last movements of the etheric body. They present themselves to us as dreams. We are still able to perceive the last etheric movements in the head; however, when we awaken quickly that cannot happen.

Someone who meditates for a long time in the fashion I have indicated arrives at a stage where he can form pictures into the etheric body which permeates the head when it is at rest. In the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. I have called these pictures Imaginations. These Imaginations, which can be experienced in the etheric body independently of the physical body, are the first super-sensible impressions we can have. They bring us to the place where, entirely without regard for our physical body, we can behold, as in one picture, our life in its movement and its actions. What has often been described by people who were submerged in water and about to drown—that they have seen their lives backward in a series of moving pictures—that vision can be developed here systematically so that everything that has happened in our present earth life can be seen.

The first result of initiation knowledge is a view of our own soul life. This turns out to be entirely different from what one usually expects. We usually abstractly suppose this soul life to be woven from ideas and mental images. When we discover it in its true form we find that it is something creative and, at the same time, that it is what was working in our childhood, what shaped and molded our brain, what permeates the rest of the body and brings about a plastic form-building activity within the body as it enkindles and supports our waking consciousness, even our digestive activity. We see this inner activity in the organism as the etheric body of the human being. This is not a spatial body but a time body. For this reason you can describe the etheric body as a form in space only if you realize that what you are doing is the same as painting a bolt of lightning. When you paint a picture of a lightning flash you are, of course, painting only a moment of its existence. You are holding the moment in place. The human etheric body also can only be captured as a spatial form for a moment. In reality we have a physical body in space and an etheric body in time, a time body, which is always in movement. And it is only meaningful to speak of the etheric body if we speak of it as a body of time which we can behold. From the moment we are in a position to make this discovery we see it extending backward all the way back to our birth. This is, to begin with, the first super-sensible ability we can discover in ourselves.

The development of the soul, brought about through processes such as I have described, shows itself above all in a change of the entire soul mood and disposition of those people who strive for initiation knowledge. Please do not misunderstand me. I do not mean that someone who arrives at initiation knowledge suddenly becomes an entirely transformed and different human being. On the contrary, modern initiation knowledge must leave a man standing fully in the world so that he is able to continue his life, when he returns to it, just as he once began it. But when super-sensible research is carried out man has become, through initiation knowledge, for those hours and moments someone different than he is in ordinary life.

Above all I would like to emphasize an important moment that characterizes initiation knowledge. As a person penetrates further into experience of the super-sensible he feels more and more how his own bodily nature disappears. That is, it disappears for him with respect to those activities in which this bodily nature plays a part in ordinary life.

Let us consider for a moment how our judgments in life come about. We grow up and develop as children. Sympathy and antipathy become solidly set in our lives—sympathy and antipathy for the things that appear to us in nature and for other people. Our body is involved in all of this. Of course, this sympathy and antipathy that, to a large extent, actually have their foundation in the physical processes in our body, are then placed and located in the body. In the moment when people about to be initiated rise into the super-sensible world, they live into a world in which, for the duration of the time spent in the super-sensible, the sympathies and antipathies connected with their bodily nature become increasingly foreign to them. They are lifted above that with which their bodily nature is connected. When they wish to take up ordinary life again they must again fit themselves, so to speak, into their usual sympathies and antipathies—something which otherwise occurs by itself.

When we awaken in the morning we fit into our bodies, develop the same love for things and people, the same sympathy and antipathy we had before. This happens by itself. But when we stay for a while in the super-sensible and then wish to return to our sympathies and antipathies, then we must exert an effort to submerge ourselves into our bodily nature. This condition of separation from our own bodily nature is a phenomenon that shows that we are really making progress. The appearance of wide-hearted sympathies and antipathies is, altogether, something that an initiate gradually makes a part of his being.

There is one thing that shows the development toward initiation in a particularly strong way: the working of the memory during initiation knowledge. We experience ourselves in ordinary life. Our memory is sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse; but we acquire a memory. We have experiences and later remember them. This is not the case with what we experience in super-sensible worlds. We can experience greatness, beauty, and meaning, but after it has been experienced it is gone. And it must be experienced again if it is to stand before the soul again. It is not imprinted in the memory in the usual sense. It is imprinted only if we bring into concepts what we have seen in the super-sensible, only if we can also bring our understanding along with us into the super-sensible world. This is very difficult. We must be able to think just as well on the other side but without the body helping with this thinking. For this reason our concepts must be strengthened beforehand; we must have become proper logicians before, so that we do not always forget when we look into the super-sensible world. It is just the primitive clairvoyants who, although they can see quite a bit, forget their logic when they are over there. It is just when we want to share super-sensible truths with someone else that we notice this change in our memory with respect to these truths. From this we can see how our physical body is involved in the exercise of memory, not in thinking, but in the exercise of memory, which always plays into the super-sensible.

If I may be permitted to say something personal, it is this: When I myself hold lectures it is different from the way lectures are usually held. People often speak from memory, they often develop from memory what they have learned, what they have thought. Anyone who really presents super-sensible truths actually must always produce them in the moment when he presents them. I can hold the same lecture thirty, forty, fifty times, and for me it is never the same. Of course, that would be so in any case, but it is even more so with this independence from memory that comes into play when a higher stage of memory is reached.

I have already told you about the ability to bring forms into the etheric body of the head. This then makes it possible to see through the time-body, the etheric body, all the way back to birth. It also brings the soul to a very special mood with respect to the cosmos. One loses one's own bodily nature, so to speak, but feels oneself living into the cosmos. Consciousness expands, as it were, into the widths of the ether. One can no longer look at a plant without becoming immersed in its growth. One follows it from the root to the blossom. One lives in its juices, in its blossoms, in its fruits. One can steep oneself in the life of animals according to their forms, but especially in the life of other human beings. The slightest gesture encountered in another human being leads one, so to speak, into the entire soul life of the other person. One feels as though one is no longer in oneself, but is out of oneself during this super-sensible knowing.

But it is necessary that we be able to return again and again, otherwise we are lazy, nebulous mystics, dreamers, and not knowers of super-sensible worlds. We must be able to live in super-sensible worlds while simultaneously being able to return at any time to stand firmly on our two feet. For this reason, whenever I explain such things about super-sensible worlds, I must stress that it is far more important for a philosopher to know how a shoe or a coat is made than it is to know logic, that he must really stand in life in a practical way. Actually no one should think about life unless he really stands in it in a practical way. This is even more so the case for someone seeking super-sensible knowledge. Knowers of the super-sensible cannot be dreamers or fanatics or people who cannot stand on their two feet; otherwise they would lose themselves, for one must, as a matter of fact, get outside of oneself. But this “getting outside of oneself” must not lead to the loss of one's self. The book Occult Science—an Outline was written out of knowledge such as I have described here.

Then it is important that we penetrate further into this super-sensible knowledge. This happens when we further develop our meditations. With our meditations we rest upon certain ideas or mental pictures or a combination thereof, thereby strengthening the soul life. But this is not enough to bring us fully into the spiritual world. It is also necessary that we practice the following: Beyond dwelling with our meditations upon ideas, beyond concentrating our entire soul upon these ideas, we must be able, at will, to cast them out of our consciousness. Just as, in the life of the senses, we can look at something and then away from it whenever we want, so too, in the development of super-sensible knowledge we must learn to concentrate on a content of soul and then be able to cast it out of the soul again.

Even in ordinary life this is not easy. Just think how little we have it in our power to drive our thoughts away at will. Sometimes they will pursue us for days, especially if they are unpleasant. We cannot get rid of them. This becomes much harder after we have become accustomed to concentrating on the thoughts. A thought content we have concentrated upon eventually begins to get a firm grip on us; then we really have to work hard to remove it. When we have practiced for a long time we can manage the following: We can remove, we can cast out of our consciousness, this entire retrospect of our life from birth onward, this entire etheric body, as I have called it, this time body.

This is, of course, a stage to which we must develop ourselves. We must first become mature for this step by ridding ourselves of this colossus, this giant being in our soul. The whole terrible specter that embodies life between the present moment and our birth is standing there before us. This is what we must do away with. If we can get rid of it then something will appear for us that I would like to call a more wakeful consciousness. Then we are merely awake without anything in the waking consciousness. Then it begins to fill. Just as air streams into lungs that need it, so too the real spiritual world now streams into the consciousness that has been emptied in the way described.

This is Inspiration. Now something streams in that is not a finer, more rarefied matter. It is related to matter as negative is related to positive. The opposite of matter now streams into the human being who has become free of the ether. This is the most important thing we can become aware of. It is not true that spirit is merely an even finer, more etherealized form of matter. If we call matter the positive (it really does not matter if we call it positive or negative; these things are relative), then in terms of the positive we must call spirit negative. It is as if I had the vast fortune of five dollars in my wallet. If I give one away then I will have four left. But say, alternatively, that I accumulate debts. If I owe one dollar then I have less than no dollars.

If through the methods described I have removed the etheric body then I come, not into a still finer ether, but into something that is the opposite of ether, in the same way debts are the opposite of assets. Now I know from my own experience what spirit is. Through inspiration the spirit comes into us and the first thing we experience is what surrounded our soul and spirit before our birth, that is before conception, in the spiritual world. That is, the preexistent life of our soul and spirit. Previously we had seen into the etheric realm back to our birth. Now we look back beyond birth, that is conception, into a world of soul and spirit and reach the point where we can perceive how we were before we descended from spiritual worlds into a physical body taking on a line of heredity.

For inspiration knowledge these things are not thought-out philosophical truth. They are experiences, but experiences which must only be acquired after a preparation such as I have indicated. So the first thing that comes to us when we enter the spiritual world is the truth of the preexistence of the human soul, that is, of the human spirit. We learn now to see the eternal directly.

For many centuries now European humanity has considered eternity from one side only, from the point of view of immortality. Europeans have asked only: What becomes of the soul after it leaves the body at death? Of course, it is the egotistical right of human beings to ask such a question. They are interested in what will follow after death for egotistical reasons. We will presently see that we too can speak about immortality, but immortality is usually discussed for egotistical reasons. People are less interested in what happened before their birth. They say: We are here now. What went on before has value only as history. But knowledge of history that has any value is only possible if we seek knowledge of our existence before birth, that is, before conception.

