The Rudolf Steiner Archive

We have often emphasized that the worldview based on the Science of the Spirit must not remain just something abstract or conceptual, or something that we present as our worldview only in solemn moments of our lives to satisfy our inner spiritual needs. Rather, our worldview must be something that deeply intervenes in our life and being, in our work from morning to night. This will become very clear to us if we focus our attention on what is always around us, namely the relationships and connections that spiritual beings and the spiritual world in general have with us and our lives.

The physiognomy of the external life will only become clear to a human being, after he looked into that which out of the spiritual world brings about this physiognomy of existence. Not until we know a human being’s soul, will we begin to understand him fully by his physiognomy. We will then know how to interpret his gaze and explain his facial expressions. Likewise, the external world in its large and small manifestations will become understandable once we get to know its spiritual foundations. We are already able to make a lot clear to ourselves when we follow life at every turn and observe it with an eye sharpened by the Science of the Spirit.

Recently, an aperçu came to my mind that I would like to use as an introduction simply to get us in the mood for today’s contemplation. I have often drawn your attention to¹ how strangely in the destiny of the world, in its historical karma, things are interconnected in European culture. I have pointed out to you how in the Nordic mystery world, the mystery world of Druids and of the Trots, a certain tragic streak prevailed during teaching. In the old pre-Christian mystery world, the disciples who were initiated into high spiritual wisdom, high spiritual science, were also always made aware of something. It was pointed out to them that the view of the spiritual world conveyed to them, namely in Northern and North-western Europe, would receive a special illumination through a future event. Prophetically, the later appearance of Christ was alluded to. The whole of European culture becomes understandable to us when we follow the strange threads of how Christianity entwined and interwove itself into the remnants of the ancient Nordic beliefs about the spirit world. And sometimes small external facts really seem to be symptoms even though they are more than symptoms. They are real evidence of what is happening inside. Thus, one following these fine threads unravels for himself the physiognomy of external events.

During one of my last lecture journeys,² it stood quite vividly before my soul, how in the areas of the North, in Sweden and Norway, the after-effects of the ancient Nordic spirit world can still be perceived in detail. It seems one can perceive how these effects are playing into a spiritual view of all that we encountered. And then one feels something very special, when right in the middle of these echoes of the ancient world of the Nordic gods, something manifests itself that points to strange karmic historical connections. Right in the midst of the echoes of this ancient Nordic spirit world, an impressive picture presents itself.

On reaching Uppsala, one is, so to speak, right in the middle of the things that further remind one of the ancient Nordic mystery world. Right there you come across the first Germanic translation of the bible of Ulfilas,³ that wonderful document about the penetration of Christianity into the European world. Even if we do not go into specific karmic connections, we will feel something of karmic relations when we remember that this document was first in Prague, then was captured during the Swedish war and brought to this place by strange circumstances. It seems to us as if this first translation of the Bible into Germanic is a living monument to the penetration of Christianity into the ancient Nordic spirit world.

When one truly perceives the things that one encounters also as an outer expression of inner spiritual facts then all becomes explainable from the inner perspective and everything comes to life. Thus, today we want to place before our soul and examine some of the many things that show us external events and external facts as a consequence, a physiognomic expression, of inner spiritual natures and occurrences of such spiritual beings and events.

When we survey the life of man, it becomes obvious right away that in today’s world, where materialistic thinking is prevalent, only connections that are well visible from the outside are studied and noted. One will call something harmful when the harm it causes is clearly visible to the eyes. Something is called useful when its utility is obvious.

It will become especially clear to us that spiritual facts play out in between the sensual events of life, so to speak, in between our sensual bodies that are connected with human life, if we first consider certain deeds of beings who exert influence on our world. Of course, these beings cannot be naturally perceived by man’s physical senses but are deeply significant for the entire human life.

We can take a closer look at only one kind of such beings, although there are many. The space that surrounds us is not only filled with air, but with a great variety of spiritual beings. There are those that we call elemental beings. The majority of them can be characterised by something that they do not possess, but rather by what actually makes a human being a human being, namely a feeling of moral responsibility. They cannot have this. They are organised in such a way that they cannot be held responsible in a moral sense. Don’t think that at least some of those beings who go and in out of our bodies, at least a certain kind of them, have no intellect, are not intelligent. Many of them are very smart beings—beings which are hardly inferior to man in terms of cleverness and intellect. Let us first take a look at such beings who are found in the higher worlds, but who have a certain relationship with man himself, which has its effects in life. This is what we want to examine.

We begin with the assumption that a person really lives in two distinct states. Within the duration of twenty-four hours, a typical modern man transitions from the awake state of day to the state of sleep at night. We know from earlier observations that during the day a human being is in a regular way composed of four bodily members—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. During the night, when someone falls asleep, the physical and the etheric body remain lying in bed, whilst the astral body and the I lift themselves out. We have also learnt, that these four members of the human body find their expression in the physical body. We know that the I finds expression in the blood. The blood in its movements is nothing but the material revelation of the I. Likewise, the nervous system is the material revelation of the astral body, and the glands are those of the etheric body. The physical body has its own revelation, so to speak. If you keep that in mind, then you can understand that this human nervous system in the physical body is designed just so that it can only exist when it is permeated by the astral body. This is so because the astral body is its creator and maintainer. It is organising the nervous system that is dependent on it. The nervous system can only live under the influence of the astral body. Similarly, closely connected are the blood and the I. Just imagine what happens when you, disdainfully, leave your physical body each night. You leave the nervous system behind in the physical body but take with you the astral body, that is its nurturer. You leave behind to its own devices, what the astral body should take care of. Likewise, your I steps out and leaves the blood to its own devices. That is what the human being does each night. He leaves his physical body, or rather the nervous- and blood-systems, to their own devices. However, these could not survive, if they had to depend solely on themselves. Because of the way they are, they must in the human form be permeated by an astral body, just as the blood must be permeated by something that is equivalent to the I.

What you do not do yourself, namely, to supply your nervous system, other beings have to do. Therefore, you will see that in the same moment in which the astral body and the I are pulling themselves out of the physical and etheric bodies, higher beings from higher realms are moving in. They sink their astrality into the nervous system and supply the nerves and the blood. Those that descend from the higher realms each night take possession of the physical body when the human being disdainfully leaves it behind. So, we can say that astral substantialities that create the physical and etheric bodies, who are participants in their creation, take care of these bodies again when the human being leaves them. Hereby they find the bodies different from the way they were originally delivered to the human beings. Man lived in it with his astral body and his I and has worked in it. Now the spiritual beings from higher cosmic regions find effects in it that do not correspond to their higher spirituality at all. Effects that are the aftermath of what the human being did during the day in his physical body, instigated by his astrality and his I.

Of course, the materialistic approach knows only roughly the basics. But when we consider the mysterious facts of the spiritual world, we will find that there exist also quite different effects that influence the physical body. One cannot have a single thought, feeling, or emotion without it affecting the physical body.

Although an anatomist cannot prove this, every feeling and every emotional state causes a certain change in the structure of the physical body, and this is what is then discovered by those beings who descend into the human being.

Of special relevance are the effects on the physical body caused by all those things a human being has within his soul of lies, slander, and hypocrisy. The materialistic view is that lies, slander, and hypocrisy are only as harmful as can be observed from the outside. But this is not correct. In reality, very delicate effects are exerted on the physical body, however, these effects cannot even be perceived microscopically. Later, when the soul leaves the body during sleep, the effects remain in the physical body and are found by the higher beings. These consider not only those soul experiences that are, in the gross sense, called lies, slander, and hypocrisy, but also, for example, the subtle, conventional lies that are required by today’s social order. Lies spoken out of politeness or custom, and the whole gamut that can be listed starting with insincerity, hypocrisy, and petty slander even if only in thought, all this expresses itself in effects on the physical body and is found by those descending beings. And as all of this is at night within the physical body something special is brought about.

Through this, pieces are always torn off from the substance of those beings that are descending into the body. Through this, certain pieces of the higher beings must excise themselves. The consequence of lies, hypocrisy, and slander during the day is the excision of certain beings during the night, that are through this somehow related to the physical human body. These beings thus acquire an independent existence in the spiritual world that surrounds us; they are beings that we class as phantoms. Phantoms are spiritual entities that look like physiognomic expressions, in a certain way they are replicas of human limbs and form. They are of such subtle materiality that the physical eye cannot see them, yet they have, so to say, a physical form. The clairvoyant sees parts of human heads, human hands, whole figures flying through the air. Yes, he sees the entrails of human bodies buzzing around, the stomach, the heart, all the phantoms that were set free by excision because of what humans have done to their physical bodies, as the result of lies, hypocrisy, and slander.

Such phantoms that consistently buzz through our spiritual space are proof to you that human life itself is the cause of beings that now, in a not at all particularly advantageous way, influence human beings. Although in some ways they possess certain intelligent characteristics, they do not have any moral accountability. They eke out their existence by placing obstacles in the way of man, obstacles that are much bigger than those we call bacteria. Something else is also happening. Important pathogenic agents can be found in such beings because phantoms, who have been created through people, will find in bacilli and bacteria a very good opportunity in support of their existence—a source of food. They would more or less dry up in their spiritual existence, if this nourishment wasn’t there. But in a sense, these bacteria are in turn created by them. Because the phantoms exist in the physical world, they can be serving a purpose. Through mysterious causes, that which is in some way needed is also available.

Thus, through lies, slander, and hypocrisy man creates an army of spiritual entities of the category of phantoms.

Something similar happens to the etheric body that man leaves behind at night. This has also been organised for life so that it can only exist as a human etheric body when it is permeated by higher beings. When its own astrality is outside, the higher beings dive into the etheric body also. This has to be remembered! Then it becomes comprehensible that effects in the etheric body, caused by certain processes of our soul-life, remain during the night and bring about the excision of beings, according to the etheric body pattern, from what sinks into the etheric body. The soul processes that lead to such entities, are processes caused in human society through what we call “bad laws” or “wrong rules.” Much of the lawful effect of injustice that a man’s soul experiences in dealing with others, impacts the soul in such a way that the after-effects remain in the etheric body at night and lead to the excision of beings that we call ghosts. This is the second kind of beings that man creates.

Then we have to consider that this issue also exists vice versa.

What stepped out of the body at night, the astral body, is organised in such a way that it depends on being present within the nervous system. When it is not within it, then it is not in its proper place. Then he astral body also must be supported from the higher worlds. Higher protective spirits must unite with it. From these higher spirits as well, something can be excised through human soul activity and peculiar soul processes. This occurs through the effect on human nature of what we could call “giving incorrect advice.” For example, this effect happens when someone forces wrong advice on another, or forms insufficiently justified prejudices, or persuades someone and treats his soul in such a way that does not allow him to agree freely, by pushing him, so to say, forcibly to a conviction that one is fanatically devoted to oneself.

When such influences are exerted from one person to another, an effect remains in the astral body during the night, which leads to the higher beings excising certain entities that belong to the category of demons. t. These will be created, in the way described above, because the people do not meet with an attitude that could be expressed as follows, “I want to tell the other person what I think. If he agrees, that is his business!”

Hundreds of demons are created at the gaming table at gatherings, in Germany called Herrenabende (Gentlemen’s evenings), and at afternoon tea, where really rarely an attitude can be found that is based on inner tolerance. Instead, an attitude prevails where an individual thinks, “If you do not want to share my opinion, then you are stupid.” This type of communication from soul to soul is demon-generating to the highest degree.

Thus spiritual beings really spring from human life. They animate the spiritual world, and all these beings, phantoms, ghosts, and demons in turn affect man. If in our surroundings one or another prejudice spreads epidemically or this or that silly fashion spreads, then this is the work of the demons that were created by human beings and are now obstructing the straight line of progress. Man is always encircled and swarmed by the beings he has created.

Thus, we see how man impedes his own progress due to his ability to create in the spiritual world. We must become conscious of the fact that everything we think, feel, or perceive emotionally has a more significant effect in the wider context than what would happen if we shot a bullet. The latter might be bad, but it is only assumed to be more dangerous than the former because man can see it with his gross senses, while he does not observe the other effects.

This is a part of the spiritual life that the human being unfolds himself, as it were. Another part, how someone participates in the interactions with the spiritual world, might become clear to us from certain human cultural activities that, however, are also not merely as they appear to the external senses. To understand this, you have to keep in mind that there are still other beings besides humans.

We can say that the human being presents himself like this. He has a physical body as the lowest member of his being. There are beings who really exist, who in their present stage of development do not possess such gross physical bodies, but for whom the lowest member of their being is an etheric body. Man can draw such beings to his sphere on the basis of his activity, more than would happen if he wasn’t active. Indeed, part of the development of culture consists of attempting to establish contact with these beings, whose lowest member is an etheric body. Such contact is facilitated by man creating, in a particular way, physical corporealities that can be used by those beings to literally latch on to them, to extend themselves through them. In this way, connecting bridges to those beings are built. Imagine that the flower basket on this lectern was a corporeality shaped just like certain forms of the etheric body of those just mentioned higher beings. They would then have a tendency to settle there, play around the flower basket, and connect themselves with it.

We would see how this basket is an incentive for spiritual beings to lower themselves down into it, hug it lovingly, and feel good about being able to descend in this way into the community of human beings. We only need to create suitable forms and then we are able to create bridges between ourselves and these beings. People have always done this at certain times in this or in another way. In the Greek cultural period, human beings actually had to a high degree the ability to establish communication with those spiritual entities they called their gods. These Greek gods are not a fiction of folk fantasy, but these Greek gods are true beings, they exist and have to be regarded as such beings—this Zeus, this Pallas Athene, and so on, whose lowest bodily member is the etheric body.

And how did the Greeks draw the gods into their sphere? The Greeks achieved this by acquiring to a high degree what could be called an architectonic spatial awareness. A person who studies space from the perspective of Spiritual Science knows that space is not the abstract emptiness our modern mathematicians, our physicists, and mechanics dream about, but something very distinct. Space is something that has in itself lines to here and there, lines in all directions. There are strength lines from top to bottom, right to left, front to back, straight and round, and in all directions. There are pressure and pull effects of a spiritual nature in a room. In short, one can feel the space and can permeate it instinctively. I have often used the example that someone who has spatial awareness knows why certain old masters could paint three angels floating in space so wonderfully lifelike; he perceived that these three angels, like three globes, support each other in space by their gravitational pull.

If this is told to an untrained man, he will conclude that they would have to fall down. He cannot comprehend that they are supporting and holding each other up. Such mutually supportive dynamic measurements are those of which the ancient people became aware of, who still had a living feeling of the ancient clairvoyance that was present. For example, it is completely different when looking in this context,at a picture by Boecklin.⁴ In contrast to his usual excellence, against which there is nothing to be said, you will find there, if you have retained the living sense of space, this strange figure of an angel of which you have the feeling that it must fall down at any moment.

In more recent times, the living sense of space has been lost.

The Greeks possessed this sense of space as an architectonical thought associated with the art of building. A Greek temple is a crystallised spatial thought in the truest sense of the word. The column that carries what is horizontally or obliquely lying on it is not something invented but something that, for someone who possesses a spatial feeling, already lies within the room and must not be any different at all. The whole temple is born from the concrete space. This is what someone who can see the lines of the room perceives. He doesn’t need to do anything more than to fit the stone material where he sees the lines, and simply fill with physical material what is already perfectly outlined. In a Greek temple, the spirituality of the room is completely transformed into a visible form. By creating the crystallised spatial thought in this way, forms were made so that spiritual beings whose etheric body is their lowest member could descend into the closed room thus created and find in its forms an opportunity to dwell there.

Therefore, it is not a mere fantasy but the full truth, the real truth, that the Greek temple was the home of the god. Yes, the god dwelled in it. Through the forms of the room, he dwelled in it. It is the peculiarity of the Greek temple that the invisible god descends and takes possession of the forms. You can imagine a Greek temple without people. Far and wide, no people can be seen. Completely abandoned by people could this site be and yet the temple would not be deserted! The god dwells in it! This is what is characteristic about the Greek temple, but it does not apply to the Gothic dome. It is something completely different, if you imagine a Gothic dome without people and that the dome was empty. Then it is not a whole. The Greek temple is complete without people. The Gothic dome is only complete when it holds the community within and when to the pointed arch the folded hands are added, when thoughts and feelings are uniting with the architectonic forms. If you imagine these away, then the Gothic dome is incomplete. This is how it is different from a Greek temple. It is a different architectonic thought, born out of the spiritual space in a magnificent way, but without people it is incomplete. And then again, when it is spiritually populated, when it is filled with the faithful community, then spiritual beings of the kind described are able to descend into it. Thus, each architectonic thought is quite concretely designed for something specific.

Also, the Egyptian pyramid is constructed in such a way that the soul that leaves the body can take the path that is mapped out within the inner passages of the pyramid. The passage of the soul out of the body into the spiritual world is expressed there. The thought expressed in a Romanesque building is one of a grave. A Romanesque church without a crypt, if it cannot be imagined as a vault that curves above corpses, is incomplete. This is part of it. Through this the church is born out of the thought of the resurrected Saviour. It is the worshipful building for the grave of Jesus Christ.

So you can see that the human being builds a bridge from the physical to the spiritual world through the forms he creates. It may be hardly comforting to learn that humans create an army of spiritual beings that impede their development. But to learn that they are also able to pave a way for themselves that leads upwards to higher spiritual beings, by placing such architectonic forms into the world, might be somewhat consolatory.

This is no less the case with other works of the fine arts. It is the same with works of sculpture or painting. Through their forms they offer an opportunity to those beings who are able to adapt their etheric shapes to what is being fashioned and wrap these forms around themselves. They tend to lean more on the outside of the works of sculptors. They surround these sculptural artworks, while architectural works are more filled in. With paintings we reach another kind of beings, beings whose lowest bodily member consists of very fine etheric material. Someone who understands this knows that the astral-etheric beings feel at home where a painter with his colour harmony, gives them, in his line-forms, an opportunity to enter from the spiritual world into ours.

Then there are spiritual beings whose astral body is their lowest bodily member and who consist of even subtler substances.

These beings find in music an opportunity to share the company of people who express themselves in the arts of moving forms. A room filled with the sounds of music is an opportunity for those spiritual beings who have an astral body as their lowest member to descend. Thus, the filling of a room with musical sounds is definitely something by which man can establish interactions between himself and other spiritual beings. Just as the human being attracts through high, remarkable music, so to speak, good beings into his circle, it is also true that repulsive music attracts bad astral beings into man’s sphere of influence. You would not be very edified if I were to describe to you the horrible astral beings that dance around when the orchestra plays at some modern musical performances. These things need to be taken seriously.