We need a word in modern languages that makes the eternal complete. We should speak not only of immortality but also of unborn-ness. For eternity consists of both immortality and unborn-ness; furthermore, initiation knowledge discovers unborn-ness before it discovers immortality.

A further stage of development in the direction of the spiritual world can be reached if we strive to free our soul and spiritual activities still further from the support given by the body. We can achieve this freeing by guiding our exercises, meditations, and concentration more in the direction of will-exercises. As a concrete example I would like to describe a simple will exercise that will allow you to study the principle under consideration. In ordinary life we are accustomed to think along with the flow of the world. We let the things come to us as they happen to come. What comes to us first we think first, what comes to us later we think later. And even if in more logical thinking we are not thinking along with the flow of time, still in the background there is the effort to stick with the external, “real,” flow of events and facts. In order to exercise our soul and spiritual forces we must get free from the external flow of events. And a good will exercise is this: We try to think back through the experiences of the day, not as they occurred, from the morning to evening, but backward, from evening to morning, paying attention to the details as much as possible.

Suppose we come to the following in this backward review: We walked up a set of stairs. First we picture ourselves on the top step, then at the one before the top, and so on down to the bottom. We descend the stairs backward. In the beginning we will only be able to visualize backward the episodes of the day's experiences in this way, say from six o'clock to three o'clock, or from twelve to nine, and so on, back to the moment of waking. But gradually we will acquire a kind of technique by means of which, as a matter of fact, in the evening or the next morning we will be able to let a tableau of the day's events, or the events of the day before, pass before our soul in reverse order.

When we are in a position (and everything depends on our achieving this position) to free ourselves entirely from the three dimensional flow of reality, then we will see how a powerful strengthening of our will occurs. The same effect can be achieved if we are able to hear a melody backward or if we can picture a drama of five acts running backward from the fifth, fourth, and so forth back to the first. We strengthen our will inwardly with all of these means, and outwardly we tear it free from its bondage to events in the world of the senses. Other exercises that I have mentioned in previous lectures can be added. We can take stock of ourselves and our habits. We can take ourselves in hand, apply iron will in order, in a few years, to acquire another habit in place of the old. As an example, I mention the fact that in his handwriting everyone has something that reveals his character. Making the effort to acquire another handwriting, one which is not at all similar to the former, requires a powerful, inner strength. Of course, the second handwriting must become just as habitual as the first. That is a small thing. There are many such things through which we can alter the fundamental direction of our will through our own energetic efforts.

In this way gradually we are able to do more than just bring the spiritual world as inspiration into us. With our spirit freed from the body we are really able to immerse ourselves in the other spiritual beings outside us. Genuine spiritual knowing means that we enter into spiritual beings around us when we behold physical things. If we want to know spiritual things we must first get out of ourselves. I have described this freeing of ourselves from the physical. But then we must also acquire the ability to sink ourselves again into spiritual things and beings.

We can only do this after practicing the kinds of exercises just described; then, as a matter of fact, we are no longer disturbed by our own bodies but can immerse ourselves in the spiritual side of things; then the plants no longer merely appear to us, but we are able to dive down into the color itself. We live in the process whereby the plant colors itself. By not only knowing that the chicory growing alongside the road is blue, but by being able to enter into the blossom inwardly and participate in the blue we dwell intuitively in this process. From this point we can extend our knowledge more and more.

From certain symptoms we can tell we have really made progress with such exercises. I would like to mention two, but there are really many. The first symptom consists in this, that we acquire entirely different views concerning the world of morality than we had before. For the pure intellect the moral world is something unreal. Certainly, if he has remained a decent person during the age of materialism, a man feels himself obligated to do what the old traditions prescribe. Yet even if he does not admit it, he thinks to himself that doing the good does not make something happen that is as real as what happens when lightning flashes or when thunder rolls through space. He is not thinking of reality in this sense when he thinks of morality. But when he lives into the spiritual world he becomes aware that the moral order of the world has not only a reality such as is found in the physical world, but actually a higher reality. He gradually comes to understand that this entire age, with its physical ingredients and processes, can decay and be dissolved; but the morality that flows forth from our actions continues to exist in its effects. He becomes aware of the reality of the moral world. The physical and moral worlds, being and becoming are then one. He really experiences the truth that moral laws are also objective laws of the world.

This experience intensifies our sense of responsibility with respect to the world. It gives us an altogether different consciousness, a consciousness much needed by modern humanity. Modern humanity looks at the beginning of the earth, how it was formed from a primal plasma in space, how life, man, and—much like a fata morgana—the world of ideas arose out of this primal matter. Our present-day humanity looks at the cold grave of the universe that entropy will bring us to. According to this materialistic idea, everything in which human beings live will again sink into a great graveyard. Humanity needs knowledge of the moral order in the world, the knowledge that can be achieved through super-sensible sources. This I can only touch on in this lecture.

Another symptom of our progress must be mentioned: the intensified suffering that we experience. We cannot come to intuitive knowledge, to this submerging of ourselves in things external to ourselves, without having gone through an intensified suffering. This suffering is intensified compared with the pain involved in imaginative knowledge, the pain that always arises when we must find our way again into our sympathies and antipathies. The great effort required to find our way back always hurts. The pain now becomes a cosmic co-experiencing of all the suffering that rests upon the ground of existence.

It is easy to ask why the gods, or God, created suffering. Suffering must exist if the world is to arise in its beauty. We have eyes because, to begin with, in a still undifferentiated organism something organic was, so to speak, “dug out” and transformed into the power to see and, then, into the eye. If we were still able today to perceive the tiny, insignificant processes that go on in the retina when we see, then we could perceive that even those processes represent a pain that rests upon the ground of existence. All beauty rests on the foundation of suffering. Beauty can only be developed out of pain. We should be able to feel this pain, this suffering. We can only really find our way into the spiritual by going through pain. To a lesser degree this can already be said for a lower stage of knowledge. Anyone who has acquired even a little knowledge will admit to the following: I am grateful to my destiny for the happiness and joys life has brought me, but my knowledge has only been achieved through my pains, through my suffering.

If this is felt with respect to more elementary knowledge, it can then become an even greater experience when we overcome ourselves, when we find our way through the pain that is felt as cosmic pain to a neutral experience in the spiritual cosmos. We must struggle through to a co-experiencing of the events and essential nature of all things; then intuitive knowledge is present. We are fully within an experience of knowledge that is no longer bound to the body. We can then return to and live again in the sensible world until death but with full knowledge of what it means to be real, to be real in the soul-spiritual outside the body.

If we grasp this experience of intuitive knowledge, then, in a picture, we have knowledge of what happens when we leave the physical body at death, then we know what it means to go through the gate of death. The reality we encounter, that the soul and spirit go over into a world of soul and spirit when they leave the body behind—we experience this reality beforehand when we have ascended to intuitive knowledge. That is, we know what it is like in a world where there is no body to provide support. When we have then brought this knowledge into concepts, we return to the body. But the essential thing is that we learn how to live without a body and acquire thereby the knowledge of what it will be like when we can no longer use our body, when we lay it aside at death and step over into a world of soul and spirit. Once again, this is not a question of philosophical speculation concerning immortality based upon initiation knowledge. It is, I would like to say, an experience, a pre-experience of what is to come. We know what it will be like. We do not experience the full reality of dying, but we experience immortality. This experience also becomes a part of our knowledge.

I have attempted to describe how you can rise through Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition and how, through this development, you can learn to know yourself in your full reality as a human being. In the body we learn to know ourselves for as long as we are in the body. But we must free our soul and spirit from the body, for only then can the whole human being be free. What we know through the body, through our senses, through thinking based on sense experience and bound up with the body's nervous system—with all this we can know only one part of us. We only learn to know the whole human being if we have the will to ascend to the knowledge that comes from initiation science.

Once again, I would like to stress that once the research has been done, then the results can be understood—just as what astronomers and biologists say about the world can be understood and tested—by anyone approaching them with an unprejudiced mind, with ordinary, healthy human understanding. Then you will find that this testing is the first step of initiation knowledge. Because man does not seek untruth and error but truth, we must first get an impression of the truth in initiation knowledge. Then, as much as destiny makes it possible for us, we will be able to penetrate further and further into the spiritual world.

In our day, and in a higher sense, the words which stood inscribed above the Greek temple as a challenge must be fulfilled: “Man, know thyself.”

Those words certainly did not mean that we should retreat into our inner life. They were, rather, a challenge to search for our being: to search for the essence of immortality, which is found in the body, to search for the essence of unborn-ness, which is found in the immortal spirit, and to search for the mediator between earth, time, and spirit which is the soul. For the true human being consists of body, soul, and spirit. The body can only know the body, the soul can only know the soul, and the spirit can only know the spirit. Therefore, we must try to find the spirit active within us so that the spirit can also be recognized in the world.

• 30. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, vol. 10 in the Collected Works, repr. (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1983).

To-day we will go rather further in outlining the connections we have tried to understand in the course of our recent studies.

The present time, with its many diverse currents, spiritual and material, is extremely difficult to understand; and the effort ends only in perplexity unless we make up our minds to recognise the causes as lying far, far back in the womb of history. Let us look back, as students of Spiritual Science, at the so-called fourth post-Atlantean period.

This begins, as we know, somewhere about the year 747 before the Mystery of Golotha, and closes with the beginning of the fifteenth century, about 1413 A.D. (The figures are of course to be taken approximately, as always in matters of this kind.) Within this period, as we observe it, we can perceive certain forces, connected with and related to each other, but differing fundamentally from all others working in previous and subsequent epochs. This period, in which the development of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul in man's being took place, can be divided into three smaller ones: the first, between the year 747 B.C. (which is the real date of the founding of Rome), ends about 27 B.C.; the second runs from 27 B.C. until about the end of the 7th century; (693 A.D.); the third and last from 693 to 1413 A.D. Since this date, since about 1413, we have the time which brings forth, in its own characteristic way, soul-forces already known to you to some extent. Just as this fourth Post-Atlantean epoch can be clearly distinguished from the three preceding ones (the ancient Indian, Persian, and Egypto-Chaldean) and must also be sharply distinguished from what followed it and what is still to come, so within it the growth is marked by noticeable moments, if we consider its progress through these three shorter periods.

From 747 to 27 B.C. the peoples inhabiting the countries around the Mediterranean come chiefly into prominence. We see a distinct form of soul-life developing among them. History hardly mentions it, because history has no neans of creating the ideas and conceptions which would fit it to deal with the really characteristic features. This epoch, which I have marked off, can be characterised by saying that it is the time when, for inner reasons of human evolution as a whole, the souls of men emancipate themselves from their connection with the universal Spiritual world. If we look back into Egyptian and Chaldean times, during the epoch of the Sentient-soul, we find in human consciousness a decided sense of kinship of the soul with the Cosmos. The Sentient-Soul in man's nature was then able to perceive that man is a member of the whole cosnos. We cannot rightly estimate what is characteristic of the Egyptian, Chaldean or Babylonian stages, unless we take into account the fact that man at that time actually experienced a feeling of kinship with the spiritual Cosmos. Just as the fingers on our hand feel themselves part of us, as it were, so the Egyptian or Chaldean felt himself to be a member of the spiritual Cosmos. A crisis, a veritable catastrophe, overtook mankind in the 8th century before Christ, and in respect of this feeling of kinship with the Cosmos human souls had owed their former feeling of belonging to the Cosmos to the atavistic, dream-like clairvoyance. They did not perceive as we do to-day. In the act of sense-perception they also perceived what profane science ignorantly calls “Animism”—the spiritual, the divine; and through this they felt themselves as belonging to the Spirit of the universe.

This relationship disappeared. The consequences were, on the one hand, numerous phenomena of decadence, but on the other, the whole marvellous culture of Greece, whose civilisation was founded on what man experiences when, as man, he begins to stand alone in the universe. We owe this civilisation to the fact that man no longer felt himself a member of the cosmos, but a totality as man, a being complete in himself. He had in a sense taken his own place in the cosmos, had begun to live a life of his own. If Greek civilisation had retained the soul-constitution for instance, of the Ancient Indian period, with its feeling of connection with the cosmos, it is impossible to imagine that this beautiful Greek civilisation could ever have arisen. All the splendour and glory displayed by Greek civilisation, unequalled elsewhere, developed in the time between the eighth and the first centuries before Christ. Humanity had withdrawn into the citadel of the soul, of the human soul in the true sense. This was the time when humanity began to move towards the Mystery of Golgotha. We must not forget that there is always something in the Mystery of Golgotha which cannot entirely dawn on human understending, even super-sensible understanding. There will always be something unconprehended. It is beyond the power of human conceptions, human feelings, human experiences, fully to grasp what was achieved by the entrance of the Christ into earthly evolution. Therefore the Mystery had, in a sense, so to take place that while it was in progress, human civilisation was not ready fully to share in it; it had to tale its course separately, side by side with ordinary human experience. That is fairly evident, even from history. How much did human civilisation around the Mediterranean notice of what happened in the far-off Jewish province of Palestine, with regard to Christ Jesus? How little did it enter into the consciousness of civilised humanity, even that of Tacitus, who was writing only a century after the Mystery of Golgotha!

On the one hand we have the current of human civilisation, and on the other the stream which brought with it the Mystery of Golgotha: the two run their course side by side. This could happen only because man, civilised man, at the time of the Divine Event, was severed from the Divine, was living a life which had no direct connection with the Spiritual. Thus on the earth itself there took place a spiritual event, which went its way side by side with human civilisation. Such a juxtaposition of outer civilisation with a Mystery-Event is unthinkable in any earlier period. It never had happened before, because in earlier times human civilisation knew and recognised itself as being in connection with happenings in the realm of the Divine-Spiritual. It is very distinctive, very rremarkable, that the secular culture which ran parallel with the Mystery of Golotha was remote from it; man had severed himself from it.

In the second period, which lasted from about 27 B.C. to 693 A.D., mid-European civilisation was not of a kind to enable secular culture to come to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. This may sound very strange, considering that Christianity had made itself at home in this secular culture and had spread over the civilisation of mid-Europe; but its expansion took place in the way I have described. The Mystery of Golgotha was isolated, was alone. Certainly, it was accepted as outer dogma to this extent: Christ had come, had called Apostles, had accomplished this or that for humanity, had said this or that about man's relation to the Divine. All this was readily accepted in its outer application by secular culture, but this outer recognition does not alter the fact that in reality all those who accepted Christianity in these early centuries were far removed from an inner understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. With the help of the Gnosis, or of all that had been carried over as treasures of wisdom from the ancient pagan world, they might have come near to facing the question: “What really happened in the Mystery of Golgotha?” They did not do so. They declared everything heresy which might have led to an understanding of it, and tried to accomplish the impossible, to put into trivial forms what never could be confined within such forms, what could be the object only of wisdom's highest aspiration—the Mystery of Golgotha.

Hence the organisations fostered during the early centuries of Christianity were not such as to help people to unite theyeselves with the Mystery; their effect was to encourage in the human soul something very remote from a genuine inner feeling of understanding and partaking in it. The “Church” was an organization rather for the non-understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who follows up what the various councils, and more especially the intrigues of the Church, strove to accomplish, will find that all thse efforts went towards getting certain dogmatic ideas accepted, and towards inducing people co think of everything connected with the Mystery of Golgotha as law in no real relationship to the life of the human soul. All this led up to a certain point, which can be described, somewhat radically, in the following way. Men tried to accommodate themselves, here on earth, to certain ideas concerning the Mystery of Golgotha and its effects; but the most important thing was not the extent to which they could come to know about it and to absorb it into their souls. It was that they should be able to adopt this belief: “We grasp the fact that the Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished on its own account, independently of us, and Christ will take care that we are saved!” This tendency gained ground until the reality of spiritual events was relegated to a region quite outside the soul; sacred, spiritual events were not to be thought of as connected with what took place in any human breast; the two were to be as widely separated as possible. Within, this tendency lay the germ of a purpose—unexpressed of course, but active subconsciously—which emerged clearly for the first time at the Council of Constantinople in 869. The aim was to keep the human spirit away from any individual, personal concern with the spiritual, (which was restricted to the Mystery of Golgotha), and therefore from any inclination to understand the Mystery in terms of personal experience. It was to remain incomprehensible. So the Church was able to include more and more people of a purely secular frame of mind, who came to believe that the super-sensible was beyond the range of the human soul, and that human thinking should confine itself to the objects and activities of the physical world. No forces were to be developed out of the human soul which could lead to an independent understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. In certain decrees of this eighth Council of Constantinople it is clearly stated that European humanity might not—because the forces of the human soul were not equal to it—reflect on the realm wherein the life appertaining to the Mystery of Golgotha had taken its course.

In this middle period of the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, lasting from 27 B.C. until 693 A.D. something was accomplished which may be described as the confirming of humanity in the belief that all human knowledge and experience is adapted, only for the palpable “this life”; the impalpable, supersensible realm the “beyond” as it is called, must be always withdrawn from their ken, inaccessible to direct perception. The entire history of those centuries can be understood only by keeping this cardinal fact in mind: The whole policy of the Catholic Church was directed to bringing men to the belief: “The soul can know only the things of this life; as regards the super-sensible, thou must approach this in a way which has nothing to do with thy intelligence or personal knowledge”. The effect of this was that after the close of this epoch, in the eighth and ninth centuries, a sort of obscurity descended on European humanity as regards the connection of the human soul with the super-sensible. And certain later phenomena, among which that of Bernard of Clairvaux is typical, can be explained only by the fact that such men remained in a sense beyond the physical, in “the other world”, their souls absorbed in what is inaccessible to rational human understanding. This enthusiasm for something which undoubtedly lies beyond all human comprehension must be seen in the entire disposition of soul in a Bernard of Clairvaux, if he is to be understood. In his personality we find many traits which are great and powerful in the it effects, for what is capable of a more or less distorted activity is equally capable of a beautiful, great and glorious one. Bernard had characteristics which clearly show him to be a product of that disposition of soul which developed in Western civilisation in the way I have described, during these particular centuries. Many other men resembled him; he is just a typical figure—as, for instance, when he spoke to his followers (who were very numerous) of all that would be bestowed on humanity by the “Crusade” he contemplated. Then came the failure of the whole attempt. How did this devout man speak of the failure? Somewhat this way: If everything, everything goes wrong, may the blame be on me alone, not on the Divine, which must be always right. Even when such a man was convinced of his connection with what he conceived of as the Divine-Spiritual power behind events, he separated the one from the other and said: “Lay the sin at my door: Providence is something that takes its own course in a realm beyond and apart from that of the human soul.

So, at the beginning of the third period of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation, something akin to a darkening descended on humanity—best expressed by saying; that man's horizon no longer extended to the idea of a connection with spiritual currents and impulses. In philosophy of the centuries between the eighth and 15th one finds always the same aim—to prove that human ideas and concept should in no case attempt to grasp the course of spiritual reality, that spiritual reality can only be, and must be, a matter of Revelation, left to the teaching office of the church.—this was reduced to a convenient formula!

Thus had the power of the Church been built up. This power of the Church did not derive purely from theological impulse, but from the fact that man was banished to the physical life of the senses as regards the use of his own forces of knowledge and mental powers, and was not allowed to think of a knowledge of the super-sensible. Hence arose a conception of belief which was not in existence in the early centuries (although it is sometimes antedated), but developed later. It took this form: “Concerning the Divine-Spiritual only faith is possible—not knowledge.” This division between the “truth of Faith” and the “truth of knowledge” was actually made against certain significant historical backgrounds, which should be studied in connection with the things I have indicated.

We have been living since the 15th century, approximately since 1413 A.D., during a period (this will become evident in the third millennium), in which we are concerned in part with the heritage of all that has happened under such influence as I have described. On the one hand stand of the legacies from those days; on the other we have to deal with something coming to view in this, the fifth post-Atlantean period—something entirely new. In the fourth period, when we look back at it, we see that there was then a kind of severance of the human soul from the Divine-Spiritual, a banishment to purely external physical sense-transactions. That was the new thing in the fourth period. It did not exist in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, as I have already pointed out. We now have to deal with an analogous novelty in our own epoch, and humanity's task,—having entered on an age in which self-consciousness must play an ever greater and greater part—is to distinguish between what is a legacy from time past, and what is newly added to it from our own time. Let us first look at the inheritance, legacy.