We have now seen how our visible world and an invisible world of spiritual beings behind it are interacting.

In addition, the spiritual worlds express themselves in many other species of living entities. For example, where the different realms of nature touch each other, we find there is an inducement for spiritual beings to appear. We can point to elemental beings, which make life even more understandable to us.

An inducement for the manifestation of certain beings is given where metal lies and overlaps next to the ordinary realm of the Earth. Wherever this realm of the Earth is penetrated by metal veins, there can be found very smart elemental beings who use their cleverness to play pranks on humans. Sometimes, however, they are acting in a beneficial way. We call them gnomes. Beings of the gnome species can be found in the interior of the Earth. They huddle in certain places provided the ground is firm. There might be hundreds of them together. But if a vein is exposed, they scatter apart. Then everything lives and teems with those figures who before were crouching together.

As said, this is the case where earth touches metal. At a spring—where the plant kingdom touches the mineral realm, where something mossy entwines the stones fraternally, where things come together in a peculiar way that normally do not belong together—there you find beings that we call undines and nymphs who also are real beings.

And finally, we find elemental beings where the spiritual and the physical interact. When the animal kingdom and the plant realm meet in such a way that initially the beings are distant from each other and later touch, for example when a bee sucks at a flower, an unfolding of taste is happening in the space where the bee and flower are together. A taste effect exists when the bee absorbs the juice of a flower. This effect is perceptible to a spiritual researcher in that he sees something like an aura manifesting around the crown of the flower which is the expression of the savouring process. All of this is an inducement for the beings we call sylphs to manifest. They have a special task in the life of bees, as they do not only appear when a bee sucks on a flower, but also the sylphs show the way when bees are swarming. They are the leaders of the bees.

The following illustrates how the Science of the Spirit will one day become useful. The beekeepers’ wisdom emerged from clairvoyance. What is done in beekeeping,⁵ such as instinctive grips of the hand, has been inherited from ancient times. In the old days, there would still have existed a dim clairvoyance that allowed the beekeepers to use the astuteness of the sylphs for the organisation of the bees’ lives. Modern beekeeping doesn’t know anything about this anymore. That’s why it does many things wrong with its innovations. Modern science lacks the necessary insights. Human beings will be able to shape the nature processes in which they themselves participate much more productively when they are conscious of and knowledgeable about the workings of spiritual beings. One who looks at life in this area will see that, in relation to beekeeping science, what is good stems from the old times, while modern natural scientists partly produce ghastly stuff that is not applicable at all and leads people astray. Most beekeepers are led by sure instincts and luckily do not follow modern science. For example, even what exists as a theory about the fertilisation process, which plays an important role, is wrong and cannot persist in the face of the insights that penetrate reality.

Another inducement for the emergence of such species of elemental beings is created by man, for example, by living together with the animal kingdom like an Arab with his horse or like a shepherd with his herd of sheep, and not like someone in a sports club.

The soul effect between a shepherd and his flock is similar to the interactions between bee and flower, and therefore the feelings between the shepherd and the flock are an inducement for quite special beings, namely salamanders, to emerge. They are beings of a fine substantiality. They are very smart and very wise, even if they do not possess moral accountability. Their wisdom finds expression in what they whisper to one another of the shepherd’s wisdom. It is not stupidity that is attributed to the shepherds. They are not impostors. But it contains much of what is whispered to the shepherds by those who have come into being as a result of the shepherds living together with their flocks.

For those who want to study this, the opportunity will not be available for much longer as such things are dying out. But until recently such studies could still be done quite properly, if one found selfless people⁶ in the countryside who still knew a lot about the principles of health and healing. They knew very important things. Paracelsus⁷ was able to say that he had learnt more by keeping company with such people than he had learnt at all universities. This was not without a reason. Thus, we can see that there is still such an area in our surroundings where spiritual beings exist who enter into our sphere in a peculiar way. One must not ask where these beings come from. The world has in its shoals all sorts of spiritual beings. It is only a matter of an opportunity to bring them somehow to the right place. Although the following comparison is not beautiful, it is correct: In a clean room there are no flies. But if the house is badly managed, if all sorts of leftovers are lying around, flies will soon appear. It is the same in the invisible world that surrounds us—as long as a human being does not create the opportunity, spiritual beings are not there at all. But if we provide an opportunity, they will always be there. Then they step into our sphere. Then they begin to interact with us.

This is something that shows us how the outlook of a person can broaden beyond the physiognomy of the outer world.

The spiritual beings work into our world in the same way as the soul creates its countenance. A period of time will come for human beings when people by necessity will depend on their knowledge of the spiritual world to shape their lives. Nowadays, man can only tackle the world roughly through his senses. But we will see how we will again advance to a time where the human being will act out of the spirit. We will advance to a time where our whole environment is seen as an expression of the spirit, even if this era will at first not be like those ancient eras of the Gothic domes or the Greek temples.

However, in our time of technology and utility it already is possible for more to happen than does happen today. Human beings have lost the ability to feel, perceive, and experience spirits, and thus have also lost the yearning to express spiritual forms externally. But if people again felt the spiritual, then this could be expressed anew even in our utility buildings. Hereby it steps in front of my soul what I have once experienced as a young man. The builder of the Vienna Votive Church, Prof Ferstel,⁸ gave an inaugural address about building styles and said, “Building styles are not invented. Building styles are born out of the whole culture of the times.” This can be proven by studying the building style of the Egyptian pyramids in the context of the whole spiritual life of that former time. In our time, the only thought that is expressed is the materialistic utility thought. Our time cannot have a building style similar to the Gothic or Greek one. This is something that Anthroposophists should pay attention to.

Out of the spiritual life of the Anthroposophical movement,⁹ a cultural ocean must be created out of which forms will crystallise again into a new building style.¹⁰ An expression of humanity is only possible where a common spiritual culture exists. The one really new style of our time is the building style of the warehouse. It is possible that people who later look back at an earlier time will characterise eras by their building styles. The medieval time can be characterised solely on the basis of the Gothic domes. One could leave all other documents out of consideration but would still be able to extrapolate the nature of the mid-Middle Ages just from the Gothic domes. Likewise, this is so with the time between the 19^th and 20^th century. This can now later be sketched from the style of the warehouse. The warehouse corresponds completely to the materialistic utility thought. This thought shows itself in the warehouse exactly in the same way as the spirit that lived in Tauler¹¹ or Eckhart¹² found expression in the Gothic dome.

Even in our time, it is possible to work stylistically in a different way. Our cultural resources are such capable formative forces, that they could have a much greater educational effect on the soul life of man than they do today. For example, today we have the era of the railways, but there is not yet a building style for railway stations. This is because man does not feel what happens when the train arrives and departs. He does not feel that what happens when the train tracks can be expressed externally. The arriving and departing locomotives which must drive into the buildings can find their expression in their hollow forms.

Hopefully, once mankind masters air travel, it will be ready to connect the thought of the departure with the departure place, so that one feels that only an airplane can take off from a place shaped that way. In everything, the spiritual life can find expression in form. Only when we feel that we are surrounded everywhere by expressions of the soul, like it used to be in the Middle Ages, then the right thing is achieved. This can only happen when culture permeates human life that proceeds from the perspective of the Science of the Spirit. Spiritual Science is not impractical. It is precisely something that must permeate the culture of the world and capture it. It does not consist of abstract thoughts, but it must flow into all cultural streams according to the intention of those who have brought it to life. It must reveal itself in everything. We should permeate everything with the thoughts that the Science of the Spirit offers us.

There is one other thought that we should place in front of our soul, namely the thought that can give us a certain awareness of how the impulses of Spiritual Science must work to become what they are destined to be.

It is good, especially when we are concluding a winter season and depart from each other, that we take along such refreshment of feelings and mind, and let some of this stream into our hearts and carry this out into the world and always feel like members of the global stream of Spiritual Science. It may be that today still many outside cannot know anything about the Science of the Spirit. Just look at our small meetings, and then look at everything that is done outside—nothing is known; nothing is felt of the essence of Spiritual Science.

When something like this is placed in front of our souls, then only one other picture may emerge, a picture to strengthen soul and heart. It is the picture that appears when we look at the very earliest Christian times and see what was setting the tone then, what existed as culture in the time of the old imperial Rome.

Let us visualise what life was like in that ancient imperial Rome. Picture how the ruling circles set up floor after floor for themselves, while at the same time a small heap of people were banished to live down below in the vaulted cellars. How barrels with incense had to be placed so that the stench which oozed from the corpses, from the decaying corpses of those pursued and killed from the ranks of this small heap, would not be noticed so much. Let us follow how the wild beasts jumped out of the kennels and tore apart those who were thrown to them from the rank of this small heap. Let us descend from the palaces of the rulers of imperial Rome into the passages where the first Christians lived, to where just this small heap dwelled. Where they erected their first altars over the bones of their dead ones. Where invisible to the leading imperial Rome, they unfolded their culture. They did this invisibly like the today’s followers of a new spiritual realisation who meet invisibly, spiritually invisible to the official leading culture! Let us follow those down below, who were not even allowed to show themselves to the light of day. How thousands of them were buried there. Hidden were those who were implanting underneath the surface of the Earth a new spiritual culture into humanity. While up above, imperial Rome acted as is well known. Then let us look at the situation a few centuries later. What the then ruling imperial Rome has brought forth has been blown away, has been swept away. And what remained is that which had to eke out its existence in the lower vaults, hidden from the eyes of the rulers. That is what has remained.

This is how cultures originate in the darkness of concealment. Thus, they form and then step out of the darkness. We can take this consciousness into our feeling, that the movement of the Science of the Spirit is really called to be something similar to the first Christian movement. May it lead an underground existence at first, and may those in the worlds above ground have quite different thoughts. No matter how much they still think of themselves as the authorities, in a few centuries things will be different.

Then the Anthroposophist will have the feeling that he will carry upwards into the light that which today works underground; that he will carry the Spiritual Science thinking like the first Christians carried their culture out of the catacombs. Such a consciousness gives us the power and the possibility to absorb spiritual knowledge into our soul life. We want to depart in such a mood, to once again come together in such feelings. We do not want to deal with abstractions, but with something that can become the “nerve” of our life. Thus, we want to pour into our souls what we hear from the higher worlds. We want to arm ourselves with strength and remember a little that the Spiritual Science thinking must have grown so close to our hearts that, even if we are separated for a while, we are together in spirit. And this feeling shall lead us together again.

• 1. GA 103, Lecture 8, The Gospel of John, 27 May 1908
• 2. In March and April 1908 with lectures in Lund, Malmoe, Stockholm, Uppsala, Kristiana (Oslo), Göteborg and Copenhagen. No transcripts are available of these lectures.
• 3. Ulfilas, 331-383, Gothic bishop, translated the bible into Gothic. The translation is partly preserved in the Argent Codex in Uppsala, the largest fragment, and in further parts in Wolfenbüttel, Milano, Rome and Torino, in total 117 of the original 333 sheets. The scripture is the oldest known Germanic book, written on purple coloured vellum in gold and silver lettering. It was discovered in the 16th Century in the Abbey Werden/Ruhr. From there it got to Prague and became the property of Emperor Rudolf II. In 1648 it was carried off to Sweden, then to the Netherlands, where it was purchased by the Swedish Chancellor Graf de la Gardie and gifted to the University of Uppsala
• 4. Arnold Böcklin, Swiss painter, 1827-1901. Until 1945 his painting Pietà was in the National Museum of Berlin and has since gone missing.
• 5. Compare; Rudolf Steiner, GA 351, Cosmic Workings in Earth and Man, On Beekeeping
• 6. Refer to GA 28 The Story of my Life, Chapter 3, about becoming acquainted with a simple man from among the people.
• 7. The quotation reads; “At the higher schools the Medicus does not learn and gain knowledge of all that he should be able to do and know, but from time to time he has to go to school to old women, gypsies, black artists, country travellers, old farmers and the like more unremarkable people and learn from them.” in “Philos, occulta II” after R Julius Hartmann “Theophrast von Hohenheim”, Stuttgart and Berlin 1904, page 30.
• 8. Heinrich von Ferstel, 1828-1883, Professor for Building Art in Vienna. The quoted sentence “Building styles are not being invented” is part of the following speech excerpt;
  
  “The greatest error of our century lay in the belief that it was possible, through personal willpower, intense effort of individuals, or even through administrative regulations, to reshape or establish the artistic expression of a people, that can only be the result of all external circumstances and influences. Architecture fell under the spell of an oppressive load of aberrations through which the conviction finally came to the fore that building styles cannot be invented at all...., thus likewise art can be developed only following the natural processes of all becoming and emerging. ... Architects are only the priests of that heavenly daughter, who embeds her ideas in stone with immortal script.” (Quoted from, “Speeches held at the occasion of the solemn inauguration of the elected Rector for the study year 1880/81, of the k.k. Technical University in Vienna, Heinrich Freiherr von Ferstel, o. oe. Professor of Building Art, on 9 October 1880.” Vienna, o.J. Speech of the newly starting Rector Heinrich, Freiherr v. Ferstel, page 39 f.)
• 9. In the postscript it says; “...out of the spiritual life of the Theosophical Society.” In the first publication of the lecture, in the News Bulletin No. 30-35/1936, this was changed to read “Anthroposophical Society”. This wording was likewise used for the first book edition. As in the year 1908 an Anthroposophical Society did not yet exist, the editors of the current (1996) edition have changed the respective wording to read “Anthroposophical movement”.
• 10. On 20 September 1913, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) laid the foundation stone for the building of the Goetheanum in Dornach/Solothurn. The Goetheanum was then erected as an artistic wooden building based on Steiner’s new, spiritually appropriate forms. In the New Year’s night 1922/23 the Goetheanum fell victim to the flames due to arson. By now a new building in concrete, and in forms that correspond to this material, has been erected as a second Goetheanum on the same spot, based on a sculptured model by Rudolf Steiner. Refer “Ways to a new building style”, GA 286.
• 11. Johann Tauler, around 1300-1361, Dominican and German mystic.
• 12. Meister Eckhart, around 1260-1327, Dominican and German mystic.

The meeting today is an occasion that demands an introduction to our studies. It is the day known in the Theosophical Movement¹ as White Lotus Day, commemorating the yearly anniversary of the day on which Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of the present Theosophical Movement, left the physical plane. It will need very little effort to touch a chord in every soul present here today in order to evoke feelings of admiration, veneration and gratitude towards the individuality who came to the Earth in Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and inspired men to turn their minds again to the ancient, holy Mysteries whence all the forces and impulses needed for man's spiritual development have proceeded. By devoting herself to what she clearly realised to be the task of the modern age, H. P. Blavatsky was able to present in a popular form what was accessible to her of the Mystery wisdom, a form which differed from that in which Mystery wisdom has, through secret channels, influenced men's activities and endeavours. The significance of the modern age lies in the fact, that what was formerly accessible only to the few, must be given in a form comprehensible to wider circles. And to have acted, as she did at first, in accordance with this trend in the modern age—this was the mission of Madame Blavatsky. Thus, she turned the minds of men to something which has, in truth, always been held sacred by those who had knowledge of it. To indicate that this is so we will begin with the recitation of a poem by a thinker known to the so-called educated public—or rather known only as a dry, abstract thinker and as an architect of systems of remote philosophical ideas. But that what this thinker seems to give only in the form of crystalline ideas were the product of intense warmth of feeling, and that ideas alone were not the only expressions of the dictates of his heart—this he shows us in a poem addressed to the holy Mysteries.

Hegel—one can call him ‘the thinker of Europe’—who has become so ‘well known’ to modern scholars that in the libraries one can still find many uncut volumes of his—has left us a poem written from the very fibres of his heart. I mean the poem ‘Eleusis’, dedicated to Hölderlin, which will now be recited by Fräulein von Sivers. With the recitation of this poem we will pay our tribute to the genii of H. P. Blavatsky.

ELEUSIS

To Hölderlin

Rest all about me and within me rest,
The ever-grinding cares of busied men
Asleep at last! To me they proffer
Repose and liberty. My thanks to thee,
Dear freedom-bringer, Night! Now the moon veils
The uncertain outline of the distant hills
With gauzes of white mist. The clear line of the lake
Looks kindly on me.
The long-drawn-out loud noises of the day
Seem years and years away.
Thy image steals, beloved Friend, upon me
With joys from byegone days, with longings
That soon give way to sweeter hopes
Of future meeting. Fancy paints
The ardent, the long-hungered-for embrace,
The questions asked and answered;
Intimate probings whether time has changed
His mien, his look, his feelings—then the joy
Of certainty, finding the pact maintained
Firmer and riper now than then,
That ancient pact no oath had bound us to
To live for freedom and for truth alone,
Never and never to make peace
With the laws that rule sensations and beliefs!
Now the mood that bore me lightly over hills and dales to thee
Compounds with dull reality.
Ah, but a tell-tale sigh betrays their discord,
And with it flies away my fancy's happy dream
I look up to the eternal vault of heaven,
To thee, thou gleaming star of night!
Oblivion of all wishes and all hopes
Comes streaming down from thine eternity.
Reflection dies away in contemplation.
All that I labelled ‘mine’ is here no more.
I yield myself up to the Infinite,
I am within it, am naught else, am All.
Thought, soon returning, feels estranged,
Trembles before the Limitless; amazed, it cannot grasp
Such depths of contemplation.
Imagination links eternity
To sense. Ye lofty Shades, Spirits sublime,
Welcome! Ye from whose brows Perfection shines,
Ye fright me not. I feel: This also is my home,
This radiance austere that wraps you round.
Ha! Might the portals of thy Temple part,
O Ceres, erstwhile in Eleusis throned!
Drunken with ardour, now I feel
The terror of thy coming,
Even as thy Revelations dawn on me—
Then would I tell the sense sublime
Of figured images, would hear and understand
The hymns sung at a banquet of the Gods. Alas, thy halls are silent, Holy One!
Fled is the choir of Gods into Olympus,
Bare their polluted altars;
Fled from the grave of unenlightened Man
The genius of spotless magic that was here.
The wisdom of thy priests is dumb, no echo from their hallowed rites
Hath been preserved to us. In vain it quests,
The scholar's prying itch, without the love
Of wisdom. So possessed, they still despise thee.
Somewhat they hope to gain by grubbing after words,
Words that thy giant Meanings once informed -
In vain! They only turn up dust and ashes
And never never find therein thy life renewed.
What if in that disanimated trash
They found some pleasure? The complacent ghouls
Mistook: no vestige, not a trace remained
Of sacraments and images once thine.
Sons of initiation felt that high
Doctrine ineffable too full, too deep
To be bestowed in shrivelled vocables.
The soul touched by Eternity,
Immersed beyond the bounds of space and time,
By thought now unconfined forgets itself,
Then back to consciousness once more
Awakes. Who seeks to speak of this at all
To others feels, had he the tongues of angels,
The poverty of words—is horrified
To find the Sacred dwarfed by thoughts as small
As words will hold. His lips are sealed
Fearful before the sin of utterance.
What the adept forbade himself, wise laws
Enjoined on weaker minds: not to divulge
Aught that they saw, heard, felt throughout that holy night,
Lest the devotion of some better spirit
Be mischiefed by its noise; their pack of words
Might foster wrath with the Divine itself,
Were that so trodden in the mire
As even to be memorised, become
A toy, a Sophist's article on sale
For any shopper's obol,
Clothes for a fluent phraseman, even a task
Imposed on careless schoolboys—till at last
'Twere left an empty thing, its living root
Only an echo heard through foreign tongues.
Oh never, Goddess, did thy sons with greed
Bandy thy Honour in the market place,
Rather were fain to guard it well
Within the arcane sanctum of the breast.
Therefore, not on their lips, but in their lives
Thou lived'st. In their deeds thou livest yet.
This night I too discerned thee, Holy One.
Often thy children by their life reveal thee.
I scent thee as the Soul within their deeds!
Thou art the exalted mind, the constant faith
Which, still, though ruin reign, betrays not the Divine.

I feel in full accord with the individuality of H. P. Blavatsky if, especially on this day, a few words of plain truth are spoken about here. It was characteristic of her that when she was fully herself, she desired, above everything else, to be true. Therefore we can best honour her when we direct our grateful thoughts to her and speak a few words of unvarnished truth.

In her being as a whole, in her individuality, H. P. Blavatsky revealed what inner strength, what a powerful impulse was inherent in the spiritual Movement we call the Theosophical Movement. To substantiate this, I need refer only to the first of H. P. Blavatsky's more important works, Isis Unveiled. This book must give to an ordinary reader the impression of a veritably chaotic, bewildering hotchpotch. A reader who is aware of the existence of an age-old wisdom, guarded through the ages in the Mysteries and protected from profane eyes, and who knows that this wisdom has not been acquired by any external human effort but has been harboured in secret societies, such a reader too finds in the book much that is chaotic—but he finds something else as well. He finds a work that, for the first time, presents to the secular world, courageously and daringly, certain secrets of the Mysteries. One who understands these things finds what an infinite amount has been corectly interpreted—an achievement that would have been possible only by Initiates. Nevertheless, the impression of chaos remains and can be explained by the following reasoned consideration. The outer personality of H. P. Blavatsky, to the extent to which she was incarnated in her physical body, with her intellect, also with her personal characteristics, her sympathies and antipathies, shows us by the very way in which Isis Unveiled is written, that she could not possibly have produced out of her own personality, out of her own soul, what she had to give to the world. She communicates things that she herself was quite incapable of understanding, and if one follows this line of thought further it proves clearly that higher, spiritual Individualities used the body and personality of H. P. Blavatsky in order to communicate what, in accordance with the need of the times, had to be inculcated into humanity. Indeed, the impossibility of attributing to her what she has given is in itself living proof of the fact that those Individualities who are connected with the Theosophical Movement, the ‘Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings,’ found an instrument in H. P. Blavatsky. Those who see clearly in such matters know that the knowledge did not originate in her but that it flowed through her from lofty spiritual Individualities. Naturally, today is not the appropriate time to speak about these matters in detail.

Now the question might arise—and it often does—why did those lofty Individualities choose Madame Blavatsky as their instrument? They did so because in spite of everything she was the most suitable. Why did the choice not fall upon one of the learned specialists dealing with the science of Comparative Religion? We need think only of the greatest, most highly respected authority on oriental religions, the renowned Max Müller, and his own pronouncements will tell us why he could not have proclaimed what had to be communicated through the human instrument of Madame Blavatsky. When the religious systems of the East and the expositions of them through Madame Blavatsky became known, Müller said: ‘If, somewhere in the street, a pig is seen and is grunting, that is not considered very remarkable, but if a human being walks along the street grunting like a pig, that is considered remarkable indeed.’—The implication is that one who is not prepared to distort the religious systems of the East in the style of Max Müller is like a man who grunts like a pig. In any case the comparison does not seem to me very logical, for why should one be astonished when a pig grunts; but if a human being grunts, that would be a feat of which by no means everyone is capable. The comparison is rather lame, but that it could be made at all shows clearly enough that Max Müller was not the right personality.

So, the choice had to fall upon a person of no particular intellectual eminence—a situation which naturally had many disadvantages. Thus, Madame Blavatsky brought all the sympathy and antipathy of her extremely passionate nature into the great message. She had a strong antipathy to the world. conception which springs from the Old and the New Testaments, a strong antipathy to Judaism and Christianity. But to apprehend the ancient wisdom of humanity in its pure, primal form one condition is indispensable, namely to face the revelations from the higher worlds in a state of perfect mental and emotional balance. Antipathy and sympathy form a kind of fog before the inner eye. Thus, it came about that Madame Blavatsky's perception became more and more enveloped in a kind of fog, and her mind remained clear only for so-called purely Aryan traditions. Here she looked into spiritual depths with great clarity but became one-sided as a result and so it came about that in her second great work The Secret Doctrine, the early Aryan religion was presented in a biased form. To look for anything about the mystery of Sinai or of Golgotha in Blavatsky's writings would, because of this antipathy, be useless. Hence, she was led to Powers who with great forcefulness and clarity, could impart all non-Christian wisdom. This is revealed in the wonderful ‘Stanzas of Dzyan’ which Madame Blavatsky has quoted in The Secret Doctrine. But this diverted her from the path of Initiation in the physical world that was indicated, although only in a fragmentary way, in Isis Unveiled. But bound as she was by a one-sided Initiation, Madame Blavatsky could present in The Secret Doctrine only the aspect of spiritual knowledge that was inspired by the non-Christian world-conception. Thus, The Secret Doctrine is a book containing the greatest revelations of this order which humanity was able to receive at the time. It contains themes which can also be found in other writings, namely the so-called letters of the ‘Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings.’² There again some of the greatest wisdom given to mankind is to be found. But there are other sections of The Secret Doctrine, for instance those dealing in great detail with the Quantum theory. Anyone who, out of true understanding, includes the stanzas of Dzyan and the Letters of the Masters among the highest revelations vouchsafed to humanity, gains the impression from the extensive sections dealing with the Quantum theory that they were the work of a person suffering from a mania for writing down whatever came into his head and being incapable of laying down his pen. Then there are other sections where a deeply rooted passionate nature discourses on scientific topics without reliable knowledge of the subject. Thus, The Secret Doctrine is a weird mixture of themes, some of which should be eliminated, while others contain the highest wisdom. This becomes comprehensible when we consider what was said by one of H. P. Blavatsky's friends who had deep insight into her character. He said: Madame Blavatsky was really a threefold phenomenon. Firstly, she was a dumpy, plain woman with an illogical mind and a passionate nature, always losing her temper; to be sure, she was good-natured, affectionate and compassionate but she was certainly not what one calls a gifted woman. Secondly, when the great truths became articulate through her, she was the pupil of the great Masters: then her facial expression and her gestures changed, she became a different person and the spiritual worlds spoke through her. Finally, there was a third, a regal figure, awe-inspiring, supreme, in those rare moments when the Masters themselves spoke through her.

Lovers of truth will always carefully distinguish in Madame Blavatsky's works what is essential and what is not. To her who is in our thoughts today, no greater service could be rendered than to look at her in the light of truth; no greater service could be done to her than to lead the Theosophical Movement in the light of truth.

Naturally, the Theosophical Movement had at first to follow an individual course; but it has become a matter of great importance that another stream should flow into the Movement. It has become necessary to add to the Theosophical Movement the stream which since the thirteenth century has been flowing from occult sources—sources to which Madame Blavatsky had no access.

So today we are doing full justice to the aims of the Theosophical Movement not only by recognising the religious creeds and world-conceptions of the East, but by adding to them those that came to expression in the revelations of Sinai and in the Mystery of Golgotha. And perhaps today it may be permissible to ask whether the scope of the Theosophical Movement as a whole calls for the addition of what in the nature of things could not be given at the beginning, or whether specialisation of an extremely questionable kind should by means of doctrine or dogma be given out as truth? I for my part say unreservedly that I know how great a wrong we should be doing to the spirit of H. P. Blavatsky now in the spiritual world, if the latter course were taken. I know that it is not opposing but acting in harmony with that spirit if we do what it wants today, namely, to add to the Theosophical Movement what that spirit was unable to give while in the earthly body. And I know that not only am I not speaking against Madame Blavatsky but in complete harmony with her when I say to you: the one thing I wish for is that our Western conception of the world shall come to its own in this Theosophical Movement. In recent years knowledge and truths of many different kinds have become available. Now let us assume that in fifty years' time everything would have to be corrected, that of our spiritual edifice, as we picture it today, not one stone is left upon another, that in fifty years' time occult investigation would have to rectify everything fundamentally, then my comment would have to be this: May be! But one thing will remain of our aims here, and that it should remain is the object of the main endeavour of our Western Theosophical Movement. It is that it may truly be said that there was once a Theosophical Movement whose one ideal in the field of occultism was to establish only that which springs from the purest, utterly unsullied sense of truth. Our aim is that one day this may be said of us. Things still in doubt are better left unsaid than to deviate in any way from a course for which a pure sense of truth can take full responsibility before all the spiritual Powers.

From this, however, something else follows. Someone might feel called upon to ask: Why do you reject this or that? Our answer is: although others may have a different idea of tolerance, our conception of it is that we feel obliged to protect mankind from what could not hold its own before the forum of pure truth. Although our work may be misrepresented, we shall stand firm and try to fulfil our task by rejecting whatever must be rejected if we are to serve our purpose. Therefore, when anything conflicts with our sense of truth, we reject it, but only then. We obey no other reasons or sentiments. Nor will we indulge in trite phrases about equal rights of opinion, brotherhood, and so on, knowing that the love of men for one another can bear fruit only if it is sincere and true. It is fitting, particularly on this day of commemoration, that this will to be inspired by the purest sense of truth should be expressed.

Since new knowledge has been gained in the way I have indicated, much that can help to explain mysteries of the universe has come to light. Nothing is ever said to discriminate between the great cultures or religious movements of the human race. Has it not been said many times when considering the first post-Atlantean epoch with the spiritual culture inspired by the holy Rishis, that there we have something that is spiritually more sublime than anything that has followed it. Neither should we ever think of belittling Buddhism; on the contrary, we emphasise its merits, knowing that it has given humanity benefits such as Christianity will be able to achieve only in the future. What is of immense importance, however, is that again and again we point to the difference that distinguishes Oriental culture from Western culture.

Oriental culture speaks only of individualities who in the course of evolution have passed through several incarnations. For instance, it speaks of the Bodhisattvas and describes them as individualities who pass through their human development more quickly than is usual. Thus, Oriental culture is concerned only with what, as individuality, passes from incarnation to incarnation until in a certain incarnation such a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha. When a Bodhisattva has become a Buddha—which he can do only on Earth—he has advanced so far that he need not descend again into a body of flesh. And so, the further back we go, the more do we find interest focused primarily on the individuality and less on the single incarnation. What is really in mind when speaking of the Buddha is not so much the historical Buddha, the Suddhodana Prince, but rather a degree of attainment, a rank which other Bodhisattvas also attain in the course of their successive lives.

In the West, however, it is different. We have lived through an epoch of culture which has nothing to say about the individuality who passes from life to life, but values only the single personality. We speak of Socrates, Plato, Caesar, Goethe, Spinoza, Fichte, Raphael, Michelangelo, and think of them only in the one incarnation. We do not speak of the individuality who goes from incarnation to incarnation, but we speak of the personality. We speak of one Socrates, one Plato, one Goethe and so on, we speak only of a single life in which the individuality has found expression. Western culture was destined to stress the importance of the single personality, to bring it to vigorous, characteristic maturity, and to disregard the individuality passing from life to life. But the time has come when we must again learn gradually to recognise how the eternal individuality passes through the several single personalities. Now we find that mankind is striving to apprehend what it is that lives on from personality to personality. That will fire the imagination and illumine the souls of men with a new light of understanding. This can be illustrated by a particular example.

We turn our eyes to a figure such as the Prophet Elijah. First of all, we think of the Prophet himself. But the essential significance of this Prophet is the fact that in a certain way he prepared for the Mystery of Golgotha; He indicated that the Jahve impulse is something that can be understood and grasped only in the ego. He was not able to reveal the full significance of the human ‘I’ for as regards ego-consciousness he represents a half-way stage between the Moses-idea of Jehovah and the Christian Christ-idea. Thus, the prophet Elijah is revealed to us as a mighty herald, an advance messenger of the Christ-Impulse, of what came to pass through the Mystery of Golgotha. We see him as a great and mighty figure.

Now let us turn to another. The West is accustomed to think of him as a single personality. I refer to John the Baptist. The West sees him confined within his personality. But we ourselves learn to know him as the herald of Christ Himself; we follow his life as the forerunner of Christ, as the man who first uttered the words: ‘Change the disposition of your souls for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ He indicated the impulse that was to come through Golgotha; that divinity can be found within the human ego, that the Christ-Ego is to enter more and more deeply into the human ego, and that this impulse is near at hand. Now, through Spiritual Science, we learn the truth that is also indicated in the Bible, namely that the same Individuality who had lived in the prophet Elijah, lived in John the Baptist. He who as Elijah heralded the Christ was reincarnated as John the Baptist, again heralding the Christ in the way appropriate for his time. For us these two figures are now united. Eastern culture proceeds in a different way, concentrating on individualities and neglecting the single personality.

Passing on now to the Middle Ages we find that extraordinary figure who was born—as if to give an outward indication of his special connection with the spiritual world—on Good Friday in the year 1483 and died in early manhood at the age of thirty-seven, a phenomenal influence through his gifts to humanity. I am speaking of Raphael. He was born on a Good Friday as if to show that he is connected with the event commemorated on Good Friday. What, in the light of Spiritual Science, can the West experience through the figure of Raphael? If we study this figure in the light of Spiritual Science, we shall discover that Raphael accomplished more for the spreading of Christianity, for the penetration of an interconfessional Christianity into the hearts of men than all the theological interpreters, than all the cardinals and popes of his time. Before the eyes of Raphael's soul there may have risen a picture of the scene described in the Acts of the Apostles.³ One stands up before the Athenians and says: Ye men of Athens worship the gods ignorantly, with external signs. But there is that God whom one can learn to know, the God who lives and weaves in everything that has life. That God is the Christ who suffered death and has arisen, thereby giving man the impulse leading to resurrection. Some did not listen, others thought it strange. In Raphael's soul this event came to expression in the painting now hanging in the Vatican, incorrectly named ‘The School of Athens.’ In reality it depicts the figure of Paul teaching the Athenians the fundamental principles of Christianity. In this picture Raphael has given something that seems like a heralding of the Christianity that transcends denominations. The profound meaning of this picture has not yet dawned upon men.

Of the other pictures of Raphael, it must be said that whereas nothing has remained of what cardinals and popes did for humanly at that time, Raphael's work is only today becoming a vital force. How little Raphael was understood in recent times is shown by the fact that Goethe, when visiting Dresden, did not admire the Sistine Madonna, having heard from the official at the Museum—and he was only expressing the general opinion of the day—that there was something commonplace about the facial expression of the Child Jesus, that the two Angels at the bottom of the picture could only have been added by some dauber, that the Madonna herself could not be the work of Raphael, but must have been painted over. If we look through the whole of eighteenth-century literature, we shall find hardly anything about Raphael; even Voltaire does not mention him.

And today? Today, whether Protestants or Catholics or anything else, people are inwardly moved by Raphael's pictures. It can be seen how in the Sistine Madonna a great cosmic mystery reveals itself to human hearts and will carry its impulse through them into the future, when mankind will have been led to an interconfessional, broad and all-embracing Christianity, as we already have it in Spiritual Science. And that impulse will continue to work as a result of the fact that a wonderful mystery has inspired human souls through the Sistine Madonna. I have often said that when someone looks into a child's eyes, he can know that what is gazing out of those eyes is something that has not come into existence through birth, something that reveals the depths of the human soul. One who studies the children in Raphael's Madonna pictures can see that divinity itself, an occult and superhuman reality, looks out of those eyes—something that is still present in the child in the earliest period after birth. This can be perceived in all Raphael's paintings of children, with one exception. The portrayal of one child is different—it is that of the Jesus Child in the Sistine Madonna painting. Whoever looks into the eyes of that Child knows that they already reveal more than can be embodied in a human being. Raphael has made this distinction to show that in this one Child, the Child of the Sistine Madonna, there lives something that is already experiencing, in advance, a reality of pure spirit, a Christ-like reality.

Thus, Raphael is a harbinger of the spiritual Christ who is revealed again by Spiritual Science. Through Spiritual Science too we learn that in Raphael there lived the same individuality who had lived in Elijah and in John the Baptist. And we can understand that the world in which he lived as John the Baptist reappears in Raphael when we observe how his relation to the historic Christ-Event is indicated by the fact that he was born on a Good Friday.

Here, then, we have the third harbinger after Elijah and John the Baptist. Now we understand many of the questions inevitably raised by those possessed of wider powers of perception. John the Baptist dies the death of a martyr before the event of Golgotha is drawing near. He lives through the dawn leading to the Mystery of Golgotha, through the time of prophecies and predictions, through the days of rejoicing, but not through the period of lamentation and sorrow. When this same mood becomes manifest again in the personality of Raphael, do we not find it comprehensible that with such deep devotion he paints pictures of the Madonna and of children, and is it not obvious why he does not paint the betrayal by Judas, the bearing of the Cross, Golgotha, the Mount of Olives? Any existing pictures of these subjects must have been commissioned, for the essential being of Raphael finds no expression in them. Why are such pictures alien to Raphael? Because as John the Baptist he did not live to experience the Mystery of Golgotha.

And then, as we think of the figure of Raphael, how he has lived through the centuries and is still living today, and then think of what remains of his work and what has already been destroyed, and when we reflect that all material things must eventually perish, then we know well that the living essence of these pictures will have been taken into the souls of men before the pictures themselves have perished. For centuries yet, reproductions will of course be available; but that which alone can give a true idea of Raphael's personality, of what he was, what his own hands accomplished—that will crumble into dust, his works will have perished. And nothing on our Earth can preserve them.