We have seen that it consists in man having been constrained to develop his soul-life apart from the super-sensible. Moreover there is another result of this, the more clearly to be seen the closer the events of history are surveyed; indeed, a searching review shows the facts to be unquestionable, admitting of no doubt whatsoever. This fact is that man, confining his soul-force to the sense-perceptible, was willing to be severed from the super-sensible, and finally—since the 15th century—arrived at rejecting the super-sensible altogether. The eighth Council of Constantinople in 869, is characterized by the wish to keep man and a super sensible apart; and from this separation, sponsored deliberately by the Church, spraying the rejection of the super-sensible—the believe arose that the super-sensible might be only a matter of imagination and have no reality. If one investigates the Genesis of modern materialism from an historical, psychological point of view, the Church must be held responsible for it. Of course the Church is only the outer expression of deeper forces working in man's evolution, but to notice how one thing arises from another enables one to understand the course of events. In the fourth post-Atlantean age, the orthodox man would say: “The human faculty of knowledge is adapted only for understanding what is connected with the realm of the senses. The super-sensible must be left to revelation, which may not be contested; to speak against revelation is heresy and can lead only to delusion.”

The modern Marxist, a modern Social Democrat, true scion of this view—which is nothing but the consequence of the Catholicism of earlier centuries—says: “All knowledge worthy of the name is concerned only with sense-perceptible, physical events; there is no ‘Spiritual Science’ because there is no such thing as spirit. ‘Spiritual’ Science is, at best, Social Science, the science of human communities”. Of course this tendency has come to fruition differently in various parts of the civilized world, but the differences are no more than nuances.

Hence, from the ninth century onwards, in the central and western countries of Europe, it becomes necessary to ensure that human soul-life should occupy itself with the super-sensible by “believing” in it, but should know of it only through revelation. The races and peoples of Central Europe were such that they had to be handled carefully; they could not be treated in the same simple way. To say to people: “Your human capacities are limited to eating and drinking and things of the outer world; the super-sensible is beyond you”—that could not be done in Western Europe; but it was done in Eastern Europe, and that is the reason for the cleavage between the Eastern and Western Churches. In Eastern Europe, people really were confined to the sense-world; that was where their capacities had to unfold. That which finally led to the Orthodox religion was to be developed in the Heights of Mystery-experience, quite untouched by anything to do with the senses. What man brought forth out of his human nature was set sharply apart from the true spiritual world, which lived only in the ritual that hovered loftily above mankind.

What was it that had to develop there? In varying shades, the point of view, the perception, better reality belonged only to the physical world of the senses. One might say that forces towards which man adopts an attitude of repression, do not develop, but atrophy. If, then, humanity was restrained for centuries from spiritually grasping the super-sensible, the power of doing so was bound in the end to disappear completely. It is what we find in the modern socialistic views of life, whose misfortune consists—not in their Socialism!—but in the fact that they entirely reject the spiritual-super-sensible, and are therefore obliged to confine themselves to a social structure which takes account only of the animal side of man's nature. This was prepared for by the paralyzing of man's super-sensible forces; hence it follows that men are driven into saying: “Care for our salvation shall not in any way make us unite our soul's knowledge experience with the stream that lives a life on its own—The stream which includes the Mystery of Golgotha”.—With what is this connected?

With the fact that in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch the Luciferic forces were especially active. They severed man from the cosmos, because their aim is invariably to isolate man in selfishness, to cut him off from the whole spiritual universe, as well as from the knowledge of his connection to the physical one. Hence, when this severance was at its height, there were no natural sciences. This was Lucifer's doing. The activity which separated sense-knowledge from dogma regarding the super-sensible, was therefore a Luciferic one. Over against it stands the Ahrimanic influence; and these two are the great adversaries of the human soul. The fact that the super-sensible forces of humanity have been allowed to atrophy—leading to a purely animal form of Socialism, now due to break over humanity in a devastating and destructive way—is to be traced to Luciferic forces. The new influence, developing in our age, is of a different nature, more Ahrimanic. The Luciferic element would isolate man, cut him off from the spiritual-super-sensible, and lead him to experience the illusion of being a totality in himself. On the other hand, the Ahrimanic element inspires man with fear of the spiritual, keeps him away from it, fosters in him the illusion that the spiritual cannot be attained by mankind. The Luciferic keeping away of man from the super-sensible might be described as of a more educational, cultured kind, whereas the Ahrimanic, founded on fear of the spiritual, is more ‘natural,’ arising in the age which began with 15th century. And as the Luciferic severance from the spiritual came especially to expression under the cover of Orthodox Christianity of the East, so the Ahrimanic fear, the holding back from the spiritual, makes itself felt especially in the culture of the West, and particularly in the element of American civilization.

Such truths may be unpalatable today, but they are truths nevertheless, and we get very little farther by generalizing—however mystically or theosophically—about the connection of the human with the Divine, or whatever it may be called. We can progress only by recognizing the reality as it is. We can reduce our chaos to order only if we recognize the true characteristics of the different currents running side-by-side. These various currents, springing from their several assumptions, spread out locally, and so everything is confused in the hodgepodge called “modern civilization”. What I am now speaking of as “Americanism” (as collective concept, not applying to individual Americans), is fear of the spiritual, the longing to live only on the physical plane, or at most in what improves into that plane as coarse Spiritualism and such-like, which is not in the real sense, spiritual at all. The mark of Americanism is fear of the spiritual; it is by no means confined to America, but there it lives as a social characteristic, not simply a human one. Above all it is predominant in all science. Science has increasingly been founded on “fear of the spiritual”. Nothing in science is called “objective” unless it excludes as far as possible living conceptions engendered in the inwardness of the soul. No idea, no conception, engendered in the inwardness of the soul, is permitted to intrude into the observation of nature. This is allowed to embrace only what is dead, not the living that is spirit-inwoven. If, in the manner of Hegel, Shelling or Goethe—those genuine representatives of Mid-European thought—anyone introduces the “concept” into observation of nature, he is at once thought to be on the road to uncertainty, for no objective reality is ever expected to be attained through spiritual comprehension or experience. It is assumed that this means bringing in personal bias; that an experiment ceases to be objective directly anytime anything subjective enters into it. That is Ahrimanic. Science is universally “American” in so far as it clings to the fundamental axiom, “Everything subjective must be banished from an observation of Nature” . This is the fundamental result of the earlier severance from the spiritual in the fourth post-Atlantean period.

Thus a new element is added to this legacy—a new element which will make itself felt more and more as a destructive force alongside all that has to develop fruitfully—and consciously—in the future. It is essentially of an Ahrimanic nature; it is fear of the spiritual, and it brings havoc and disintegration into human civilization.

At the transition from the fourth to fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and during the fifth epoch, these impulses became more and more noticeable. With the discovery of America, and the transplantation into America of European ways, fear of this spiritual life appeared there, too; but on the other hand there arose what might be called a tension in human souls, for the native forces of the people in Europe were such that they could not fail to some extent to trace their own connection with the spirituality of the universe. A tension arose at the passing of the forth into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of civilization, during the centuries in which what is known as “modern history” takes shape. Then came this tension caused by the suppressed spiritual element in the breast of man. Certain people decided that a barrier had to be put up against it, partly because they understood very well what was left of the old inheritance, and partly because they had a very pertinent grasp of the newly approaching Ahrimanic element. This was the genesis of that spiritual current—a much more influential one than most people think, as I mentioned from a different point of view in my last lecture—which tries to perpetuate this keeping of the human soul at a distance from the super-sensible: in other words Jesuitism. Its inner principle is to do everything possible in human evolution to keep man at a distance from any real, conscious connection with the super-sensible. Naturally, this was facilitated by presenting the super-sensible dogmatically as a realm into which human knowledge could not penetrate. But the Jesuit movement knows very well how to reckon with the other side; it wants no such inner relation between modern science and Americanism. In that respect Jesuitism is great: it recognizes the importance of physical science and makes a deep study of it. Jesuits are great spirits in the round of physical, material science, for Jesuitism reckons with the elemental tendency of mankind to fear the spiritual, a fear which must be overcome by leading human nature towards the spiritual world; and accounts on being able to impose this fear on society by saying to people, in so many words: “You cannot and shall not approach the spiritual; we are trustees of the spiritual and we will purvey it to you in the proper way.”

These two currents of thought, Americanism and Jesuitism, play into one another, as it were. This is not something to take casually; and all such matters we must look for the deeper impulses which are active in human evolution. If we try to identify the forces which have brought about the present catastrophe, we shall find it remarkable cooperation between Americanism—in a sense here given—and Jesuitism. And from a wider point of view we see, on the one hand, how the inheritance from earlier times still influences our mental life, and on the other, the advent of something new. If we specify these two impulses as the Luciferic and Ahrimanic, we describe precisely the opposition towards that which must be introduced into the development of mankind for its salvation as true spiritual life. Anyone who approaches with inner sympathy such a figure as Bernard of Clairvaux, who in a certain sense inclines towards the Luciferic, will take account of the following attitude: “Human knowledge is after all directed only towards the physical-material; therefore we direct the soul to seek the divine-spiritual in the fervor of elemental experience.” This is what kindles enthusiasm in a temperament of that kind. We might say that what lives in human souls as a tendency towards this virtual side, lives on in our own time, but there is also the other tendency—towards the dark and somber side. The 12th century had its Bernard of Clairvaux: ours have such figures as Lenin and Trotsky; as in the former century there was an active inclination towards the super-sensible, so now we find hatred for it, although expressed in different words and substance. That is the dark reverse side of those times: there the pouring of the human soul into the Divine mould, here the pouring of man's being into an animal mould, on which alone the social structure is to be built.