But through Spiritual Science it is clear to us that the individuality in Raphael bears with it what has been achieved in one incarnation, into the next. And when we learn that this same individuality appears again in the poet Novalis, and we take his first proclamation which, like a radiant sunrise, reveals a new and living concept of Christ, then we say to ourselves that long before Raphael's works disappear from the outer world, the individuality in that personality has come again, in order to bequeath his gifts in a new form to mankind. How good it is that for a time Western culture has paid attention only to the actual personality, that we have learnt to love a personality simply from the fruits of a single life! And how immeasurably enriched must our souls feel when we learn that the eternal part of man passes from personality to personality. And however different these personalities may seem to us to be, the concrete facts which spiritual knowledge can tell us about reincarnation and karma will somehow bring us understanding. Humanity will not profit as greatly from general concepts and doctrines, as from details that can throw light upon individual cases. Then much that is attainable only through intuitive vision and occult investigation can be brought to bear on these matters and at last we are able to turn our gaze to the Mystery of Golgotha itself and remind ourselves that in the thirtieth year of the life of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ Being entered into him and lived through the Mystery of Golgotha

When it is maintained nowadays that the Christ Being cannot incarnate in a physical body, it must be said that that has really never been asserted. For the physical body into which the spiritual Christ Being entered at that time was the sheath of Jesus of Nazareth. In that case it was not as it is with other individualities who build up their body themselves, but into the body which had been prepared by Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Being descended only at a later point of time. True, there was then union, but we cannot really speak of a physical incarnation of Christ. These matters are self-evident to one who has knowledge.

But now we know that through this Christ-Impulse, as it streams into the different civilisations of mankind, something has come to the Earth, has flowed into humanity, for the benefit of all mankind. Thus, that which went through death is like a seed of corn which multiplies, can make its way into individual human souls and spring to life. As we know that the body of Jesus of Nazareth had received the Christ Being who, by passing through death, united Himself with the Earth, let us now ask: what will be the outcome of this when the Earth has reached its goal and comes to its end? Christ who united Himself with the Earth, will be the one reality on Earth when it has reached its goal. Christ will be the Spirit of the Earth. This in fact He is already, only then the souls of men will be permeated by Him, and men will form a totality together with Him.

And now another question arises. We have learnt that man in his form on Earth is to be regarded as ‘Maya.’ The form disintegrates after death; what appears outwardly as the human body is an illusion.

The external form of the physical body will no more remain than the physical bodies of the plants, animals and minerals will remain. Physical bodies will become cosmic dust. What is now the visible physical Earth will have completely vanished, will exist no longer. And what of the etheric bodies? They have meaning and purpose only as long as they have to renew the life of physical bodies, and they too will cease to exist. When the Earth has reached its goal, what will remain of all that man beholds? Nothing at all will be there, nothing of himself, nothing of the beings of the other kingdoms of nature. When the Spiritual is set free nothing will be left of matter but formless dust, for the Spirit alone is real. But something will then have become a reality, something that in times gone by had not been united with The Earth at all and with which human souls will now unite—namely, the Christ Spirit. The Christ Spirit will be the one and only reality that can remain of the Earth.

But how does this Christ Spirit acquire His spiritual sheaths? In the Mystery of Golgotha, He descended into the sphere of Earth as an Impulse, as the soul of the Earth.

It does not happen in the same way as in human beings, but the Christ Being too must form for Himself something that can be called His sheaths. Christ will eventually have a kind of spiritualised physical body, a kind of etheric body and a kind of astral body. Of what will these bodies consist?

These are questions which for the time being can only be hinted at. When the Christ Being descended to the Earth He had to provide Himself with something similar to the sheaths of a human being: a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. Gradually, in the course of the epochs, something that corresponds to an astral, an etheric and a physical body formed around the originally purely spiritual Christ Impulse which descended at the Baptism by John. All these sheaths are formed from forces which have to be developed by humanity on Earth. What kind of forces are they?

The forces of external science cannot produce a body for Christ because they are concerned only with things that will have disappeared in the future, that will no longer exist. But there is something that precedes knowledge and is infinitely more valuable for the soul than knowledge itself. It is what the Greek philosophers regarded as the beginning of all philosophy: wonder or astonishment. Once we have the knowledge, the experience which is of value to the soul has really already passed. People in whom the great revelations and truths of the spiritual world can evoke wonder, nourish this feeling of wonder, and in the course of time this creates a force which has a power of attraction for the Christ Impulse, which attracts the Christ Spirit: the Christ Impulse unites with the individual human soul when the soul can feel wonder for the mysteries of the world. Christ draws His astral body in earthly evolution from all those feelings which have lived in single human souls as wonder.

The second quality that must be developed by human souls to attract the Christ Impulse is a power of compassion. Whenever the soul is moved to share in the suffering or joy of others, this is a force which attracts the Christ Impulse; Christ unites Himself with the human soul through compassion and love. Compassion and love are the forces from which Christ forms His etheric body until the end of earthly evolution. With regard to compassion and love one could, to put it crudely, speak of a programme which Spiritual Science must carry out in the future. In this connection, materialism has evolved a pernicious science, such as has never previously existed on Earth. The very worst offence committed today is to correlate love and sexuality. This is the worst possible expression of materialism, the most devilish symptom of our time. Sexuality and love have nothing whatever to do with each other. Sexuality is something quite different from and has no connection at all with pure, original love. Science has brought things to a shameful point by means of an extensive literature devoted to connecting these two things which are simply not connected.

A third force which flows into the human soul as if from a higher world, to which man submits, to which he attributes a higher significance than that of his own individual moral instincts, is conscience.

With man's conscience Christ is most intimately united. From the impulses which spring from the conscience of individual human souls Christ draws his physical body.

The reality of an utterance in the Bible becomes very clear when we know that the etheric body of Christ is formed from men's feelings of compassion and love: ‘What ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’—for to the end of the Earth's evolution Christ forms His etheric body out of men's compassion and love. As He forms His astral body out of wonder and astonishment, His physical body out of conscience, so does He form His etheric body out of men's feelings of compassion and love.

Why do we speak of these things at the present time? Because one day a great problem will have to be solved for humanity: namely, how to present the figure of Christ in its relation to the various domains of life. This will be possible only if account is taken of many things that Spiritual Science has to say. When after long contemplation of the Christ-idea as conceived by Spiritual Science, an attempt is made to present the figure of Christ, the countenance will be found to contain something that can, and indeed will, baffle all the arts. The countenance will give expression to the victory of the forces that are contained only in the face over all other forces in the human form. When men are able to fashion eyes that radiate only compassion, a mouth not adapted for eating but only for uttering those words of truth which are the words of conscience, when a brow can be shaped whose beauty lies in the moulding of the arch spanning the position of what we call the lotus-flower between the eyes ... when it becomes possible to accomplish all this, it will be understood why the Prophet says: ‘He hath no form nor comeliness.’ (Isaiah, 53, 2.) What is meant is that it is not beauty that counts, but the power that will gain the victory over decay: the figure of Christ in which all is compassion, all love, all devotion to conscience.

And so Spiritual Science passes over as a seed into human feeling, human perception. The teachings that spiritual investigation can impart do not remain mere teachings; they are transformed into life itself in the human soul. And the fruits of Spiritual Science will gradually mature into conditions of life which will appear like an external embodiment of spiritual knowledge itself, of the soul of future humanity.

With thoughts such as these I would like to have spoken to you in the way that one likes to speak to those who are striving for spiritual knowledge, not in dry words, but in words conveying ideas and stimulating feelings which can live and be effective in the outer world. When such feelings are alive in men's hearts, they will become a source of warmth streaming into all mankind. And those who believe this will also believe in the effectiveness of their own good feelings; they will also believe that this can apply to every soul—even though karma may not enable it to be outwardly manifest. Invisible effects can thus be engendered whereby all that ought to come into the world through Spiritual Science can actually be brought there.

That is the feeling I should like to have awakened in you on the occasion of my present visit to Cologne.

• 1. Most readers of the Quarterly will be aware that shortly after this lecture was given, the Charter of the German Section of the Theosophical Society was cancelled by Mrs. Besant and the Anthroposophical Society was then founded as a separate body. The separation had become inevitable after the announcement in the Theosophical Society that the Christ would shortly incarnate in the physical body of a Hindu boy, a protégé of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater. Such a development could not be countenanced by the members of the German Section who ever since the beginning of the century had been receiving the teachings of Western esotericism given by Dr. Steiner. In spite of this difference, however, the German Section had been an integral part of the Theosophical Society although always working quite independently and as Dr. Steiner constantly emphasises (e.g. in the lecture-course entitled Occult History, p. 55) in harmony with much that was originally transmitted through that ‘extraordinarily useful instrument, H. P. Blavatsky.’
• 2. The ‘Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings’ are individuals who have developed to stages of Initiation-knowledge beyond those attained by average human beings. The ‘letters’ to which Dr. Steiner is here referring are ‘communications’ in which much of the ancient Eastern wisdom, and also certain Rosicrucian wisdom, presented in Madame Blavatsky's works Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine was contained. The whole subject of these ‘communications’ is full of pitfalls and study of the many Theosophical publications dealing with the matter would be an arduous task. The best known publication on the subject is probably the collection entitled The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, compiled and with an introduction by A. T. Barker. (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1923). But the contents of the letters—it must be remembered that they dated from the eighties of last century—vary considerably in value and it is questionable whether all of them emanated from genuine Initiates with no selfish or nationalistic aims and desiring only the good of humanity as a whole. Anthroposophist's will find the subject dealt with exhaustively in the lecture-course given by Dr. Steiner in 1915, entitled The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century. Publications dealing specifically with H. P. Blavatsky and the earliest occult ‘communications’ received and transmitted by her, are as follows: Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, a series published at Adyar, Madras; The Early Teachings of the Masters, edited by C. Jinarajadasa and published at Adyar; Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky, by Countess Constance Wachtmeister; vol. 5 of the Collected Writings of H. P. Blavatsky, edited by Boris de Zirkoff, published in 1950.
• 3. See, Acts of the Apostles, ch. XVII, verses 22-31.

We come now to the end of this cycle of lectures, during which thoughts about the so-called “culture” of the present day may well have occurred to you. We have had to direct our attention in some detail to the remarkable way the ahrimanic and luciferic forces penetrate this culture. A discerning person who has some understanding of the insights of spiritual science will look objectively at modern life and surely perceive all its confusion and chaos. For many years it has been my custom to point to this as little as possible and instead, by helping to open up the spiritual world, to use our time together in a more positive way. But it must be emphasized, now as always, that a good many misunderstandings have crept into our work, into our active efforts, through this self-imposed moderation—the word is indeed not chosen arrogantly; even so, we shall not deviate greatly from this custom of ours. And in consideration of this, two things are essential: first, a clear, objective understanding that evolution, the development of the post-Atlantean world, has led far and wide to the chaotic, complex, to some extent inferior, second-rate condition of modern civilization, but that for this there is a certain valid necessity. It is not enough merely to criticize; a clear, objective understanding is needed.

On the other hand, we have to oppose the chaos and confusion of modern intellectual life with clarity of vision, as long as we are supported by the perspectives revealed by spiritual science. Ever and again we have well-meaning, good-natured friends exclaiming that here or there something quite anthroposophical has appeared; then we have to recognize the deficiency of these so-called anthroposophical things. I have said I would not deviate from my custom, but now, at the end of this cycle, I would like to refer to at least one especially grotesque example of this tendency. There are those nowadays who like to blow themselves up into a professional stance without the least understanding of anything—and people who don't practice discrimination can very easily be carried away, given the chance, by high-sounding phrases. This must really disappear from our circles. We must acquire, each one for himself, the power of clear, objective discrimination. Then we would have a better idea than has been the case up to now of the relationship of second-rate movements and individuals to our own movement.

Tendencies of this kind come up in many different ways. I would like to mention just one of them, not to criticize or to lay before you a case of specific hostility toward our work but merely to characterize the problem. A publisher in Berlin²⁵ has brought out an edition of The Chymical Wedding and other writings of Christian Rosenkreuz. Many of our friends and others interested in occult movements will obviously snap up this new reprint of works that have never been easy to find. But now there is an Introduction to the Chymical Wedding that really outdoes everything imaginable in grotesque erudition—I won't give it a more exact name. Let me read you a few lines of this Introduction, on page 2, without going any further into the rest of the article.

“When we approach the occult sciences with precise critical methods”—with these words, many people will be misled—“one will soon be aware that from this point on, one can get in touch with the two poles mentioned above.” I shall not discuss what these poles are, for it is all merely ...; I will forego any description. “For this the newly formulated concept of Allomatics is especially valuable, as under its guidance one easily masters difficulties coming from both sides.” Allomatics is something that will impress many people. “Allomatics is the study, the science and the philosophy of the Other (the word is derived from Greek allos, the other, in contrast to autos, self). Allomatics teaches the nothingness and nonexistence of the Ego. Everything is and comes from the non-Ego, from outside, from above, from below, in short, from the Other.”

All this erudition continues throughout the article, in order to prepare the reading public for The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz. I would call it—and I am not speaking from animosity but with objective logic—absolutely the same thing as originating a “Pearology” or “Pearomatics” in the place of xenology or allomatics. With exactly the same logic that this remarkable duffer derives the world from I and non-I, we could also derive the world from a pear and everything not a pear, that is, the Other of the pear. We could use the same words and concepts in order to explain the whole world as pear and non-pear. Nothing is missing from the world and its phenomena, according to this gentleman, if we explain it by means of Pearomatics, the doctrine of pear and non-pear instead of the doctrine of Ego and the Other.

Allomatics is presented as a work of great learning, with parallels to embryology in order to appear erudite. Its tone is that of many academic works that are taken seriously and are often honestly received by our friends—I say this again not with animosity but in fact in a spirit of brotherliness—as though they were important works and not merely the products of our inferior age. This points up a lack of discrimination between what has inner value and what is pure nonsense at a low level of literature. Since the author of this introduction is also one of the people who originated or repeated the foolish Jesuit tale, ²⁶ it can be said quite objectively that we can estimate from this the kind of opposition springing up lately from all sides against our movement. It is important to achieve the right attitude to everything in occultism that, creeping out of so many corners of the world, is regarded by many as of equal significance to profound, scrupulous spiritual science. Another important thing to acquire, if you wish to profess honestly your allegiance to spiritual science, is the right sensitivity to these various gentlemen and their writings; this sensitivity will lead to ignoring them instead of kowtowing and hailing everything they bring out. One should actually suggest to them that instead of taking the time to produce such writing, they could make themselves more useful to humanity in other ways, for instance by taking up fretsaw work.

We really must look at such things with complete objectivity; we must get used to sizing up correctly and turning our backs on very many ingredients of modern culture. For this we need only the right kind of thinking and the sensitivity to such people and their work. One thing we have to be clear about: the phenomena of our time are perfectly comprehensible if we remember how the ahrimanic and luciferic forces have thrust themselves into human development.

Every impulse and tendency of human evolution changes from age to age; in the same way, as I have often pointed out, the ahrimanic and luciferic influences also change. Our epoch is to some degree a sort of reversed repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean age, but as a reversed repetition the luciferic and ahrimanic forces generally play a different role today in the external culture. During the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean age the human soul, looking out on what was happening, could say: From one side the ahrimanic influence is coming; from another, the luciferic. In this ancient civilization the distinction, outwardly, could still be made. However, by the Greco-Roman age one can say that Lucifer and Ahriman confront the human soul directly and hold themselves in balance there. Anyone who enters deeply into the fundamental nature of the Greco-Roman civilization will be able to observe the state of balance between Lucifer and Ahriman. But in our time it has changed again. Lucifer and Ahriman now are in league together in a kind of partnership in the outer world. Before these forces reach the human soul, they are knotted together externally. In ancient times the skeins of influence from Ahriman and Lucifer were quite separate, but nowadays we have them tangled and knotted together within the development of our civilization. It is extremely difficult for a human being to unravel the entanglement and find a way out of it. Everywhere in our cultural happenings we find luciferic and ahrimanic threads interwoven in a higgledy-piggledy mixture, stirring up a great deal of violent political agitation and even playing into many of the abstract ideas and superficial proceedings in full swing now and in times to come; until we are clear about this, we will not be able to form a sound judgment of the conditions around us.

We need to be watchful of the chaotic entanglement of luciferic and ahrimanic threads. For no one today is more challenged to come to terms with these forces than he who is on the path of spiritual knowledge, he who is trying to arm his soul with clairvoyant capacities in order to discover something he cannot know with his ordinary consciousness: the real being of man. This must always be the true goal of spiritual science. From the descriptions already given, it is evident that as soon as a person approaches the higher worlds, he has to step across a threshold. As an earth-being who has made his soul clairvoyant, he must go back and forth across that threshold and know how to conduct himself rightly in the spiritual world on the far side, as well as on this side in the physical world. Both in lectures and now repeatedly in our Mystery Dramas, this important threshold experience has been referred to as the meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold.

A person can actually ascend into the spiritual worlds—this has often been said—and have quite a few experiences there without having a meeting with the Guardian, something that is partly terrifying but on the other hand highly significant, indeed of infinite importance for the sake of a clear, objective perception of those worlds. I have pointed to this and everything connected with it in my book, The Threshold of the Spiritual World, at least as far as I could while treating the material in an aphoristic way. I have gone further in the course of these lectures, and now I should like to add only a few details to characterize the Guardian of the Threshold. Should I try to describe everything about the meeting with the Guardian, I would indeed have to hold another long cycle of lectures.

May I point out again that when a human being leaves his physical body in which he lives with the physical world around him, he enters the elemental world and lives in his etheric body, just as in the physical world he lives in the physical body. Then when he leaves the etheric body clairvoyantly, he lives in the astral body surrounded by the spiritual world. We have pointed out that on leaving the astral body the human being can then be within his true ego. Around him will be the supra-spiritual world. When he enters this world, he has finally attained what he has always possessed in the depths of his soul, his true ego. He reaches now the spiritual world in such a way that his true ego, his other self, is revealed, actually enveloped in the element of living thought-being.