These matters can be understood only if one has a clear grasp of one fact, which is far away from present-day comprehension. Our time is credulous in respect of theories, taking the content of ideas and programms as gospel, as I have often remarked. It is reality that counts, not theories and programms. The modern follower of Marx, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, before the world-war, would of course have said: “This is what Marx teaches, Engels teaches, Lassalle teaches, and that is all one needs for salvation.” He was concerned only with the “content” of ideas and programms. In reality it is never a question of that, for ideas are never carried into life in accordance with their content, but by means of forces which are quite distinct from it. No one knows the truth unless he knows that ideas often have so little to do with reality that may arise independently of their content. A splendid programme can be devised, established on a sound scientific basis, fervently longed for as the Marxists longed for theirs, but all to no purpose. For an age as unspiritual as ours, this is playing with fire. Men believe that they are working to realize the content of their ideas, but anyone who knows how things happen in life knows that the reality is quite different. If ideas are not derived from spiritual knowledge they may enter into cultural life as sheer monstrosities—and this applies to the ideas of Marx, which are intended to banish the spirit. However find they may be, they become abortions. It is no use asking in the morning: “Why has it grown light through what has happened on the earth?” One has to turn away from abstract ideas and say: “Daylight has come because the sun is shining”. In going out beyond the Earth one sees the reason for the daylight. Similarly, if we want to understand “to-day”, we must look away from what is happening in the immediate present to what took place in a time long past. Bolshevism cannot be understood except by recognizing it as an after-the fact of the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869 A.D. You cannot understand it except as a result of the atrophy of the forces which man once had for apprehending the super-sensible world. In order really to understand the happenings of the outer world, in order to confront them, we must perceive this inner connection. For anyone observing the relations of events in history it is the most fearful thing to see how movements which set out to reform the world are concerned only with the “subject-matter” of ideas, and refuse to reckon with their reality, which exists quite independently of whether there content is beautiful or not. Suppose a child is born, a beautiful child; his mother may be charmed. Mothers are sometimes charmed, even when their children are not beautiful! He becomes a good for nothing, a ne'er-do-well, perhaps even a criminal. Is it therefore untrue to say that he was a beautiful child? Have people no right to say that he was? Does his childish beauty contradict the unforeseen things in his life? Just so there have been in many circles men with admirable ideas through which they wanted to reform the world, and these men were admired; yet the ideas became abortions! For ideas themselves are but dead things; they must be animated by being received into the vigorous life of the Spirit.

In reading modern socialistic publications one finds—if certain differences are left out of account—a great similarity between them and writings which express the standpoint of the Catholic Church, although the latter are differently expressed and deal with different realms. For instance, I recently read to you out of a certain brochure. Notice the kind of thought it expresses, it's thought-forms; compare what is said there with the rabid tendencies, whether cultured or not, which led gradually to Bolshevism; compared with the beginning of a publication byKautsky or Lenin; you'll find the same thoughts. One is the development of the other. Nowhere does one get a stronger feeling of Catholicism than in reading certain dogmatic socialist utterances. But something which Catholicism forbids—philosophizing about certain things—has become a passion, a principle: the principle of declaring that all learning comes from the bourgeoisie, and all spiritual development from class-warfare. This principle is the effect of the Catholic principle. Bolshevism may perhaps, in the form of its inception, have only a short existence: but all mankind will have to reckon long enough with what stands behind. Anyone who knows how it all hangs together would not be surprised that Bolshevism should have donned in the place where this way of thinking, in the bestial course it is followed, proceeded under cover of the Orthodox religion, so that the two streams were entirely separate.

We must fathom all these things if we want to be conscious of the necessity for approaching the spiritual life in the right way. Mystical talk about it is out of place to-day. What is needed to-day is to apply spiritual knowledge so as to look into reality and to discover the connections belonging to it; because from such knowledge alone in the correct grasp of the world's events arise; never from a past inheritance, or from fear, or from this elementary new thing I have described, which can but lead deeply into chaos. In this animalised Socialism we see displayed one result of what developed in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. It has a Luciferic element in it; the Luciferic “Original Sin” is within it. But what is now developing is the penalty for that general incapacity of human faculties for turning to the super-sensible. These faculties have become truly impotent, and hatred and rejection of the super-sensible arise in their place. There is not merely hatred and original sin, but punishment for the forsaking of the super sensible. (This applies to much that is happening today).

The impulses active in human evolution take on various nuances, and events can be understood only in this light. The peoples of the Italian and Spanish peninsulas have come under the sway of Christianity, in the course of its expansion, as well as the peoples of modern France and the British Isles. We know something of what has been unfolded amongst them. We know that on the Spanish and Italian peninsulas the Sentient-Soul has blossomed forth, on French soil the Intellectual or Mind-Soul; here in Mid-Europe the Ego; and in Eastern Europe in the same way a civilization of the Spirit-is to be looked for, to be active only in the future and at present existing in germs which are now entirely hidden. Good mankind but look at Western Europe and understand its riddles through Spiritual Science. For instance, the characteristics of Italian regions (not those of single individuals, which of course grow out everywhere beyond the common norm) develop differently from those of French or British humanity. This last is so constituted that the nature of the people has a special connection with the Consciousness-Soul. Through living in the Consciousness-Soul man is banished to the physical plane, although not so strongly in the British Isles as in America. The result is that man, caught off first from the super-sensible by ecclesiastical developments, will be led back to union with the Cosmos; but it is only to the outer Cosmos that he is led by the Consciousness-Soul. Therefore the British people, as Britons, find their union with the cosmos only through economic principles. British thought is essentially economic, framed on economic lines. Anyone who grasps the connection of the Consciousness-Soul with the physical world will see this necessity; also that the French national character (not that of individuals), having an affinity with the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, develops chiefly political thinking and feeling; while the Italian and Spanish in the same way have the sensuous side of the mind developed, because the Sentient-Soul is directly connected with the nature of the people. I can only outline this, but it gives an idea of what lies in the characters of the peoples themselves.

If we look on the German essence, developing as it has in the midst of such a tragedy, we see that the Ego dwells within it. The whole of German history becomes clear if we consider this fact, which is disclosed from the super-sensible world. The Ego of man is the principle that is least externally developed; it has remained a man's most spiritual member. Thereby the German, inasmuch as he is connected through the Ego with the spiritual world, is linked with it in the most spiritual way. He cannot achieve any connection with the cosmos economically, politically, or sensuously; he can achieve it only in so far as it manifests in the soul-life of single individuals—as the Ego invariably does—and is then poured out over the people. It comes to expression most characteristically in what may be discerned as the essence of Goethe's genius, of Herder's and Lessing's, as something detached, a state higher than the physical-sensible. Hence comes a certain estrangement from the latter realm, a feeling of not really belonging to matter, when the physical-sensible alone is in question; hence the great amount of “Americanism”, and of the elements which I prefer not to particularise, poured out over Germany during the last decades, have alienated it from the original activity destined for its national Soul.

In a yet higher way Eastern Europe will be connected with the spiritual through its national characteristics—and will develop a still higher civilization and a spiritual sense, as a reaction from what is now taking shape there. But that is a matter of the future; it is not yet in evidence and must first evolve out of the animal character in which it is still confined.

The Western countries of Europe are directly connected by a lawful inheritance, so to speak, with the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Something more recent, but opposed to “Americanism”, lies hidden in the German nature; a certain relation to the spiritual world, sought inwardly in the spiritual itself. The German Soul following its own peculiar nature, has no fear of the spiritual; rather an inclination towards it, such as is to be found, albeit in a higher form, in Goetheanism.—This is plain speaking, of course; but you know that these things are brought forward from knowledge—not from Chauvinism, nor said to please anyone here. You saw in the last lecture that I understand how not to speak flatteringly. One thing, however, must be said: within the German soul—though this is often forgotten in Middle Europe, there is a dormant relation of the human spirit to the super-sensible world which must be cultivated, and which is the exact opposite of everything else now manifesting on the earth. Could we but have recognized this, if only, alas, the last decades had not brought Americanism and Russian thoughts into this realm, how differently the impulse of science in Middle-Europe would have developed! You know for my other lectures that a science of soul and spirit might have flowed from Goetheanism—but it remained a disregarded impulse! Has it really been grasped at all? Not yet—although within its depths lies the true being of Germany, which is, as you will have gathered, a stranger to the others, for they are still to a great extent animated by the legacy of the old, as well as by the new. In Middle-Europe alone has something developed which has more or less emerged from the old and the new.

By many indications we see that Goetheanism is untouched by materialistic science. (Goethe is praised, of course, but an ex-finance Minister—Kreuzwendedich—is made President of the Goethe Society!) What exists in the true, inner element of the German nature will be experienced in other realms as a continual reproach. The easiest way to protect oneself against what by nature one cannot acknowledge, is to slander it. We must look frankly at this. Such a living reproach can be invasively described as “delinquency”. This is a subjective way of escaping from the reproach. Here we touch upon an important psychological fact. The slander will spread further and further, rooted in the uncomfortable feeling that the special relationship of this Ego to the Spiritual does exist. It is necessary, however, to see clearly in these domains, not to shun a clear view of them, as is done to-day. Had we not so much conventionalism and Americanism amongst us, we should discern that German Goetheanism and Americanism are two opposite poles, and we should know that to regard these two currents of the present day with an unprejudiced mind is the only correct attitude to maintain. We should reject all exaggerated patriotism and look facts fully in the face.

Then we should abjure the apotheosis of Americanism in which we have so long and old son, and perceive that this particular element will become more and more active is a real, deep-seeded evil, because fear of the Spiritual is its main characteristic. Those who say otherwise are short-sighted, not judging things in their real setting. Everything arising from the political attitude of the French, from the economic rigidity natural to the British, or from the elemental sensationalism—the so-called “sacred egoism”of the Italian people—all this, in view of the great events now playing their part, is but trivial compared to the especially evil element arising from Americanism.

There are three currents which through their inward relationship had the greatest power of destruction in human evolution, due to their having absorbed the inherited and the new, in different ways. First among them is what I call Americanism, which tends to produce greater and greater fear of the spirit, making the world a mere opportunity for living in the physical. It is quite different when Britain wants to make the world into a kind of commercial mart. Americanism would make it a physical dwelling equipped with all possible comfort, in which man can lead an agreeable and wealthy life. That is the political creed of Americanism, and whoever does not detect it is blind to the facts and merely shuts his eyes and ears. Man's connection with the Spiritual is bound to die out under such an influence. In these forces of Americanism lies what must actually bring the earth to an end, destruction dooming it at last to death , because the Spirit will be shut out from it.

The second destructive element is not only that of Catholicism, but all Jesuitism, which in essence is virtually allied to Americanism. If the latter is the cultivation of the impulse to build up fear of the spirit, so the former seeks to awaken the belief that one should not seek contact with the spirit, which it deems impossible; it wishes Spiritual blessings to be dispensed by those who are called into the teaching office of the Catholic Church. This influence seeks to atrophy forces in human nature which incline to the super-sensible.

The particular indications of the third stream can be seen arising in a terrible form in the East: a social state based on a purely animal, physical socialism. Without plastering it with dogmas, we call it “Bolshevism”, and it will not easily be overcome by mankind.

These are the three distinctive elements in the modern development of humanity. To bring knowledge to bear upon them, so that the events of the present day may be met in the right way, it is possible only through Spiritual Science.

You will have seen in the last lecture that efforts were directed towards presenting certain conceptions (which we can make our own out of Spiritual Science), in such a way that they can be of service to us in grasping what surrounds us, daily and hourly, in present-day civilisation. If We want to add yet another to these considerations, as a final one, it can be summed up only thus: significant characteristics of our present time have been selected and brought into connection in various ways with what has sounded forth as the keynote of these studies.

If we determine to keep in mind what seems to stand out particularly in our time, we shall find that of all the limiting and hindering factors to-day, the worst is that the mode of thought and comprehension evolved during the recent centuries leads men to have little foresight of coming events. This is shown by the fact that most events come as a surprise, in the most curious way, and it is quite impossible to gain credence for anything that is foreseen. It is considered inevitable that remarkable events should take people by surprise. Speak of what is to come, and people are astonished , or they make ironical remarks about the apparent longing for some sort of prophecy. Suppose that anyone wished to call attention to conclusions such as may result from hypotheses like those we have lately brought forward here—for instance, what now looms over the world from the Far East—he would at present encounter little understanding or belief, although the fact already throws its shadow all too clearly before it. Far too little need is felt for a clear view into things. Connected with this is man's disinclination to admit the truths which, within the only circles open to them, point to future events.

Of course there is no question here of any kind of “soothsaying”; or of any sort of prophecy in the bad sense, but always an earnest, scientific method of thought and conviction derived from Spiritual Science. If we wish to ruminate upon the causes of this trend of the present day characteristic just mentioned, we may perhaps have to go far afield for them. Man as a rule is absolutely unconscious how far the causes of the thing lie from what appears as its effects . He generally looks for the causes much too near at hand.

If we are to look for causes of what has just been described, they must be sought in a tendency deeply ingrained in the human soul at the present time—a tendency towards dead conceptions and ideas devoid of life and vigor. It should be comprehensible that to think of the future, the imminent, with the same ideas as on the past, the determined, is impossible; but at the present time, value is attached only to what, in the current phrase can be “proved” and this question of proof is tied down to the special kind of proof which is popular today. Anyone who rightly understands this kind of proof knows that it applies only to truths connected with things in the universe which are in the process of dying. Therefore the only science or knowledge desired in the present age is concerned with what is dying and perishing—especially so in the case of those who claim to be the most enlightened. They welcome only a will bent in that direction. If we are not conscious of this, we are really preferring—in the widest sense of the words—to deal only with what is passing away. We lack the courage to think in terms of growing, becoming, for what is growing refuses to be grasped with the narrow, limited conceptions capable of being “proved”, which are suitable for what is passing away. So people protect themselves against the reproaches which are really implicit in what I have just pointed out.

To speak against these things, as one must do, involves the danger of incurring the reproach of frightful fantasy, dilettantism, or perhaps even worse. Conceptions are sought which protect people from the obligation of thinking about anything fruitful, or endowed with seeds of life for the future. One idea, according to this view, must be received by those who hold themselves to be among the really intelligent leaders of thought: the idea of “the conservation of matter and energy” as understood at the present time. Quite comprehensibly, everyone is adjudged to be a duffer who does not admit this indestructibility of force and matter to be a truth underlying the whole of science. Yet it is a fact that if we sound the depths of a real view of the universe, what we call matter and force are perishable and transitory; and all science, all knowledge attainable on the subject, our investigations into the transitory. Because it is insisted that science has to be concerned with that, and that only, it is dogmatically asserted that something solid, something permanent and there must be: either matter—In spite of its being transitory—or energy. This law of the permanence of matter and energy plays a great part even for those who are not concerned to analyze it scientifically; such a part that is clothes everything with mystery. Our scientific education is such that the dregs of opinion on the subject of the conservation of matter and energy penetrate our popular literature and are treated by the ordinary reader as something obvious.

Now we know, through a cold science, of the Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth-developments. Nothing of what is now called matter and energy will pass beyond the Venus evolution. Hence the most lasting kind of matter, that which reaches Venus, will then come to an end. We have just passed the middle of our world-evolution, as we view it, and are in the fifth period of the earth-evolution, beyond the middle of that; and we are already living in the setting.: that is, in the time of devolution, in which the vanishing of matter and energy comes to pass. The right you take as we studied physics and chemistry would be this—that the knowledge acquired through these sciences bears only upon the transitory, which at latest will disappear from the universe with the Venus-stage. In the whole purview the present-day science there is nothing which deals with the permanent; because by means of the ideas and concepts that can be “proved” in a manner favored today, it is impossible to discover only what in this sense is transitory. Man moves only in the transitory.

An essential reform is necessary in our ideas concerning this most essential sphere, and those who consider themselves particularly scientific have the most to learn before they can replace their current notions with correct ones.—Now why am I saying this, seeing that the matter in its general bearing may not perhaps seem particularly important?

It really is important, because according to the concepts which men assimilate in the way I have described, other concepts are formed in conformity with which they will; they direct their will-power. From the mode of thought thus acquired are begotten social and political concepts. These latter shape themselves in accordance with the characteristic use made of such forces—a use consisting in this, that only the transitory is dealt with in such conceptions, and this habit spreads into ideas concerned with the living. This crops up in a particularly striking way as we look at the main points of the programms put forth by many who confidently regard themselves as the very last word in advanced thought. For instance, the schemes of many Socialists, very much in the public eye nowadays, all more or less adopt the theory of Karl Marx as a starting-point. This theory is the calamity of Russia two-day, because—for reasons I explained last time—what happens there according to historical premises can ensue elsewhere from Marxism. This way of looking at things is an extreme form of the determination to deal only with transitory. Anyone who familiarizes himself with the ideas of this school knows that the fanatical adherents of Marxism imagine themselves to be possessed of the ideas of the future, whereas they have only such as are directed to the transitory. This stands out naïvely in the so-called socialist view of life, for throughout it refuses admittance to ideas with a fruitful bearing on the future. It preaches the blessing of having none! The formula is repeated in many different ways:—Get rid of everything at present existing; then, of itself, without any reflection on the matter, something will result from the welter. This is unequivocally stated. But although it comes from the looks of those who have been brought up in Church doctrines for centuries and who do nothing but trace the events of the last centuries according to the Church, they must nevertheless say the following.—In truth this view refuses to entertain ideas with any germ of life in them: the only ones it admits are concerned with what is passing away; and the only effect of these ideas is to complete the process of destruction. Men believe they possess productive thoughts; that is all to no purpose unless the concepts are rooted in reality. These ideas are useless for establishing anything new; all they can accomplish is to turn destruction into an institution. This Socialism seems to me like a lady (a bygone person to-day) who cannot endure a crinoline. She hates the wide skirt and wants to alter it. But what does she do? She pads it out; so that it looks just as before, but is a stuffed out with wadding inside. Just so these Socialists: they never think of fertilizing what history has achieved with new concepts; they leave it alone—and themselves take the place of the former administrators. They hang on to the crinoline, but stuff it out. Look even at extremist views—they are simply a longing to administer what is perishing and dying out! To what is this due?

It is due to the fact that with the concepts of present-day science, concerned merely with things of the senses, based on the intellect, taking account only of material perception, all that one can encounter is the transitory, not the living. Only what is already dying can be grasped; nothing that is seed-bearing, growing. For the germinating, growing element must be grasped at least through Imagination, the first stage of higher knowledge; as described, for instance, in the book, “Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” And to attain to still higher knowledge of the “becoming”—Inspiration and Intuition must be applied. Those who approach such things with the outfit of ideas held hitherto may talk as much as they wish—they are only talking of laws which apply to what is on the way to destruction, unless they let themselves admit what super-sensible knowledge alone can reveal as the “becoming”. Things too-they are on a razor's edge. It is impossible to know anything on certain subjects, and civilization must fall into chaos if we are satisfied to live in it without admitting any vision of the spiritual.

What we need, and what is striven for through Spiritual Science, is a sort of revival of the Mysteries, in a form adapted to the modern mind. Unless we understand the meaning of the ancient mysteries, we shall not fathom the meaning of the epoch which is intermediate between them and what must come as the new form of the Mysteries. Comprehension of all this is necessary. The most startling experience for the pupils of the old Mysteries was to be shown clearly how the old atavistic, clairvoyant, hidden knowledge was doomed to extinction. This could not be grasped by observation, it had to be revealed in the Mysteries, where people were shown that something different from the old clairvoyant vision into the Spiritual World's was destined to become man's possession. There it was disclosed to the pupils of the Mysteries that this old capacity of the human soul, this vision of cosmic expanses in Imaginations, was dedicated to death. This was made them somewhat in the following way.—What can be perceived by physical senses on earth is not the content of the genuine Mysteries of the earth-existence; this is revealed only when the human soul ascends in the clairvoyant contemplation to Mysteries of the cosmos, of the super-earthly, and the cosmic events beyond the sphere of earth, unfold before it.—The ancient seers grasped all that, but not what happened on earth. The pupils of the tapestries were shown depth knowledge of that type, ascending into the Cosmos, would no longer be possible; and still more was disclosed to those who were to penetrate into the Christ-Mystery.

Something like this conception came to them: “Although the old seers did not speak of ‘the Christ,’ their inspirations came from the world in which Christ always was, for He is a Cosmic Being. He dwells in everything Cosmic and universal, in the whole content of man's old atavistic clairvoyant vision; but from the time when the Mystery of Golgotha is due to be enacted, all this will be no longer accessible to mankind in the old way.”

What happened? The Christ descended from the world of the cosmos to the earth. Because the cosmos was no longer accessible to men as in ancient times, because Christ was no longer to be found in the old way, because the kind of knowledge and state of soul with which men had formerly looked at the world was dying out, but Christ had to come down to them. He came to the earth. Everything, therefore, which enlightened spirits had ever known of the spiritual world in ancient times through the pagan tapestries and through pagan Mystery-knowledge, was summed up in the Christ, and could be beheld in Him. The one all-important thing was to recognize the Cosmic Being, Who in Christ descended to the earth from the cosmos. That was one point.