All of us walking about on the physical plane have this other self within us, but our ordinary consciousness not only is not aware of it but cannot know that we will not perceive it until we ascend into the spiritual and supra-spiritual worlds. Our true ego is actually our constant companion within us, but when we meet it on the threshold of the spiritual world, it is there in a remarkable way, in fact one can say, decked out quite peculiarly. There on the threshold our true ego is able to clothe itself in all our weaknesses, all our failings, everything that induces us to cling with our whole being either to the physical sense world or at least to the elemental world. Thus we confront our own true ego on the threshold.

Abstract Theosophy can simply say: that is oneself, the other self, the true ego. But in the face of the actual reality, we won't find much meaning in the phrase: it is oneself. Of course, we all move about in the spiritual world in the form of our other self, but there we are entirely another. When we dwell consciously in the physical world, our other self is actually very much another, a stranger to us, a being that is much more foreign to us than any other person on earth. And this other self, this true ego, decks itself out in our weaknesses, in everything we should really forsake but don't wish to forsake, habits of the physical sense existence that we still hang on to when we wish to cross the threshold. And there on the threshold we actually meet a spirit being different from all other spiritual beings we could meet in the super-sensible worlds. The other beings appear to us in coverings more appropriate to their nature than those of the Guardian of the Threshold. He arrays himself in everything that arouses in us not only anxiety and distress but also disgust and loathing. He clothes himself in our weaknesses, in things that bring us to admit: Our fear of separating from him makes us shudder, or it makes us blush, overcome with shame, to have to look at what we are, at what the Guardian has wrapped himself in. While indeed this is a meeting with oneself, it is more truly the meeting with another entity.

To get past the Guardian of the Threshold is not at all easy. Actually it is much easier to behold the spiritual world than it is to behold it rightly and truthfully. To catch a few impressions of the spiritual world, especially in our modern time, is not all that difficult. To enter that world, however, in such a way that we behold it in its full reality, we must be well prepared for the meeting with the Guardian, however long it delays in coming to us; then we will experience the spiritual world correctly. Most people, or at least very many of them, get as far as the Guardian. The important point is that we should come consciously to him. Every night we stand unconsciously before the Guardian. Certainly he is a great benefactor of mankind in not allowing himself to be seen, for very few human beings could endure it. To bring into consciousness what we experience every night unconsciously is to meet the Guardian of the Threshold. People usually get just to the edge of the boundary where, one can say, the Guardian stands. But at that moment, something very peculiar happens to the soul: it perceives this moment in a twilight state between consciousness and unconsciousness and will not allow it to come to full consciousness. On that borderline the soul has the impulse to see itself as it really is, clinging to the physical world with all its weaknesses and faults, but this is unbearable. Before the event can become fully conscious, the soul—through its utter loathing—deadens, as it were, its awareness. Such moments of the soul's obliterating its consciousness are the best points of attack for the ahrimanic beings.

We come indeed to the Guardian of the Threshold by developing a sense of self that is especially strong and forceful. We have to strengthen our sense of self, if we wish to rise into the spiritual world. But in the process of strengthening our sense of self, we also strengthen all the tendencies, habits, weaknesses and prejudices that are held back and limited in the external world through our education, through custom and through the outward culture. On the threshold, the luciferic impulses assert themselves strongly from within, and when the human soul tends to deaden its awareness, Lucifer immediately unites with Ahriman, with the result that the entrance to the spiritual world is barred.

If a person with a healthy inner life searches out the insights of spiritual science without dwelling in a state of morbid craving for spiritual experiences, nothing particularly harmful will happen at the boundary line. If he attends to everything that should be attended to in the form of rightful, genuine spiritual science, nothing more will happen than that Lucifer and Ahriman balance each other for the striving soul at the threshold and the soul simply does not enter the spiritual world. But when the person has a special craving to get in, a so-called “nibbling at the spiritual world” can take place.²⁷ Ahriman then, condensing what the soul has “nibbled,” pushes into the soul's consciousness what otherwise couldn't enter it. With this, the person experiences in condensed form what he has taken from the spiritual world, so that it looks exactly like the reproduction of physical impressions. In short, he will be the victim of hallucinations and illusions; he will believe he has approached a spiritual world, because he has come as far as the Guardian of the Threshold. However, he has not passed the Guardian but has been thrown back because of his nibbling at the spiritual world. Everything he took in has condensed to what could contain genuine pictures of that world but does not contain the most important element, the one that will guarantee the soul a clear perception of the truth and the value of what he sees.

In order to pass the Guardian of the Threshold in the right way, it is absolutely necessary to develop self-knowledge: truly genuine, unsparing self-knowledge. It is a neglect of one's duty to the progress of evolution if one refuses to rise into the spiritual worlds, should karma make it possible in this present incarnation. It would indeed be wrong to say to oneself, “I shall not enter the spiritual worlds for fear of going astray.” We should strive as intensely as we can to enter them. On the other hand, we must clearly understand that we may not shrink from what the human being is most apt and most willing to shrink back from: genuine, truthful self-knowledge. Nothing is actually so difficult in life as plain, honest self-knowledge. What a lot of queer things one can find in this regard! One meets people who continually emphasize out of their ordinary consciousness that they're doing this or that with complete selflessness, that they desire simply nothing at all for themselves. In trying to understand such souls, we often find that they really believe it's so, and yet, in their subconscious they are thoroughgoing egoists and want only what suits themselves. Oh, we can also find people who out of their upper consciousness, let's say, make speeches, lay down the law, publish things and in a few short pages put down words such as love and tolerance eighteen to twenty-five times, actually without having the very slightest trace of love or tolerance in their make-up. There is nothing we can be so easily deceived about as ourselves, if we fail to watch continually the practicing of honest, sterling self-knowledge. However it is difficult indeed to practice self-knowledge in a direct way. People have shut their eyes to it so completely that instead of acknowledging what they are at the present time, it has happened that they prefer to admit to being apes during the Moon epoch²⁸—actually prefer that to acknowledging what they are today, so great can be our delusions in contrast to the moral obligation of genuine, honest self-knowledge.

A good exercise for someone striving in the spiritual sphere would be to say every so often something like this: “I will think back over the last three or four weeks—or better still, months—letting all the important happenings in which I was involved pass before my inner eye. I will deliberately disregard whatever injustice may have been done to me. I will omit all the excuses for my difficulties that I've expressed so frequently, such as, for instance: it was someone else's fault. I will not for a moment consider that any other person could have been to blame but I myself.” When we reflect on how constantly we are inclined to make others and not ourselves responsible for what we don't like, we will be able to judge how valuable such a review of our life can be, in which we knowingly eliminate thoughts of injustice done to us and in which we do not allow criticism or blame of another person to arise. If you undertake such an exercise, you will discover that you are gaining a totally new relationship to the spiritual world. Such an effort will bring about a great change in the disposition and mood of one's soul.

In seeking the path to clairvoyance, the extreme difficulty of entering the higher worlds without danger, as we have said repeatedly, shows how essential it is not to come apart, not to fall to pieces, when we have to “put our head into the ant hill.” We need then an immensely strengthened consciousness of self, such as a person may not develop in the physical world if he is not to be a rank egoist. In higher worlds, however, if he wants to maintain himself, stay aware of himself, realize himself, he must enter those worlds with an intensified feeling of self. Then, on coming back to the sense world, he must also have the ability to do away with this consciousness of self, in order not to be a thoroughgoing egoist. Thus, two contrasting statements can be made: in the higher worlds of spiritualities, man needs a strengthened consciousness of self; but in contrast, despite the strong feeling of self that one must find in the spirit world, what one must find in the physical world is that the spirit must come to life in a particular way: in all that one can describe as love in the physical world, the capacity for love, for sympathy and compassion, for the sharing of joys and sorrows.

Those who enter clairvoyantly into the higher worlds, know that what Maria says in The Souls' Awakening is true,²⁹ that really the ordinary sense-consciousness we have on the physical plane is a kind of sleep when compared to what we feel and experience in higher worlds; our entrance there is an awakening. That human beings living in the physical world are asleep in relation to the experience of higher worlds, is absolutely true. It is only because they are always asleep that they are not aware of sleeping. What the clairvoyant soul crossing the threshold experiences in the spiritual world is an awakening into a strengthened feeling of self. In the physical world, on the other hand, there can be an awakening of the self through love, the kind of love characterized in one of our first lectures here as “the love for another person's disposition and qualities, for him and for his sake.” That kind of love is protected from the luciferic and ahrimanic influences and in the physical sense-world is actually under the sway of the, good, progressive powers of the universe. The character of love is most clearly evident in the experiences of clairvoyant consciousness. The egoism we develop in the physical world, without being willing to acquire self-knowledge, shows up when it is carried into spiritual worlds. Nothing is so disturbing, nothing can be so bitter and disheartening as to experience the result of our failure to develop love and compassion in the physical world. Ascending into the spiritual world, we are filled with anguish by the selfishness and lack of love we have achieved in the physical-sense world. When we cross the threshold, everything is revealed, not only the obvious but also the hidden egoism that rages in the depths of men's souls. Someone who with outward egoism frankly insists that he wants this or that for himself is perhaps much less egoistic than those who indulge in the dream that they are selfless, or those who assume a certain egoistic self-effacement out of theosophical abstractions in their upper consciousness. This is especially the case when the latter declaim their selflessness in all sorts of repetitions of the words “love” and “tolerance.” What a person carries up into higher worlds in the form of an unloving lack of compassion is transformed into hideous, often terrifying figures he meets on entering the spiritual worlds, figures that are extremely disturbing for the soul.

At this point comes one of the very significant moments that should be taken into account when we speak about the kinds of knowledge and experience we meet in higher worlds. As soon as a person comes into those worlds and finds himself in a region of loathsome things, it would then be best for him to face them boldly, with courage, while admitting to himself, “Yes, I have indeed carried all this egoism up into the higher worlds ... it would truly be best for me to face this egoism boldly and honestly.” But the human soul usually tends to shake off these repulsive things before becoming thoroughly conscious of them, and gives a kick, one can say, just as horses do, to get rid of these disagreeable forms. And then, at the very moment when we get rid of the results of our egoism, Lucifer and Ahriman have an easy game with the soul: in partnership, it is not at all difficult for them to lead the human soul into their special kingdom where they can produce all sorts of spiritual worlds, which the human being will take for the truly genuine one grounded in the cosmic order. We can say that developing truly genuine love and thoughtful, honest compassion are the right preparation for the soul that wants to find its way clairvoyantly into the spiritual worlds. When you reflect a little on how hard it is to acquire true compassion and the true capacity for love in this world of ours, you will not find these words completely unimportant.

We should be clear that these descriptions, characterizing our crossing the threshold into the spiritual world, will lead to a truly genuine knowledge of the being of man. It is only through such descriptions that we will discover what man really is, and discover too our relationship to the way the human being approaches the higher, spiritual worlds, this time between death and a new birth, in a somewhat different but still natural way.

Here I must say a few words about something I pointed out in the last chapter of The Threshold of the Spiritual World. From earlier descriptions in Theosophy and Occult Science we know that when we step through the portal of death and lay aside our physical body, we still have the etheric body for a short time, perhaps only a few days; then we put this aside as well. Now we can say that after putting aside the etheric body, we are at first within the astral body; in the astral body the soul goes on a sort of further journeying. The etheric body is laid aside; its destiny depends on the world which it now enters, the elemental world. You remember that we discussed how the force of transformation holds sway in this elemental world. Everything is in continual change. The etheric body, separated now from the human soul, is delivered up to the elemental world and there goes through its destined transformations. In the following years, for some a shorter time, for others longer, we live within the astral body in what from the standpoint of clairvoyant consciousness can be called the elemental world. However, in the period immediately after death we find that the soul has a quite definite impulse. In the physical world we are not apt to look continually at our own liver, spleen or stomach—for this would be impossible. We simply cannot see inside the body. People on the physical plane are not in the habit of turning their eyes inward into the body; they look instead at the world around them. But just the opposite is the case after we have passed through the portal of death and live in the world that is called the Soul World in my Theosophy. There the characteristic tendency of the soul is to direct its particular attention to the destinies of its own etheric body. The soul's outer world, its environment, consists of the transformations our etheric body passes through during the whole kamaloka time. We observe how the elemental world takes our etheric body into itself. If one has been “a decent sort” here on the physical plane, one will see how the “decentness” gets on well with the laws of the elemental world. If one has been “a bad sort,” one will see how poorly the etheric body (for it has had its share in being “a bad sort”) gets on with the laws of this world; it is everywhere rejected. Even though our etheric body has been laid aside, we direct our whole attention to it. By looking at the ever-changing fate of our etheric body, we are made aware of what we once were: this is our kamaloka experience.

People should not criticize anthroposophy for saying all this. Aristotle and others taught quite differently: for example, that this looking back on one's own destiny after death would last a whole eternity; a man might live to be eighty or ninety years old and then would have to look eternally at what he had done to his own etheric body. Anthroposophy teaches the truth, that this looking back on the etheric body and on the destinies we have brought about in it by what we have been, lasts one or two or three decades. And this is our environment in the elemental world, an environment formed by beings similar to the human etheric body and by the transformations of these beings as well as by the transformations of the human etheric body itself. One can describe this pictorially and come to the same characterization that I have given in my book Theosophy as the passage of the soul through the soul world.

In order to describe the spiritual world in the right way, one cannot keep pedantically to the hard and fast concepts so useful in the physical world. We should be clear that our whole environment during the kamaloka time is dependent on our mood of soul, dependent in such a way that the elemental world we have just described gradually adapts itself to the soul world. In the elemental world more than anything else one sees a dispersing, little by little, of etheric substance, which as it evanesces can be described from stage to stage as has been done in my Theosophy

The time comes, in this period between death and a new birth, when there takes place what the clairvoyant consciousness has to bring about somewhat less naturally, as we have discussed earlier. After laying aside his etheric body, the human being lives in his astral body, until the time comes when this astral body detaches itself from the true ego; it is in the ego that he will live from that point onwards. This detaching of the astral body is quite unique; it is not like a snake slipping off its skin but rather a loosening on every side, a growing larger and larger until the astral body becomes one with the whole cosmic sphere. In doing this, it becomes ever thinner, while being absorbed by the whole surrounding world. At first one stands, in a sense, in the very center of one's own spiritual environment. On every side the astral body loosens itself and is absorbed in all directions, so that the environment we have about us after death, after this loosening, consists of the spiritual world and also of all that has been absorbed into it from our own astral body. We see this astral body of ours gradually go forth, becoming less and less distinct, of course, as it grows larger. We feel ourselves within the astral body—as has been described in many lectures—and nevertheless separate from it. These things are extremely difficult to describe. To picture it, just imagine a great swarm of gnats. From a distance it looks like a dark-colored ball, but when the gnats fly off in all directions, there's no longer anything to be seen. It is just the same with the astral body. While being absorbed by the whole cosmic sphere, it becomes less and less distinct. We watch it gradually drifting away until it is lost. What is lost is the astral body that is always with us when we pass through the gate of death; one can call it our past, what we once were. It was our link with the experiences we had in the physical world, living in our physical and etheric bodies. We see our own being, as it were, disappearing into the spiritual world, and this experience is very similar to the one created voluntarily by a human being seeking the discovery of his true ego in the spiritual world. The harrowing and significant impression that someone can have who is journeying on the path to a clairvoyant consciousness takes place naturally after death as just described. After death, however, a real forgetting takes place, all the sooner the less the soul proves to have been prepared and strengthened. Selfless, unegoistic souls, often criticized as weak in physical life, are precisely the strong ones after death; for a long time they will be able to watch the memories that had urged them on from physical existence towards the spiritual world. The so-called strong egoists are the puny souls after death; their astrality, dispersing gradually as a sphere, leaves them very quickly.

And now the time has come when everything one can remember disappears. It returns, but in an altered manner. Everything lost is brought back to us again. In the way it gathers together, it shows—as a consequence of what has departed—what it should become: A befitting new life must be constructed according to karma on the foundation of the old earth life. Thus there thrusts in from infinity towards a central point what must return to our consciousness from oblivion and be given back to us; with this we can become carpenters of a new life shaped by karma. In this sense an experiencing of nothing but oneself within the true ego, which is a kind of forgetting, takes place at the middle point between death and a new birth.

Today most human souls are still so little prepared for this forgetting that they experience it in a sort of spiritual soul-sleep. Those who are ready for it, however, experience just at this moment of forgetting, which is the transition from the preceding earth life to the preparation of the coming one, what is called the Cosmic Midnight in The Souls' Awakening. The scene of the Cosmic Midnight, in which one can enter deeply into the necessities of existence, is indeed connected with the most profound mysteries of human existence. We can say that the mystery of the human being, his true nature in which he lives between death and a new birth, is something the ordinary consciousness can never discover, although it discloses itself to the clairvoyant soul. We have described here, from the standpoint of the clairvoyant consciousness, the experience of having one's astrality absorbed by the spiritual world; it has also been described exactly, step by step, as the actual spirit-land in my Theosophy and Occult Science. What comes naturally to the soul after death can be brought about voluntarily for the clairvoyant consciousness; this has been described in Theosophy. The same terms are used here as in Theosophy and Occult Science.

We have tried in both this lecture cycle and in the drama cycle to characterize the nature of the cosmos and the entity of man, who has a share in the cosmos. After such a discussion, it may perhaps be permissible to add for any person setting out on the path here described that he will need to continue it to some extent on his own. On trying to penetrate ever more deeply into The Souls' Awakening, you will notice that so many answers to the mysteries of life are dawning on you that you realize, the dramas are there to unveil and reveal the mysteries.

I can point out an example to you. Try to experience further in meditation what is shown in The Souls' Awakening and what I have said here about Ahriman as the Lord of Death in the world. Beginning with Scene Three this appears clearly, but it was already hinted at in Scene One with the words Strader says to the Business Manager, “And yet will come what has to come about.” The Manager hears in these few words something like a gentle whisper from the spiritual world; it gives rise to the beginning of his spiritual discipleship. There it is more or less hinted at, but gradually, from Scene Three onwards, we see more and more clearly how the moods and forces preparing the death of Strader are coming closer. We shall not understand why Theodora appears and tells Strader what she will do for him in the spirit-land, unless we get the feeling—though a somewhat vague one, as it has to be at this point—that something important can be expected. In the same scene, we shall not perceive rightly what Benedictus means when he describes his clairvoyance as being impaired unless we can feel how the forces of Strader's approaching death are influencing this clairvoyance. In Scene Eleven, a simple, straightforward but very significant scene, we shall not get the right impression of the dialogue between Benedictus and Strader unless we connect Strader's visionary picture with his presentiment that everything he is using to strengthen his soul will turn its destructive, power at some time on himself; unless, too, we connect this with the repetition of Benedictus's speech about his spirit vision being impaired, so that we have a premonition of what is looming ahead. The mood of the approaching death of Strader is diffused over the whole, development of even the other persons in this play from Scene Three onwards. When you bring this together with what has been said about Ahriman as the Lord of Death, you will enter more and more deeply into knowledge that leads to the mysteries of the spirit, especially by considering also how Ahriman takes a hand in the mood of the drama, which is dominated by Strader's death impulse.

Again, the last meeting of Benedictus and Strader, a meeting intended to be of real significance towards the end of the drama, as well as the final monologue of Benedictus, cannot be understood unless we bear in mind both the rightful and the unlawful interference of Ahriman in the world of the human soul and in the Word of cosmic realms. These things were not intended merely to pass through your minds, but in order for you to immerse yourselves more and more deeply in them.

It is an objective fact rather than criticism to point out how clearly it can be shown that the published writings and lecture-cycles of the last three or four years have really not been read as they could have been read in order to grasp what was implied or even what was stated quite obviously. This is not meant as a reproof—far from it. No, it is said because almost every year at the close of the Munich lecture course, through everything having to do with it, thoughts stand before the soul that sound an alert concerning the presence of our Anthroposophical Movement in the modern world. One has to consider what should be the rightful place of the Movement within the chaotic happenings of our present so-called culture. Clear, awakened thinking about this rightful place of the movement will not be reached unless we keep one thing in mind: that our present-day life will most certainly stagnate and become sclerotic unless it receives refreshment and healing from the flowing springs of serious, genuine occultism. On the other hand, just such a series of lectures that makes us aware perhaps of the need to turn to spiritual science could also stress something important to everyone of us: the feeling of responsibility.

In the deepest layers of our souls is imprinted everything connected with our feeling of responsibility, as are our efforts to understand how this movement of ours can make itself felt, the movement that is so urgently needed today, even with all its faults and darker sides. There, too, in those deepest layers we perceive in various ways the kind of movement ours should be and what, quite understandably, it only can be at present. This can hardly be expressed in words, and the one who bears it rooted deeply in his heart will preferably not put it into words. For sometimes this responsibility weighs so heavily on one's soul that it seems thoroughly disheartening. Disheartening, because the occultists are turning up on every side today and so little of the necessary feeling of responsibility is at hand.

Certainly for the healing and development of humanity we would welcome the blossoming of anthroposophical wisdom as the finest and greatest thing that could happen now and in the near future; at the same time, we would also like to welcome, as the best and often the most satisfying addition to it, the feeling of responsibility streaming into and awakening every individual who is taken hold of by spiritual science. Still more highly should one value the emergence of a feeling of responsibility.

In truth, we would consider our movement especially fortunate if we could see it flowing out into the world with this feeling of responsibility as a lovely echo on all sides. Many of those who are sensitive to the meaning of responsibility would be able to bear things more easily if they could observe an abundance of such echoes. Still, there are many things that one can only hope for and await in the future; one must have faith while waiting, and have confidence that the human soul through its own integrity will grasp what is right and trustworthy, and that what ought to happen will really happen. As we now separate after this course of lectures, we can clearly feel all this. Actually, one would so much like to leave in each soul something that could awaken it and radiate as warm enthusiasm for our movement but also as a feeling of responsibility for it.

The most splendid sign and seal on our spiritual scientific striving would be for us all to be able to feel how strongly linked together we are—even when we are far apart—in a true spirit community of souls having a similar warm enthusiasm for our movement, a similar love and devotion to it, and at the same time with a feeling of responsibility for it.

And now let these be my parting words to you as we go our separate ways after the time we have spent here together: May the reality and truth of the spiritual life grow ever stronger through our heart's participation in it, so that we are still together, even when we are separated in space. Let us be united by the reality of the warm enthusiasm alive in us, radiating from an open-hearted, devoted participation in the truth. And let us combine with it a genuine, upright awareness of responsibility, or at least an effort to attain it, for all that is sacred to us and so urgently needed for the world. Such a feeling brings us immediately together in the spirit. Whether our destiny brings us together in space, whether our destiny scatters us apart to our various tasks and occupations in life, our hearts will certainly be united by our enthusiasm and our feeling of responsibility. Joined together in this way, we are entitled to hopeful trust and confidence in the future of our movement, for it will then make its way into our culture, into the spiritual development of humanity, as it must do. It will find its way and find its home, so that we discern our anthroposophy like a gentle sounding from the spiritual world that brings warmth to our hearts.

What ought to happen will happen—and it must happen. Let us try to be so equal to this spiritual community of ours that insofar as it lies in us, what ought to happen, what must happen, shall happen through us.

• 25. Dr. Ferdinand Maack, ed., Chymische Hochzeit, (Berlin, Hermann Barsdorf Verlag, 1913).
• 26. Dr. Ferdinand Maack, Zweimal Gestorben. (Leipzig, 1912).
• 27. See Lecture II in this volume.
• 28. Besant and Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither.
• 29. See Maria's speech in The Souls' Awakening, Scene 2.

Yesterday we looked at Jesus of Nazareth's life from when he was about twelve until the end of his twenty-first year. From what I was able to relate, you will certainly have the feeling that some very important things for Jesus of Nazareth's soul occurred during that period of time, most important also for the evolution of humanity. For you will certainly realize from the fundamental experience obtained from spiritual scientific studies that everything having to do with human evolution is interconnected, and that an event of such importance which happens in a human soul and is related to human history cannot be without importance for the whole of human evolution. We recognize just what the event of Golgotha means from the most varied viewpoints. In this lecture cycle we are attempting to obtain this knowledge through a consideration of Christ Jesus' life. Therefore we shall now again look at the same characteristic point in time we considered yesterday. What must have lived in Jesus of Nazareth's soul after all the important events that happened to him up until he was twenty-eight, twenty-nine years old, and which I described yesterday?

One can have a feeling for what lived in his soul from hearing about a scene that took place during his late twenties. The scene was of a conversation which Jesus had with his mother, with that person who had been his mother for many years through the consolidation of both families. An intimate and excellent understanding existed with her, a much better understanding than existed with the other family members who lived in the house; that is, he could get along well with them, but they didn't really understand him. Previously he spoke with his mother about many of the impressions which had developed in his soul.

But at the time in question a most meaningful talk took place between them, one which allows us to see deeply into his soul. He had become wiser over time as a result of the events already described, to the extent that an infinite wisdom was expressed in his face. But he also felt sadness, which is often the case, though to a lesser degree. Wisdom had the effect of causing him to be quite sad when he observed his human surroundings. Adding to this was the fact that whenever he had a minute to himself he thought back to how in his twelfth year a tremendous revolution took place in his soul—when Zarathustra's soul [ego] entered into his soul. When at first Zarathustra's soul entered into his soul he felt only the great richness of the former. At the end of his twenties he didn't yet know that he was the reincarnated Zarathustra; but he did know that a great change had taken place in his soul during his twelfth year. And now he often had the feeling: Oh, how different everything was before that change during my twelfth year! He thought about how infinitely warm his heart felt then. As a boy he had been detached from the world, but had the liveliest feelings for the speech of nature, for what was wonderful in nature. But he had little disposition for worldly learning. He showed little interest in school work.

It would be completely mistaken to assume that the boy Jesus was gifted in any usual way before his twelfth year. He was kind-hearted, had a deep understanding of what is human, great capacity for feeling—an angelic, gentle being. Now it seemed as if all that had been eradicated from his soul when he was twelve years of age. And now he thought and felt about how previously he had been united with all the deeper universal spirits, how his soul had been open to the depths of infinite space. And how since his twelfth year he had suddenly become adept at Hebrew erudition, which had sprung from within him. He thought about how on his travels he encountered the pagan cults and the wisdom and religiosity of Paganism streamed through his soul. He remembered that between his eighteenth and twenty-fourth years he had been in contact with the activities and achievements of common humanity. He then entered the Essene community at approximately twenty-four years of age, where he learned an occult teaching and knew the people who dedicated themselves to that occult teaching. He thought often of those things. But he also knew that he had only learned what humanity had accumulated in wisdom since antiquity—treasures of human wisdom, culture and moral achievements. He often thought back on how, before that twelfth year, he felt united with the divine primeval ground of being and everything seemed spontaneous, welling up from his warm, expansive, loving heart and closely uniting him with the other strengths of the human soul.

These were the feelings which brought about a very special talk between him and the mother. His mother loved him terribly and often spoke with him about all the beautiful and great things which had become apparent in him since his twelfth year. At first he never spoke to her about the inner conflict which he experienced, so that she saw only the good and the beautiful. Therefore what he told her in this conversation, which was a kind of general confession, was all new to her, but she accepted it with a warm and gentle heart. She understood how he felt, that he was nostalgic for what he had before that twelfth year. So she tried to console him by speaking about the things which had become so beautiful and splendid about him since then. She reminded him of the renewal of the great teachings and wise sayings and treasures of the Jewish laws, which had come about through him. His heart was heavy when he heard his mother speak so enthusiastically about what he considered superseded. He said: That may well be, but whether all the wonderful old treasures of Judaism are renewed through me or some other, what does it mean for humanity? What has happened is essentially meaningless. Of course if the people had ears still capable of listening to the old prophets, then such a renewal of the prophets' wisdom would be of use to them. But even if Elias were to come – Jesus of Nazareth said – and wanted to announce to our humanity the wonders he experienced in the expanses of heaven, the people are not there who have ears to hear Elias's wisdom, or the older prophets, even Abraham and Moses. All that those prophets announced is impossible to announce today. The words would blow away in the wind. Everything I thought to have received is worthless today.

He told how a great teacher had recently been more or less ignored. For although he had not the stature of the old prophets he was, nevertheless, a profound and important teacher – the good, old Hillel. Jesus well knew what Hillel meant for many within Judaism, even during Herod's rule, when it was hard to gain respect. And he knew what profound words Hillel had spoken. It was said of him: The Torah had died among the Jews, but Hillel revived it. He renewed the original Jewish wisdom, for those who understood him. Hillel was a wandering teacher of wisdom; he wandered among the Jewish people like a kind of new Messiah. Meekness was his main characteristic. The people praised him highly. I can only mention a few examples of how Jesus spoke to his mother about Hillel in order to indicate how he felt about him. He described Hillel as having a mild, gentle character and who accomplished great things through gentleness and love.

One meaningful story has been preserved which shows how Hillel was a patient man who was open to everyone. Two people bet on the possibility of angering Hillel, for it was well known that Hillel was never angry. One of them said: I will do all possible to anger him – in order to win the bet. At a time when Hillel was most occupied (he was preparing for the Sabbath) the man who made the wager knocked at his door and said in a less than polite way – and Hillel was the head of the highest priestly authority, one accustomed to being addressed with respect – the man called out: Hillel, come out, come out right now!

Hillel threw something on and patiently went out.

The man said sharply: I have something to ask you.

Hillel said, My dear man, what is your question?

My question is, Why do the Babylonians have such narrow heads?

Hillel answered most gently, Well, my dear, the Babylonians have such narrow heads because their midwives are so clumsy.

The man left. But after a few minutes he returned and rudely called Hillel out again: Hillel, come out, I have a question for you!

Hillel put his cloak on, went out and said: Well, my dear man, what is your question?

I want to ask you why the Arabs have such small eyes.

Hillel answered gently: Because the desert is so large, it makes the eyes small, the eyes become small observing the vast desert.

The man who had made the bet was becoming anxious now. Hillel went back to his work.

After a few minutes the man came again and called out rudely: Hillel, come out, I have a question to ask you.

Hillel threw on his cloak, went out and gently said: What do you wish to ask me?

I want to ask you why the Egyptians have such flat feet.

Because the area where they live is so marshy, Hillel said and went back inside.

A few minutes later the man came again and told Hillel that he had something else to ask – that he had made a bet that he could anger him, but he knew not how to do it. Hillel said gently: My dear man, it is better that you lose your bet than that Hillel is angered.

That legend is told in order to show Hillel's patience, even with those who antagonize him. Such a man is, Jesus of Nazareth said to his mother, in many respects like a prophet of old. And don't we know many of Hillel's sayings that sound reminiscent of the prophets of old? He repeated several of Hillel's beautiful sayings, and then said: You see, dear mother, that Hillel is considered to be an old prophet who has come again. It occurs to me that what I know does not come from Judaism alone.

Now Hillel was born in Babylon and only occupied with Judaism later. But he descended from David, was related to the house of David from ancient times, as was Jesus. And Jesus said: If I could also speak as a son of David, as Hillel does, the people don't exist who could hear me; such words are no longer relevant. In ancient times yes, but not now. To speak thus now is useless and of no worth.

Then he summarized his position to his mother. These prophesies of ancient Judaism are no longer appropriate because the ancient Jews are no longer here. They must be seen as worthless now. Strangely enough his mother listened to him when he spoke about the worthlessness of what she considered to be most holy. But she loved him deeply and felt only her infinite love. So something of a profound intuitive understanding of what he meant reached her. He went on to tell her about his wanderings to the pagan places of worship and what he experienced there. He remembered falling unconscious on the pagan altar and hearing the transformed Bath-Kol. And then a renewal of the old Zarathustra teaching flashed before his mind. He didn't yet know for sure that he carried the Zarathustra soul within him, but the Zarathustra teaching and wisdom, the Zarathustra impulse arose within him during that talk with his mother. Together with his mother he experienced that great Zarathustra impulse. All the beautiful and great of the ancient Sun-Teaching arose in his soul. And he remembered the Bath-Kol words, which I recited yesterday, and he recited them to his mother:

AUM, Amen!
Evil rules,
Witness of the severing I,
Selfhood's guilt by others owed,
Now lived in daily bread,
In which heaven's will be not done,
For man deserted your kingdom,
And forgot your names,
You fathers in the heavens.

All the greatness of the Mithras worship lived in his soul with those words, rising up as from an inner genius. He spoke with his mother about the greatness and glory of paganism and about what lived in the ancient mysteries of the various peoples, much of which converged in the Mystery cults of Asia Minor and Southern Europe. But he also carried in his soul the feeling that this cult had gradually changed and had come under demonic power, which he had himself experienced when he was around twenty-four years of age. It also seemed to him that the old Zarathustra teaching was no longer appropriate for the people.

The second important thing he said was: If all the Mysteries were united and contained everything which was once great – the people are not there to hear it. It is all useless. And if I were to go around announcing the transformed Bath-Kol, if I were to declare the secret of why people can no longer live in their physical bodies together with the Mysteries – the people are not there today who would understand. Nowadays it would be demonic. People can no longer hear what was once announced and heard.

Jesus of Nazareth knew that what he had heard as the transformed voice of Bath-Kol was an ancient holy teaching, an all-powerful prayer wherever the Mysteries were celebrated; it had been forgotten, but had come to him when he fell down on the pagan altar. He also saw, however – and he expressed it clearly in that discussion – that today it is impossible to make all that understood. Then he spoke of what he had learned in the Essene circles. He described the beauty, the greatness and the glory of the Essene teachings and remembered the Essenes' gentleness.

Then he spoke of the third important thing, which had come to him during his visionary talk with the Buddha: Not all people can be Essenes. Hillel was right when he said: Don't separate yourself from society, but live and work within it. For what am I if I am alone? That's what the Essenes do though; they separate themselves from the people, who are then necessarily unhappy. Then he told his mother about his experience after an intimate conversation with the Essenes. As he was at the gate leaving, he saw Lucifer and Ahriman running off.

Since that moment, my dear mother, I knew that the Essenes protect themselves by means of their way of life and their occult teachings to the extent that Lucifer and Ahriman must flee from their gates. But they send Lucifer and Ahriman to others in order to be happy themselves. Those words greatly impressed the loving mother, and she felt herself transformed, and as one with him. And Jesus of Nazareth felt as though everything which burdened him had been lifted from him by this conversation. He saw it and his mother saw it. The more he spoke, the more she heard, the more she knew of all the wisdom that had lived in him since his twelfth year. He also transplanted all his experiences into her own heart.

He was also transformed by that talk, so much so that his stepbrothers and other relatives thought he had lost his mind. What a pity, they said, he knew so much; he was always very quiet, and now he has lost his mind. They considered him lost. In fact he did walk around the house dream-like for days on end. The Zarathustra-I was preparing to abandon that Jesus of Nazareth body. And his last resolve was to leave the house almost mechanically and go to John the Baptist, whom he already knew.

And then the event took place which I have often described: the baptism in the Jordan by John. During that talk with his mother, the I of Zarathustra withdrew. He was again what he was at twelve years of age, only grown up. And the Christ-Being descended into that body at the baptism in the Jordan. And at the same moment as this baptism in the Jordan took place, the mother experienced the end of her transformation. She felt – at the time she was forty-five, forty-six years old -, she felt herself imbued with the soul of the woman who was Jesus' mother until he was twelve when he received the Zarathustra-I; and who had later died. The other mother's spirit had descended upon the mother with whom Jesus had the conversation. And she felt like that young mother who had given birth to the Luke-Jesus.

Imagine what a hugely important event that was! Let us try to feel it, but also let us feel that now a special being lived on the earth: the Christ-Being in a human body, a Being who had not yet lived in a human body, who heretofore had only been in spiritual regions, who previously had not lived on earth, who knew the spiritual worlds, but not the earth! That Being only knew of the earth what was stored in the three bodies – physical body, etheric and astral bodies – of Jesus of Nazareth. It descended into those three bodies, as they had become under the influence of the thirty years of life which I have already described. Therefore the Christ-Being was unbiased in respect to his first earthly experiences.

This Christ-Being was led at first into solitude. This is also indicated in the Akasha Record and the Fifth Gospel. Jesus of Nazareth, in whose body the Christ-Being now dwelled, gave up everything which had tied him to the world. The Christ-Being had come to the earth. At first he was drawn to what was impressed most strongly in the astral body, like a remaining memory. Yes, he thought, that is the body which experienced Ahriman and Lucifer fleeing and realized that the striving Essenes pushed Ahriman and Lucifer off onto other people. He felt himself drawn to Ahriman and Lucifer, for it is against them that humanity must fight. Therefore the Christ-Being, who had never existed in a human body, departed into solitude to do battle with Ahriman and Lucifer.

I believe that the scene I am about to describe is essentially correct. But it is very difficult to observe such things in the Akasha Record. Therefore I would like to explicitly state that one or another detail may eventually be modified, but that the essential is there. The temptation scene appears in several Gospels, which describe it from different sides. I have often emphasized this. I have taken pains to investigate this temptation scene and would like to relate how it really was.