The other was this. Remember that through the intellect and of the senses only the transitory can be observed in all the array of systems, whether of nature, of social structures or of civilizations, and that transitory knowledge will endure no farther than the Venus-existence. But learned men, believing that their ideas point to the future, are very often immersed in what is passing away. And what the senses perceive and the intellect grasps there is no seed of the future; all of it is doomed to perish. If the only knowledge were concerned with that, there would be nothing but knowledge of death; because the actuality which surrounds us is itself doomed to death. Where shall we find the “enduring”? Where is the imperishable which shall outlast this existence, apparently permanent but doomed to die? While Adamson forces, to which materialistic superstition attributes permanence, betray their impermanence and fall to ruin, where is the imperishable to be found?

In man alone! Amongst all the beings, animals, plants, minerals, air, water, and everything that perishes, there is but one thing which will outlast the Earth-evolution and the evolution to follow it—that which lives in man himself. Man alone on earth bears within him an enduring element. One cannot speak of the permanence of atoms, matter, force, but only of the permanence of something in Man. This, however, can be seen only through Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. All else, perceived by our vision, is fleeting. The material, the physical, is entirely transient; the super-sensible, which outlives it, can be perceived only by super-sensible vision. In man, as he treads the earth, lies all that will be saved out of the entire Earth-existence. If we asked: “Where is the germ of something which will continue to grow on after the Earth, Jupiter, and Venus developments—from the present civilization into the future?” The answer must be: “In nothing external on earth; only in man”. In the part of his being accessible only to super-sensible knowledge, man is the cradle of the seed for the future. Only someone who is willing to include the super-sensible in his view is able to speak correctly of the future; otherwise he must err. Thus the Christ, dissenting from worlds becoming more and more inaccessible to human knowledge, had to unite Himself with Mankind—to take up His abode in Jesus of Nazareth and become Christ-Jesus, so that in a human body there might dwell that which bears within it the future of the Earth-development. So we have in Christ the Cosmic Being, that Cosmic Being whom ancient knowledge alone could grasp directly; and in the Jesus to whom the Christ came, we have what henceforth bears within it, in human will alone, the seed for the future. He cannot be comprehended purely as “Christ”, nor as “Jesus”. To speak of the “Christ” only, is not to comprehend Him; for the “Christ” of—for example—the old Docetics (a certain sect of Gnostics) belongs to the old atavistic clairvoyance and can no longer be laid hold of. And “Jesus” cannot be understood without taking into account the Christ Who drew into him. Unless we give due weight to this fact of the Christ in Jesus, we cannot grasp that only through the human seed on earth can the cosmic be saved for the future.

To understand how far Christ-Jesus is this double Being is a great task; but at the same time many have taken pains to create obstacles to such an understanding. In modern times it has been a question of inducing forgetfulness of indwelling of Christ in Jesus by all sorts of means. On one hand there is the extreme theological teaching which only and always speaks of “the simple man of Nazareth”, the man of physical nature, not of that Man who has in himself the seed for the future. Further, there is the Society founded to combat the Christ, and with that came to set up a false picture of Jesus: the Jesuit Society, which virtually aims at testing out the Christ-concept from the Christ-Jesus concept, and to install Jesus alone as an absolute ruler of developing humanity. We must see the connection of all this, for the different impulses here pointed out work and present-day life more than is supposed, and very intensely. Without open eyes and a longing to understand the concrete events around one, it is impossible not to be taken by surprise by what happens; a clearer view of such things as I have mentioned will be lacking. Our own time is in many respects too indolent to wish to achieve clarity; the concepts of Spiritual Science are too hard to compass, and are stigmatized status dilettante, unscientific, fantastic and the like. They are condemned for the reason, I have mentioned, because of the determination to take no account of what is really significant for the future.

Thus we see around us to-day this dreary waste in the midst of the chaos into which the old religious creeds and currents of thought have led. Within this chaos, which people with curious supposed to call “war” (a work which has ceased to be applicable for a long time now), we see an array of lifeless, barren thoughts and ideas, because fertile ones can come only from comprehension of the super-sensible, the spiritual. Man two-day has to choose between cultivating the vanishing, the dying, ending by becoming a pupil of Lenin—it's taking into account the super-sensible, wherein abides what has to come in the future. I am not referring simply to the London works his mischief now in Eastern Europe—I taken more as a symbol, for we have many such Lenins around us and the whole environment of our daily life, in one domain or another. Yet the world refuses to take in hand anything except what is dying.

Remember something I once pointed out here, ‘the plant lives,’ I said; it can be described as a living being. But what does ordinary science describe as the plant? Not what lives in it, for that of super-sensible; but the dead, literal part of it, which “fills out” the living element. We find nothing else described by modern science but the mineral filling of the living being, which brings death to it. Genuinely fruitful concepts regarding nature are consequently unattainable to-day. The concepts of present-day botany have no life. All that they describe as something filled out with a stony mineral substance, which circulates inside. That can be described equally well in the animal and in man. All three kingdoms become entirely different as soon as one gets away from this circulating mineral substance.

For instance, a certain Herr Uexküll has written an article on “The Controversy about the Animal Soul”. He is possessed by masochistic savagery as regards all knowledge of the soul, or anything that suggests it. I said “masochistic savagery” because in this article he writes: “It is impossible to decide whether a soul exists or not: all that can be decided is that science can settle nothing on the subject”—an ordinary savage kills; but anyone who is masochistically savage, like this Herr von Uexküll, only “probes” the dead and makes sneering remarks. That is thoroughly typical of modern science; but it is not noticed, because nobody wants to admit it. People refuse to breakthrough the dividing wall between themselves and their environment; hence they cannot reach the ideas they really need in order to learn once more how to understand their environment.

We know from spiritual science that the essential being of man, the kernel of his life, descends from the spiritual worlds, and unites itself with what surrounds him as a bodily-material chief between birth and death, or rather between conception and death. The problems of conception, of birth, of embryology, are investigated to-day; but they cannot be truly investigated, because the research is directed only to the dead part of man, which is embedded in the living. This path will never lead to a grasp of what alone can make the human being understandable. When Man the Suns in this way from the spiritual world, he is “received” by father and mother, and goes through all the stages of his embryonic development. Science two-day assumes that the parents give the child existence; and since father and mother are the center of the family, and the family is the foundation of the community, therefore the communities, which are extended families, consider men as their own property. Thus a galling idea is brought into modern life—but it is not really true.

What, then, does the act of conception bestow upon man? What does he gain? A Spiritual Science shows, what he receives is the possibility of becoming a mortal being—of dying. You will see, if you think of what is to be found in my various books, that it is the necessary consequence. With conception there is implanted in man what makes his death possible here on earth. The whole of life from birth is a development towards death, and the seed of death is implanted at conception. What man is as “man”, as a living being, is not by any means engendered at conception; but the possibility of death is thereby grafted onto what would otherwise be immortal. Parents are called to give death of a child! That is the paradox—they give it a opportunity of bearing a mortal body on earth. What lives in that body comes from the spiritual world. This is what makes the organism—the whole mechanism with which man is clothed and which was received by him with seed of death at conception—capable of life. We must learn to recognize man in his most concrete embodiment as a part of spiritual world-development. Then we shall learn not to stand before the loftiest problems with cowardly fear, past present-day science does, but to grasp them positively. If we shrink back from them, we shall fail to understand even our immediate environment.

Round about us to-day, live the most varied peoples. Just think of the incorrect ideas, for example, created by Woodrow Wilson out of his conception of nations and the peoples—a theme with which you are familiar. We must be quite clear that we cannot understand this conception of the people unless we take in the whole of earth-evolution. Whence comes, then, a division of humanity into “peoples”? We know from Spiritual Science of evolution proceeded through a Saturn-embodiment of the Earth, then the Sun-embodiment, with the ancient Moon following that, and then the present Earth-condition; afterwards will come a Jupiter-embodiment, and so forth. The course of evolution, however, was not so straightforward that the old Saturn-body simply changed into Sun, Moon, Earth; at one time a severance of the present Sun from the Earth took place, then a severance of the present Moon, so that we have a continuous evolution, and something which was cut off reunited, and once again severed. A connection with what I have just called “Cosmic Evolution” this severance plates part in the old clairvoyance. And for the old clairvoyance the human seed the future remained “chthonic”, as it was called in the old clairvoyance is, quite unconscious. For what comes from the universe was destined to decay; it was maintained only because it had come under the grip of the Luciferic power. In this way, out of the cosmos reform the many variations in the nations and peoples, but the cosmic forces were impregnated with Luciferic forces. Over against these diverse peoples stand something which was understood in a better time than this—universal humanity. It has a totally different origin. It may be discussed in the abstract, but can be truly spoken of only as one genuinely understands what the seed of the future in humanity is . It has no taint of Nation or peoples; for it is that which did not come down from the Cosmos but which the Christ came to find, and with which He indicted Himself. Christ, unlike the Jehovah-Deity, United Himself with no nation but with universal humanity. He was in the confraternity of those Gods from whom the nations took their rise, but He left that realm when it was ready to pass away; He came to earth and took up His abode in humanity at large. When we say, “Not I but Christ in us”, it is the greatest blasphemy against Christ-Jesus to invoke Him for any need other than that of universal humanity.

A grasp of this fact belongs to the most momentous concepts for the future. We must perceive the connection of Christ Jesus with humanity, and also how everything purely national lies outside the realm of Christ-Jesus, for it is the ancient remains of what was right for extinction at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Yet, as we see withered fruit in the orchards, so do all things linger on after their right time. So we were bound to get the science which is concerned only with knowledge of what is on the way to extinction, and which—whether it be natural science or social science—deals and ideas that apply only to the transient, in nature or in cultural life. Often in the history of civilization one can see the conflict between the tendency to cling to what is passing away, and to present as important the dead, abstract ideas connected with it, and the wish to grasp that germinal essence of humanity which alone is pregnant of the future. I have often referred to the significant conversation between Goethe and Schiller when both were in Jena for a conference of a natural history society, at which Batsch the botanist had lectured on plants. As they left, Schiller said to Goethe, “The botanist's outlook dismembers everything; it ignores the connecting links”. Goethe, in a few descriptive sentences, put before Schiller his “Metamorphosis” of plants, but the latter said, “That is not an experience more observation—it is an idea.” To which Goethe answered “Then I see my ideas with my very eyes.” What he had been describing was visible to him, as real as a thing perceptible by physical senses. They confronted one another—Schiller, representative of the mind unable to look up to the spiritual, bemused by dead, abstract ideas; and Goethe, who wished to derive from knowledge of nature what is imperishable, vital for the future, the imperishable in humanity, of which all that is transient is merely an image. He wanted to unite the transient with its archetype, the real. He was not understood, for he looked on the super-sensible, the imperishable, as though it were perceptible to the senses. Thus the urgent need of our time is that Goethe's teaching should be more widely developed and further elaborated in its own sphere. Then things will become clearer, and we shall see that the particular creeds, whether Jewish, or more particularly the Catholic, are only the presuppositions of what is old and outworn, standing out in evolution as parched remnants, supported only from outside; and that side-by-side with these, interpenetrating them, stands Americanism, which wishes to carry the transient into the future. Therein lies the kinship between Americanism and Jesuitism, of which I spoke last time.