At first the Christ-Being in Jesus of Nazareth's body encountered Lucifer in solitude – how Lucifer works on people when they overestimate themselves, have too little humility and self-knowledge. Take advantage of man's false pride and self-importance: that is what Lucifer wants to do! Lucifer approached Christ Jesus and said more or less the words which also appear in the other Gospels: Look at me! The other kingdoms in which man dwells, founded by the old gods and spirits – they are old. I want to found a new kingdom; I will give you everything that is beautiful and glorious in the old kingdoms if you will enter into my new kingdom. But you must separate yourself from the old and recognize me! And Lucifer showed him all the beauty of the Luciferic world, all that would attract a human soul that had even a trace of pride. But the Christ-Being came from the spiritual world. He knew who Lucifer is and how the soul must act not to be tempted on earth by him. He knew nothing of Luciferic temptation; he knew though how to serve the gods and was strong enough to reject Lucifer. So Lucifer attacked a second time, but he came with Ahriman as support and they both spoke to Christ. One tried to goad his pride: Lucifer. The other spoke to his fear: Ahriman.

The first said to him: Through my spirituality, through what I can give you, you will not need what you now need because you have entered into a human body as Christ. That body subjugates you, so you must obey the law of gravity. I can throw you down and the human body prevents you from overcoming the law of gravity. If you obey me I will annul the effects of the fall and nothing will happen to you. Ahriman said: I will protect you from fear, throw yourself down! They both closed in on him, but as they balanced the scales, so to speak, by their insistence, he was able to resist them. He found the strength which man needs to find on earth to raise himself above Lucifer and Ahriman.

Then Ahriman said: Lucifer, you are of no use to me, you have not increased my power, only diminished it. So Ahriman sent Lucifer away and carried out the last attack as Ahriman alone and said the words which resonate in the Gospel of Matthew: Turn minerals into bread! Turn stones to bread if you claim to have divine powers. And the Christ-Being said: Men do not live by bread alone, but by the spiritual which comes from the spiritual world. The Christ-Being knew that well, for he had recently descended from the spiritual world. Ahriman replied: You may be right. But that you are right and insofar as you are right does not stop me from stopping you in a certain way. You only know what the spirit does which descends from the heights. You were not yet in the human world. Below, in the human world, there are completely different people; they truly need to turn stones to bread, they cannot nourish themselves by the spirit alone. That was the moment when Ahriman told Christ what one could know on the earth; which, however, the god who had just stepped upon the earth for the first time could not yet know. He did not know that it was necessary below to turn the mineral, metal to money, to bread. So Ahriman said that the people below are forced to nourish themselves with money. That was where Ahriman still had power. And, said Ahriman, I will use this power!

This is the correct description of the temptation story. The questions weren't definitively answered – Luficer's questions perhaps, but not Ahriman's. Something more was required for that.

As Christ Jesus left the solitude of the wilderness he felt himself released from all he had experienced and learned from his twelfth year on; he felt the Christ-spirit to be more connected with what had lived in him before his twelfth year. In fact he felt no longer connected with what was old and arid in humanity. He was even indifferent to the language spoken around him and he was silent at first. He walked around Nazareth and farther a field, visited many of the places he knew as Jesus of Nazareth, and there something extremely peculiar happened. Please note that I am telling the story from the Fifth Gospel, and it would make no sense to look for contradictions with the other four gospels. I am relating what the Fifth Gospel says.

Silently, like having nothing to do with the surroundings, Christ Jesus went at first from inn to inn, working with the common people. Ahriman's saying about bread had left a deep impression on him. Everywhere he found the people who knew him from before, and these were the people to whom Ahriman had to gain access because they needed to turn stones to bread, or what is the same – turn money, metal to bread. He had no need to associate with those who observed Hillel's – or others' – moral teachings. But he did associate with those whom the other gospels call tax collectors and sinners, for they were the ones most inclined to turn stones into bread. He spent much time with them.

But here is the strange thing that happened: Many of them already knew him from the time before his thirtieth birthday, when he had been with them as Jesus of Nazareth. They knew his mild, kind and wise nature and he was well loved in every house and inn. That love remained. They often spoke of the dear Jesus of Nazareth who had come to those houses and those places. And the following happened—as though an effect of cosmic law. (I am relating scenes which often repeat themselves, which clairvoyant research can often confirm.) There were families for whom Jesus of Nazareth had worked, who sat together after work, when the sun had gone down, and liked to talk about the dear fellow who had been with them as Jesus of Nazareth. They spoke of his love and gentleness and about the warm feelings that streamed through their souls when he lived under their roofs. In some of these houses where they sat and talked about Jesus of Nazareth for hours on end, an image of Jesus of Nazareth would appear as a vision shared by the whole family. Yes, he visited them in the spirit; or also, they created his spiritual image. You can imagine what it meant for such a family when he appeared to them in a vision, and what it meant to them when he now returned after the baptism in the Jordan and they recognized him, except that his eyes were more brilliant. They saw the transfigured face which had once looked upon them so kindly, this whole man whom they had seen sitting with them in the spirit. We can well imagine how the people in such families felt and what the sinners and tax collectors experienced who, because of their karma, were surrounded by all the demons of those times.

Now Jesus' transformed nature became evident, especially in such people. Previously they had felt his love, warmth and gentleness, but now a magical power emanated from him. While previously they had felt merely comforted, now they felt themselves healed. They went to their neighbors who were also depressed and brought them to him. And thus it happened that Christ Jesus, after he had defeated Lucifer and had only been stung by Ahriman, was able to accomplish what is described in the Bible as driving out demons.

Many of the demons he had seen as he lay like dead upon the sacrificial altar went out of the people when he stood before them as Christ Jesus. The demons saw their enemy. As he wandered through the land he often had to think about how he had lain upon the altar where instead of gods there were demons and where he couldn't perform the rite. He also had to think about Bath-Kol, who had revealed the old mystery prayer to him, which I told you about. He concentrated especially on the center line of that prayer: “Now lived in daily bread”. The people who were around him now had to turn stones into bread. And many among them had to live from bread alone. And the words from that ancient pagan prayer – “now lived in daily bread” – sank deeply into his soul. He felt the whole incorporation of man in the physical world. He felt that because of this necessity for bread in human evolution the names of the Fathers in heaven, that is the names of the spirits of the higher hierarchies, had been forgotten. And he felt that no humans existed who could still hear the voices of the old prophets. He now knew that living in daily bread is what had separated men from heaven and what must lead them to egotism and into Ahriman's clutches.

As he wandered with such thoughts through the land, it turned out that those who most strongly felt how Jesus of Nazareth had been transformed became his disciples and followed him. From various stops on his way he would select one or another of them, those who felt that impulse most strongly. Soon there was a large number of such disciples. These people had a completely new basic outlook, who because of him were different from those whom he described to his mother as not being able to hear the old prophesies. And then the god's mission on earth struck him: I am not here to tell men how the gods brought the spirit down to earth, but how mankind can find the way from the earth up to the spirit.

And then the voice of Bath-Kol came to him and he knew that the ancient formulas and prayers must be renewed; he knew that man must seek the way to the spiritual word from below. He inverted the last line of the prayer to make it appropriate for the people of those new times and because it was not to refer to the many spirits hierarchical beings, but only to one spiritual being:

“Our father who art in heaven.”

And the second line, which he had heard as the next to last line: “And forgot your names” – he inverted to accord with the needs of the times:

“Hallowed by thy name.”

And the third line, which was: “For man deserted your [plural] kingdom,” he inverted to: “Thy kingdom come,”

And the line: “In which heaven's will be not done,” he inverted so people could now understand it, for the old version was incomprehensible; he inverted it, for a complete inversion of the way to the spiritual world was to take place: “Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.”

And the mystery of bread, the mystery of the incarnation in the physical body, the mystery of all that had been revealed to him by Ahriman's sting – he transformed these things in such a way that man could feel that the physical world also comes from the spiritual world, although it is not directly apparent. So he changed the line about daily bread into a request: “Give us this day our daily bread”. And the words: “Selfhood's guilt by others owed” he changed to: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The second line of the old mystery prayer – “witness of the severing I” he changed to: “but deliver us”, and the first line: “Evil rules” he made “from evil. Amen”.

Thus the prayer which Christianity learned to know as the “Our Father” was transformed through the inversion of the voice of Bath-Kol, which Jesus heard when he fell upon the altar, to what Christ Jesus taught as the new mystery prayer, the new Our Father. The Sermon on the Mount and other things Jesus taught his disciples came into being in a similar way.

Christ Jesus had a remarkable effect on his disciples. Please bear in mind that I am merely relating what is written in the Fifth Gospel. As he made his way through the land his effect on his surroundings was remarkable. It is true that he was together with his disciples but, because he was the Christ-Being, it was as though he was not only present in his own body. One or another of the disciples would sometimes feel as though he were also acting in them, in their own souls. They felt that the Christ-Being was in them and began to say things which in reality only Christ Jesus himself could say. So the group traveled around and spoke to other people but it wasn't always Christ Jesus who spoke, but one of the disciples, for he shared everything with the disciples, also his wisdom.

I must admit that I was astonished when I realized that the conversation with the Sadducee, as related in the Gospel of Mark, was not spoken by Christ Jesus from Jesus' body, but by one of the disciples. It often happened that when Christ Jesus left the group he was with it anyway. Either he walked with them spiritually or he appeared to them in his ether-body. His ether-body was among them, walked around the country with them, and it was not always possible to determine whether his physical body was actually there, or if it was his ether-body.

That was the manner of the interaction with the disciples and the people when Jesus of Nazareth became the Christ-Jesus. He, though, experienced this time as I have already mentioned. At first the Christ-Being was relatively independent of Jesus of Nazareth's body, but had to gradually become more and more similar to it. And the longer he lived the more he was bound to Jesus of Nazareth's body, and a profound pain came over him in the last year due to being bound to the ailing body of Jesus of Nazareth. But he continued to wander about the land with a large group of disciples. One spoke here, another there, and one could think that it was always Christ Jesus – for Christ spoke through them all.

It was once possible to listen in to a conversation among scribes. They said: In order to frighten the people it would be possible to kill any one of them; but it could be the wrong one, because they all talk alike. That wouldn't help us, because then the real Christ Jesus could still be there. Only the disciples can identify him. They would certainly not tell their enemies which is the right one. But Ahriman had become strong enough in respect to the question which remained, which Christ couldn't resolve in the spiritual world, but only on earth. He would have to experience the most terrible deed – what it means to turn stones to bread. For this Ahriman made use of Judas of Iscariot. There was no spiritual means available to identify who among men who revered him was actually the Christ. For where the spirit worked he was not identifiable. Only when an individual – Judas – used means which were unknown to Christ, could he be recognized. He could not be recognized except when someone in the service of Ahriman would betray him for money alone. In this way Christ Jesus was bound to Judas, something which befell him during the temptation event, which is understandable in a god: He didn't know that it was only correct in heaven that one does not need stones for bread. The betrayal took place because Ahriman had retained his sting. Therefore Christ had to come under the power of the lord of death, insofar as Ahriman is the lord of death. That is the connection between the story of the temptation and the mystery of Golgotha with Judas' betrayal.

There is much more to be said from the Fifth Gospel than what I have said here. But during the course of human evolution surely the other parts of the Fifth Gospel will be revealed. I have attempted to give you an indication by telling you more in the way of how it is. At the end of these lectures, it has occurred to me once more what I said at the end of the first lecture – that the needs of the times make it necessary to speak about this Fifth Gospel now. And I would like to urge my dear friends to treat what has been said about the Fifth Gospel in the appropriate way.

You see, we already have enough enemies and they act in a quite peculiar way. I don't wish to speak of this now, perhaps you already know about it from reading the “Newssheet”. You also know the strange fact that there are people who have been saying for a long time now that what I teach is infected with all kinds of dogmatic Christianity, even with Jesuitism. Especially certain followers of the so-called Adyar-Theosophy talk in the worst way about this supposed Jesuitism, as well as many more hateful, unscrupulous things. And a certain source claiming outrage at the narrow-mindedness and perversity of our teaching, then completely falsified it. A man from America learned our teaching over a period of many months, wrote it down, brought it to America in a watered down version and then published a Rosicrucian Theosophy, which he copied from us. [The reference is to Max Heindel – ed.]He says that he learned a lot from us, but that he was then called by the masters and learned more from them. He was silent about the fact that he took the more profound things from my unpublished lecture cycles. One could accept that such a thing could happen in America One could, like Hillel, remain meekly silent – even when it spreads to Europe. Those who are most enraged at us here make a translation and in the translation say: Although there is also a Rosicrucian world view in Europe, it is narrow-minded and Jesuitical, and it can only thrive in the pure air of California.

Well, that's enough! That is our enemies' method. We can look at these things not only calmly, but also with compassion – but we may not close our eyes to them. When such things happen, then care must be taken by those who for years indulged such people who acted without scruples. I would really prefer not to speak about such things, were it not necessary in the service of truth. One must see everything with clarity.

When one the one hand these things are spread around, it does not protect us from others who may find such things unpleasant in a somewhat more honest way. I won't annoy you with all the silly junk written by both sides. All this peculiar literature by Freimark, Schalk, Maack, etc. would not be worthy of note because of its inferiority. But there are people who simply cannot stomach something like the Fifth Gospel. And perhaps no hate was as honest as that which arose when something about the mystery of the two Jesus children was first made public.

Real anthroposophists will treat this Fifth Gospel, which is given in good faith, correctly. Take it with you, discuss it in the branches, but tell the people how it must be treated. Make sure that it is not cast irreverently to people who might ridicule it.

We stand against our times with clairvoyant investigation, so necessary for the times, and above all against academe. We are aware of this. Those who were together with us at the laying of the foundation stone of our building know how necessary is the spreading of a spiritual teaching with strict observance of truth. We tried to be conscious of how distant our present culture is from this search for truth. One can well say that the cry for the spirit is heard through our times, but that people are too proud or limited to want to know anything about the true spirit. The amount of truthfulness necessary in order to witness the spirit must first be acquired. For this amount of truthfulness is lacking in today's educated milieu and, what is worse, this lack is not recognized. Treat what you have heard here about the Fifth Gospel so that it is treated reverently in the branches. We do not emphasize this due to egotism, but for a completely different reason, because the spirit of truth must live in us and the spirit must stand truthfully before us.

People talk today about the spirit, but have no idea of the spirit even when they do. There is a man who has won great respect because he talks so much about the spirit – Rudolf Eucken. He talks a lot about the spirit, but when you read his books – try it sometime – he always writes: The spirit exists, one must experience it, be together with it, sense it,—and so on. All through these books endlessly repeated: spirit, spirit, spirit! They talk about the spirit in this way because they are too lazy or arrogant to go to the source of the spirit. And such people are greatly respected nowadays. It is difficult today to be convincing about what is brought in such a concrete way from the spiritual world, such as the description of the Fifth Gospel. Seriousness and truthfulness are requisites for that. In one of Eucken's latest books, “Can We Still be Christians?”, he goes on and on about soul and spirit, spirit and soul, like a tapeworm, and many such volumes are written, for that is how one gains great respect and fame – when one claims to know something about the spirit, for people don't notice when reading the amount of untruthfulness involved. On one page we read: Humanity is beyond believing in demons; no one can be expected to believe in them. But in another place in the same book we find the peculiar sentence: “Contact of the divine with the human creates demonic powers.” The same man speaks seriously here of demons. Isn't that the deepest inner untruthfulness? But I don't see that many of our contemporaries notice this untruthfulness.

We stand at a point today when the truth about the spirit is in opposition to our times. We must always remember this in order to be clear about what we must do in our hearts if we wish to participate in announcing the spirit, the new life of the spirit which is so necessary for humanity. How can one hope to be well received in leading the human soul to the Christ-Being through spiritual teaching when the clever philosophers and theologians say that there was a Christianity before Christ! They show that the rituals and similar legends existed previously in the Orient. The clever theologians explain to all and sundry that Christianity is nothing more that a continuation of what previously existed. And such literature is greatly esteemed by our contemporaries, who don't realize what is happening.

When one speaks of the Christ-Being as spiritually descended, and then finds the Christ-being worshiped in the same ritual form as the pagan gods were worshiped, and when that is used to deny the Christ-Being, which is the case, it is using the following logic: Someone stays at an inn and leaves his clothes there. It is obvious from the clothes that they belong to him. Afterwards a person such as Schiller or Goethe due to some circumstance puts the clothes on and comes out with the clothes belonging to the other person. Then someone goes around saying asking what kind of special person is that. I have examined the clothes, they belong to so-an-do, and he is not at all special. Because the Christ-Being to some extent uses the clothes of the old rituals, the clever people come and fail to realize that the Christ-Being only puts them on as a garment and what is now in the old rituals is the Christ-Being.

And take the sum of scientific monistic considerations, libraries full – they are evidence of the Christ-Being's clothes, and they are even true! The hounds of cultural evolution are held in high regard and their science is accepted. We must paint this picture in our minds if we want to absorb what is meant with this Fifth Gospel, not only in understanding but also in feeling. What is meant is that we must assert our truth correctly in these new times as a new annunciation, and realize how impossible it is to make it comprehensible to the old times. Therefore Gospel words may be spoken now as we take leave of each other: We will not get far in spiritual development with the way people think today. Therefore this thinking must be changed and put in a different direction. And those whose nature is one of compromise, who have no desire for a clear picture of what is there now and what must come, will be of little use in what is spiritually necessary in the service of humanity.

I was obliged to speak of this Fifth Gospel, which is sacred to me. And I take leave of your hearts and souls with the wish that the bond which has arisen between us through other things may be strengthened through this spiritual investigation of the Fifth Gospel, which is especially dear to me. And perhaps this can release a warm feeling in your hearts and souls: When we are separated in distance and time we want nevertheless to be together, feel together what we are to develop in our souls and to what we are duty bound by the spirit in our times.

Hopefully what we strive for will be accomplished in every soul. I think this is the best farewell greeting I can give at the end of this lecture cycle.

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond and Owen Barfield

In the lecture here a week ago I dealt with a theme of vital importance in view of the events that are breaking with such tragic consequences into the life of mankind. This theme may be indicated, briefly, by saying: “It is urgently necessary for mankind once again to know and realise that the physical world is connected with spiritual realities, to become conscious of the fact that a spiritual world is working into the actual details of physical existence.”