Standing in opposition to all this is Goetheanism. By this I do not mean anything dogmatically fixed, for we have to use names for things which far transcend them. By “Goetheanism” I do not mean what Goethe brought up to 1832, but what will perhaps be thought in the next millennium in the spirit of Goethe; which may develop out of Goethe's views, concepts and sentiments. It may be concluded, therefore, that in everything connected with Goetheanism, outworn beliefs sees its particular any. The most extreme paradoxes are to be found in this sphere. It really is a paradox to find that the cleverest book about Goethe whatever may be said to the contrary—has been written by Jesuit, Father Baumgarten. No details concerning him is neglected. The usual distinguishing mark of Jesuit work on the subject is hostility to Goethe: but this is a highly intelligent, painstaking book, not superficially written. Yet it has happened to Goethe to be portrayed as an ordinary citizen of the 18th century, born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, who studied at Leipzig, was given a post in Weimar, traveled in Italy, live to be old, was incorrectly called it on both came good to “Johann Wolfgang Goethe;” this was how he was described in the work of a distinguished English Gentleman, Lewes—which was much admired. A book headed “Johann Wolfgang Goethe,” describing him as an ordinary 18th-century citizen, is no real book. A cultural paradox lies in the Jesuit's book on Goethe for the trend of opposing forces in modern times can be seen in it, and where the real ones are to be found.

A small way it shows itself amongst us. So long as we were reckoned a “hidden sect”, Anthroposophy was seldom attacked; but when it began to spread a little, virulent attacks began, especially from the Jesuits; and the Journal, “Voices from Maria Leach”, now called “Voices of the Time”, is not content with one article, but contains a whole series about what I've called Anthroposophy. I must warn you, again and again, attacks come from this side, not to believe that from the point of view of these writers, it is for our good when they say that we “speak of the Christ”, or that we “promote understanding of Christ”. They forbid that everything; it is exactly what must not be done; outside the doctrines of the Church, there must be no assertion about the Christ! No-one in our circles need be so naïve as to believe that by being a good Christian, he can propitiate the Church. Just because he is a good Christian, and does all in his power to advance Christianity, he arrays Catholicism against him as a supreme enemy. It becomes more and more necessary to take care that naïveté in these contemporary matters should disappear from amongst us. We must more and more firmly determined to realize what is active in the forces around us, whether they be in the ascendant or are declining. We must get beyond the longing, present among us in so many forms, simply to penetrate a little way into an imaginative world. I have often said that we must above all be able to place our Spiritual Science alongside modern concepts, and bring keen observation to bear on life as it is in the present age; because to gain true insight into this is possible only from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

How many people come to me and say, “I have seen this or that”. Well they may well have done so. Imaginations are not so very distant. “Was that the Guardian of the Threshold?” many then ask. A simple yes and no does not answer questions on such matters, because the answers involve the whole of human development. But the answers are given. I am now correcting my Occult Science, for a new edition. I see that in it may be found everything necessary for the answering of such questions. Every precaution, every limitation to be observed is exactly described; the feelings to be developed, the experiences to be undergone, are all set forth. To elaborate the whole content of Spiritual Science would have required 30 volumes. This one must be read carefully, drawing the necessary conclusions—and it can be done. I do not like writing thick books. But read attentively and it will be found that this book indicates clearly that he endeavors to enter the super-sensible world strides towards meeting the Guardian of the Threshold; but the meeting is not so simple a matter as to have a dreamlike imagination. The latter, of course, is the easiest method of entering that world. The meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold is fraught with tragedy; it is a vital conflict as regards all intellectual concepts and laws, all man's connections with this virtual world and with Ahriman and Lucifer. This life-and-death struggle must be endured by him who would meet the Guardian of the Threshold. Should this experience come to a man merely as a dreamlike imagination, it means that, he wants to slip through comfortably, so as to have a dream out of the Guardian of the Threshold as a substitute—nowadays people are fond of substitutes the commission!—for the real thing.

We must think healthily on the subjects; and it will then become evident that healthy thinking can alone provide the basis of a remedy against all superstition, and against all the charges made by superficial opponents of Spiritual Science. Moreover, in this kind of thinking, in this raising oneself to experience on the spiritual, lie all the necessary seeds for finding the real way out of the present world-catastrophe.

The layout must be grasped—not in the realm of the earth and senses, not in institutions which are mismanaged and sucking the life out of what exists. The thing to be grasped does not exist! We must be stirred with burning zeal for the top attention of what does not yet exist!

This non-existent thing can be grasped only according to the pattern given by super-sensible knowledge. It cannot be grasped by looking into the past. Such men as Kautsky prefer to look back into the past, finding and “Anthropology” the ground-plan of mankind. They tried to study conditions at a time when man was hardly yet created in order to understand the social connections of to-day. These two sons of a misconceived Catholicism, such as Kautsky, want to have it so. But one cannot look back to the past, because in the past, those things which have extended into the very latest present, were created by means of atavistic forces, instinctively. In the future, nothing more will be achieved “instinctively”, and if man holds only to the products of ages of instinct, he will never attain to what bears the future within it, and can lead out of this catastrophe. An active, earnest understanding of the present depends entirely upon a right attitude to the spiritual world.

I should have to say much if, continuing in this strain, I were to speak to you about many things closely related to this present time. Yet if, in the weeks while we are separated, you will bring rightly be for your souls what has been said in these lectures, and which should culminate in realizing the necessity for knowledge of the twofold figure of Christ Jesus, you will go far this summer in meditative comprehension of the cosmic Christ and the earthly Jesus; remembering that the cosmic Christ descended from the spiritual worlds because these worlds were henceforth to be closed to man's view, and that man must apprehend what lies within him as the seed of the future. In the cosmic Christ and the earthly human Jesus and their union, lies much of the solution of the riddle of the world—at least of the riddle of humanity. In man lies the seed of future; but it must be fructified by Jesus. If it is not so fructified, it will assume an Ahrimanic form, and the earth will end in chaos. In short, in connection with the Mystery of Christ-Jesus we can find a solution of many, many questions to-day; that we must endeavor so to seek these solutions as not to be lightly contented with what is so often taken for “Theosophy” or “Mysticism”or the like—a “Union with a spiritual”, and “entire absorption in the all”—We must really visualize the true conditions surrounding us, and try to permit them with what we gain from Spiritual Science. We shall then say to ourselves over and over again, with regard to the answers to many questions: truly man today is seeking for something very practical, not merely theoretical; he will find himself in a blind alley in which he can go no further, if he does not go with the spirit. Everything which does not go forward with the spirit will wither away.

This is a weighty question for the future of mankind. Has man the will to journey with the spirit? I would fain impress this on your hearts today as the feeling which can arise from the reflections we have pursued.

Probably we are meeting to-day for the last time in this room, which we used so gladly for years as a place for our studies. It was one of the first to be arranged in keeping with our own taste, and one can only work according to the opportunities that exist. We fitted it up as we did because we were always convinced that endeavors on behalf of spiritual Science ought not to be mere theory but should be expressed in everything wherein we meet as human beings. The room is now to be taken from us and we must look for another. Obviously, under present conditions, we shall not be able to fit it up as we did this room, but we must be content with it. This room has become dear to us, for we have come to regard it as impossible to speak elsewhere of our relations with the spiritual as we can in this place, where in many ways we have tried to do the same things that are being attempted in Dornach on a larger scale. In times gone by we had to try all sorts of arrangements. Perhaps there are still a few here who were present when we had to speak in a beer-shop; I stood there, facing the audience, while behind me the landlord or landlady filled beer-mugs. Another time we were in a room like a stable: we had booked another, but that was all they gave us. In other towns I have lectured in places with no boards on the floor, and that too had to be put up with; it is not exactly what could be wished for as an outcome of our movement, and it would be a misunderstanding if it were said that we would just as soon speak of spiritual things in any surroundings. The spirit's task is to penetrate into matter, and to permeate it completely. That is the sense in which I have been speaking of social and scientific life to-day.

For all these reasons it will certainly be very hard part in a few weeks from this room, which was fitted up so devotedly with the help of our anthroposophical friends; but we must look upon such a parting in the right way, as a symbol. People will be obliged to part from much in the course of the next few decades. They will be taken by surprise, although they do not believe it. One thing will be deeply rooted in those who have grasped the deepest impulse of Spiritual Science. Whatever may be spoken, this cannot be shaken, and that is what we have grasped in the spirit, and what we have determined to do and accomplish in the spirit. No matter how chaotic everything looks, that will show itself to be the right thing.

So many leaving this place is symbol for us. We must move into another, but we carried away with us something of which we know that it is not simply our own deepest inner being, at the deepest inner being of the world, of which man must build if he would build a right. He who stands within Virtual Science is convinced that no one can take away, either from us or from humanity, what we have accomplished through it, and that it must lead to human affairs to a healthy condition ; this he knows, to this he clings. We may not as yet be able to say how we shall accomplish many things; but we may be sure that we shall accomplish them rightfully if we steep ourselves in the knowledge of what Goetheanism signifies for Spiritual Science, and if on the other hand we accept what has recently been mentioned here—that's the world stigmatizes and defames all that is connected with Mid-European civilization of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and that we, bringing all this before our souls, can nevertheless take our stand on our sure convictions: whatever happens, this Mid-European culture will be fruitful for the future of mankind, which indeed depends upon it. To save their own faces, because they have no wish for this feature of mankind, the opponents of this particular culture defame it; but let us grasp it in the spirit, recognize its inner spiritual content, knowing that we can build upon it. Then we shall be sure that though all devilish powers vow its destruction, yet it will not be destroyed! But only that can escape destruction which is united with the genuine spirit!