Our age, above all, must be alive to the necessity for the spreading of this consciousness among mankind. The human being of the present time does not differ so very markedly in outward, physical appearance from human beings living in those past ages with which ordinary history deals. History, after all, goes no farther back than the Third Post-Atlantean period. What lies before that is a very vague chapter in the only kind of historical scholarship that is recognised by modern man. Although in the intervening period, man's life of soul has undergone very great changes indeed, it cannot be said that equal changes have taken place so far as the external, physical organism is concerned. Therefore people neither notice, nor try to notice, what is really happening as the outcome of impulses from the spiritual world. We are living in very momentous times. This has nothing to do with the trivial remark, so often heard, that this age is an age of transition. Naturally, every age is one of transition. The point is to know what is in transition in any particular age.

We become particularly conscious of what is thus in transition in our time—that is to say, of what is assuming new forms and undergoing great change—when we are able to observe not only the life of beings moving about the Earth in physical bodies, but also the beings who do not belong to the physical world—among them, the Dead. In the world in which the human being lives between death and a new birth—there, the changes, especially the transformation that is proceeding during this present age, are to be observed in all their deep significance. But modern man is loath to take in earnest matters concerning the spiritual world. The fact that this is so gives rise to many reflections in regard to the growth and existence of Anthroposophy. It really is the case that one need not be particularly biased in favour of the ideas represented in the Anthroposophical Movement before being willing to advocate them. In other Movements—and countless numbers of leagues, unions and the like are founded today, all of them convinced that they represent the most urgent needs of the world—in all such Movements people have the subjective fanaticism of their particular cause. They are infatuated with their own programme, maintaining that it will bring universal happiness, that it is an absolute necessity. In the case of the Anthroposophical Movement, such infatuation is simply not necessary, for the urge to advocate such ideas may come from something quite different. Briefly—and I must be brief because we can only be together for such short intervals—let me say the following: When a man has become convinced of the truth of the idea of Anthroposophy, he is impelled to do everything he can to spread them by the feeling of compassion for those who need these ideas at the present time—in other words, practically every human being with whom one comes into contact—compassion for men who need these ideas and without them will fall upon evil times.

In the last lecture here I tried to give you a conception of how a great deal that is unintelligible on the physical plane only begins to be intelligible when it can be viewed in its connection with the spiritual world. Today I want to put before you certain other points of view, which to begin with will appear to relate to quite different matters. We will start from a very common experience. Many people who consider themselves qualified to pass judgment on such matters, regard it as sign of religious enlightenment to repudiate ideas presented in Anthroposophy, for example, that on the other side of the threshold of the spiritual world, many Spiritual Beings, whole Hierarchies of Spiritual Beings are to be found ... Angeloi, Archangeloi, and still higher Hierarchies. It is considered to be a sign of enlightenment to dwell upon the One God and aspire to establish an intimate and direct relationship with Him. This is regarded as the only possible form of Monotheism and many people evince something like horror at a teaching that speaks of many Spiritual Beings.

Let us be quite clear about what this really implies. When a man's attitude to the spiritual world is merely that of the “enlightened” Church today, his relationship to the spiritual world—even if it is only in his feeling—is of a definite kind; it is simply a relationship with his Guardian Angel, the Angelos with whom he is, in fact, connected. And this Angelos—the only Being with whom he is able to feel related—he calls his God; if he is a Christian he calls him Christ; he confuses his Angelos with Christ. This may be difficult to understand, but it is so. Protestant theologians who claim to be enlightened and inveigh against Polytheism, urging men to establish direct relationship with the one Being, Christ—whatever they may preach concerning Christ, the truth is that what they say has only to do with the relationship of the human being to his Angelos. Monotheism in our time is in danger of becoming a worship of the Angelos of each individual human being.

Men are still unwilling to admit many things that are nevertheless there. Even the crudest circumstances, however, prove to an objective observer that such illusions set men well on the path to calamitous ideas. This worship of man's own Angelos is the reason why each individual has his own God, merely imagining that he shares with others a Godhead who is common to them all. The truth is that the monotheist of today has only his own individual Angelos and because there is such uniformity in the words with which each human being describes his own egotistical relation to the Angelos, people imagine that they are speaking of the Divinity who is the one God of them all. If this state of things were to continue, individuals would develop, still more strongly, the tendency that is taking such a terrible form among the nations today. Although the nations still theorise about the one universal Godhead, they do not—and this holds good above all at the present time—really acknowledge this one Godhead, because each of them prefers to have its own special God.

This, however, is merely what comes to light in crude, external form. In reality, every human being today wants to have his own God and he gives the name of “Monotheism” to the relationship between himself and his own Angelos. And because conditions are so clouded in an age when men's only desire is for perception of the Material, the truth of what I have just said does not occur to them.

Today there is evidence on all hands that when one speaks of man's concrete relationship with the spiritual world to those who as yet know nothing about Anthroposophy, they are unwilling to go into such matters; they are afraid of it all. They will not summon up courage to think about impulses that are said to come from the spiritual world. The same tendency has always existed in times of crisis and we are living in one such time nowadays. It is grievous to see how utterly inattentive men are to the momentous and tragic events of the present time, how disinclined to pay the necessary heed, except when driven to it by material considerations. The individual has to be trained, so to speak, before his attention is aroused to the fact that in the events of our time, deep and trenchant impulses in the life of mankind are placed before the soul.

That, after all, is why people simply did not listen when it was said that momentous, incisive thoughts and undertakings are called for by men if the world is to be lifted out of its present pitiable state—and that such thoughts and undertakings must be born from spiritual knowledge, real spiritual knowledge. Constant references to the universal Spirit, all the talk about inner, spiritual deepening and the like—none of it leads anywhere. What is essential is that men of the present time shall establish real and concrete relations with the spiritual world. It is not difficult for us to realise that even in earlier times when men were in closer contact with the spiritual world, their attention was directed to those concrete relationships which are no longer understood today. In earlier times men did not speak vaguely of swarms of human beings on the Earth below with some kind of Godhead up above, but they spoke in terms of concrete realities.

The most beautiful and significant fruits of these concrete relationships with the spiritual world are prophetic utterances like those of Daniel, of the Apocalypse, where men are not merely bidden to trust in a God, to believe in a God, but where they are told of the first heavenly kingdom, the second, the third ... told in all concrete reality of the connection of the spiritual world with the physical, material world. Humanity has lost all aptitude for speaking thus concretely of the relation of the Spiritual to the Physical, would prefer that everything should be painted the same colour, if I may put it so. Men like best of all to devise theories according to which human beings the Earth over can find equal material happiness. The socialist of today insists that certain ideas are right and proper for the life of man—right for England, for America, for Russia, for Asia; he thinks that if one and all arranged their national affairs according to socialist principles, the happiness which is the dream of modern man would come to the Earth of itself. All these ideas are abstract, unreal. Ignorance of the fact that something quite specific arises in one region of the Earth out of a particular people, something quite different in another region out of another people, the inability to understand the great difference between the West and the East—this is what causes endless confusion and chaos. For only when a man is able to build a bridge from his soul to the objective realities, can he co-operate fruitfully in shaping earthly existence.

People are unwilling to build such a bridge. Inner reasons have lately caused me to speak to friends in very many places of an event—momentous in its effect upon evolution—which took place in the last third of the nineteenth century; it is an event known to all occult schools although they are not always able to give accurate details of its actual course. I will speak of it briefly, again today. From the year 1841 onwards, a battle was waged in regions of the spiritual world, between certain Beings of the higher Hierarchies and other superior Beings. The Beings who rebelled and waged war from 1841 to 1879 had been used, before that time, in the service of the wise guidance of worlds. Even those Beings who rebel and become evil Beings of Darkness may, at certain other times, serve good and useful purposes. I am speaking, therefore, of Beings who up to the year 1841 had been used by higher Spirits in the service of the wise guidance of worlds but whose aims, from then onwards, ran counter to the aims of the Beings superior to them. These Beings of lower rank fought a great battle in the spiritual world—one of those battles that often take place—but at different levels—and are portrayed in legend and symbolism as the battle of Michael with the Dragon. In the autumn of 1879 this battle ended by certain Spirits of Darkness being cast down from the spiritual world to the Earth. Since then they have been working among men, creeping into their impulses of will, into their motives, into their ideas, indeed into all human affairs. And so, since the autumn of 1879, certain Spirits of Darkness have been among humanity and if men wish to understand earthly happenings, they must be alive to the presence of these Beings.

It is absolutely correct to say that in the year 1879 these Beings were cast down to the Earth. This made the heavens free but the Earth full of them. From that time onwards their habitation is no longer to be found in the heavens—they are on Earth.

If I am to describe the aim pursued by these Beings in their war of rebellion from 1841 to 1879, I must say the following:—They wanted to be able to prevent the spiritual wisdom, which will be revealed from the twentieth century onwards, from flowing into the souls of men. Only by the removal of the hindering Spirits of Darkness from the spiritual realm could the minds and hearts of men be opened to receive, from the twentieth century onwards, the spiritual knowledge destined for them; only so was the flow of this spiritual knowledge possible. Wandering as they now do among men, these Spirits of Darkness make it their business to spread confusion; from their arena here, on Earth, they want to prevent the establishment of the right attitude vis-à-vis the spiritual truths, they want to withhold from men the blessings which it is the purpose of the spiritual truths to bring.

Intimate and penetrating knowledge of these things is the only means whereby the aims of the Spirits of Darkness may be counteracted. Certain occult brotherhoods, however, make it their business to work in exactly the opposite sense; they want to retain the wisdom exclusively within their own narrow circles, in order to exploit it in connection with their lusts for power. We are living in the midst of this struggle. On the one side there is the necessity for men to be led along the right paths by the assimilation of the spiritual truths; on the other side there are enclosed occult brotherhoods of an evil kind, desiring to prevent these truths from finding their way to men, with the result that they remain dull and stupid as regards the spiritual world, and thus make it possible for those within narrowly enclosed brotherhoods to carry on their intrigues from there.

Events of the present time bristle with such intrigues and machinations, and calamity looms ahead if men will not realise that these machinations are in full swing. You will feel at once that light is shed upon the real background of these things when I tell you of certain truths which have matured in our time—truths which must fall as it were like ripened fruit from the spiritual world into the kingdom of men but are prevented from spreading—against which, moreover, men are instinctively prejudiced because they are afraid of them.

In this connection I want to speak as concretely as possible. The fact that in 1879 a number of Spirits of Darkness were cast into the kingdom of men, has weighty and significant consequences—one of which is that since that time, clear thinking has assumed a far, far greater importance than it ever had before. At no other period could it have been said, having regard to the inner necessities of evolution, that clarity of thinking is as essential as eating and drinking are to the maintenance of physical life. For if man's thinking lacks clarity in the age in which we are actually living and in the times to come, he will not be able to see in their right light the ripened truths which are to fall from the spiritual world. Above all, he will fail to realise the vast and profound significance of the Mystery of Golgotha, of the Coming of Christ, for the whole evolution of humanity. Many there are who speak of Christ Jesus. Modern theology, however, would actually like to prevent anyone from speaking of the deep purpose imparted to the earthly evolution of mankind by the Mystery of Golgotha. In the nature of things, fulfilment of what was to come to pass through the Mystery of Golgotha has been, and is, both slow and gradual. And in our present century, for the first time, this becomes intensely evident.

Previous epochs still enjoyed a heritage from the days when spirituality pervaded the atavistic inner life of man. Now, for the first time, man must strive for spirituality—if he desires it. And so, in our day, and actually only from the year 1879 onwards, very definite phenomena appear. Because external observation has become so crude, they are really only clearly to be perceived when the eyes of the soul are directed to that realm which the human being enters on passing through the Gate of Death. For souls born before the year 1879 and those born afterwards pass into the spiritual world in different ways. Truly, it is a momentous event of which we are here speaking.

One consequence of this event is that in their souls, human beings more and more come to resemble the thought, to resemble that which they regard as knowledge. This will seem a strange truth to the modern mind, but it is so, nevertheless. To see certain things in their proper light, with clarity of thought, with thoughts saturated with reality—that is vitally important. It is good to see Darwinism in the proper light—as I tried to present it in the public lecture yesterday. [1] To regard Darwinism as the one and only valid conception of the world, believing the only possible truth to be that man descends from the animals—and reiterating the thought: I descend from the animals, I descend entirely from forces which also produce the animals ... such thoughts, in our age, tend to make the soul resembles its own conceptions of itself. This is really an important matter! When the body is discarded, the soul is then confronted with the sorry fate of having to perceive its resemblance with its own thought! A man who lives in the physical body believing that animal forces alone were at work in his evolution, fashions for himself a kind of consciousness in which he will perceive his own likeness to animal nature. For since the event of 1879, the character of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch has been such that the souls of men are transformed into the ideas they form of themselves. That is why I said: It is not necessary to be particularly biased in favour of anthroposophical Spiritual Science before being willing to advocate it; all that is necessary is compassion for men who need these thoughts and ideas because they are creative powers in the life of soul, because it is ordained that in times to come, what the human being considers himself to be, that he will become. This development is part of the wise guidance of worlds, in order that the human being may attain full and free consciousness of the Self. On the one side the Gods were bound to make it possible for man to become what he makes of himself; and in order that he might imbue this self-created being with super-sensible meaning, that he might be able to find in this self-created being, something that gives him an eternal aim—in order that this might be, Christ Jesus fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. And when man understands Christ Jesus in the light of Spiritual Science, in the light of true thought, he finds the way to Him: the way which leads out from the animal into the Divine.

There is one truth that stands out strongly when the eyes of the soul are able to look into the world entered by the human being after death. Those who were born before 1879 always carry with them a certain heritage which protects them from becoming purely that which, here on Earth, they have pictured themselves to be. And for a long time still—these things are only gradually approaching—for a long time still this protection will be possible, but only through pain, only when men can suffer, when, to speak paradoxically, they can take on themselves the pain of knowing and feeling in themselves the shortcomings of their conception of man. Harmony with the Self, together with a knowledge which lets man after death be truly man,—this will arise for future times only if human beings become aware, here, in the physical body, of their true connection with the spiritual world. Those who are afraid of concrete facts of spiritual knowledge because of their materialistic ideas will, of course, for a long time yet be unwilling to acknowledge that any such change took place in the year 1879; nevertheless it will have to be acknowledged sooner or later. It is clear from this that one thing, above all, is essential and will become increasingly so in the future, namely, that all available spiritual knowledge shall spread over the Earth. Therefore in order to further their aims, the Spirits of Darkness will attach particular value to the breeding of confusion among men so that they will not succeed in forming the right thoughts and ideas into which, after death, they are transformed. What man thinks himself to be, that he is obliged to become.

This is a truth that was destined, after the great changes in the nineteenth century and from then onwards, to find its way to men. The human being must be voluntarily anything that he can be really; he must be able to think about his own being if he is to be truly himself in his life of soul. For even now the Dead could announce as a ripened truth: The soul is what it thinks itself to be. At the time when it was necessary, from the stage of the Earth to spread the truth: The soul is what it thinks itself to be, at that time Spirits of Darkness inspired human beings to announce the following: “Man is what he eats.” And although this is not, in theory, widely acknowledged, the practical conduct of life amounts very nearly to being an acknowledgment of the principle that man is what he eats—that and nothing else. Indeed this principle is more and more being applied and developed in external life. To a far greater extent than people believe, the grievous and tragic events of the present time are an outcome of the tenet: Man is what he eats. In a much deeper sense than is supposed by the superficial modern mind, a terrible amount of the blood that is shed today, is shed over unseemly issues. Humanity is already infiltrated by the principle that “man is what he eats.” And it gives rise, indirectly, to much contention.

That is why the spread of thoughts and ideas corresponding to the realities of the times is so very necessary. Thought will gradually have to be known as a concretely real power of the soul, not merely as the miserable abstraction produced so proudly by the modern age. Men living in earlier times were still linked, by an ancient heritage, with the spiritual world. Although for many centuries now, atavistic clairvoyance has almost entirely ebbed away, this heritage still lives in the feeling and in the will. But the time has come when everything that is conscious must become a real power—hence the Spirits of Darkness strive to counter really effective thoughts by abstract thoughts in the form of all kinds of programmes for the world. This connection must be realised and understood. Thoughts must be imbued with greater and greater reality.

There are still many people who say: “Oh, well, in all good time we shall discover what transpires after death; why trouble about it now? Let us attend to the requirements of life and when we reach yonder world we shall soon discover what it is.” Well and good, but if it is true that in yonder world a man becomes what he has pictured himself to be, then something else is also true. Take the idea that is not at all uncommon nowadays. Somebody dies, leaving relatives behind him. Although thought may not be entirely lacking in these people, they may be materialistically minded, and then, quite inevitably, they will think either that the dead man is decaying in the grave or that what still exists of him is preserved in the urn. Only if thought is entirely absent can men be materialists and not hold this view. If materialism were to triumph, the conviction would still further increase that all that remains of the Dead is disintegrating in the urn or in the grave. This thought is, however, a real power; it is an untruth. When those left behind think that the Dead no longer lives, is no longer there, this is a false thought—but it is real and actual in the souls of those who form it. The Dead is aware of this thought-reality, is aware of its significance for him. And it is by no means a matter of no consequence but, on the contrary, of fundamental importance, whether those left behind cherish in their souls the thought of the Dead living on in the spiritual world, or whether they succumb to the woeful idea that the Dead, well, he is dead, he lies there decaying in the grave. Far from being a matter of no importance, there is a very great and essential difference.

Coming to Zurich nowadays one can hardly fail to be attentive to what is known here—and also elsewhere, but here it is pursued very actively—as Analytical Psychology, Psychoanalysis. It is of course the case that the psycho-analysts have become alive to many things pertaining to the realm of soul-and-spirit; they are indeed beginning to think of the soul-and-spirit simply because it confronts them so insistently. Let me here say a word or two about one characteristic feature in this Psychoanalysis.

A patient suffers from symptoms of hysteria. The forms taken by these manifestations of hysteria are very typical at the present time and for this reason attract attention. Illnesses particularly common at any given period are always a matter of concern, and efforts are made to discover where the causes lie. Psychoanalysis has actually reached the point of stating that the causes of these frequent manifestations of hysteria lie in the life of soul. As it is quite impossible to look for them in the material domain, or in the field of physiological or biological processes as such, they must lie in the Psyche—in the life of soul. The tendency of the times is to seek in the subconscious life of soul for causes of the various forms of hysteria. The psychoanalysts say: “Such and such a man shows signs of hysteria; the cause is that something is working in him below the threshold of his consciousness and is constantly surging upwards like waves from subterranean, sub-psychic depths—and that is what we must look for.”

This is where the dangerous game begins. The psychoanalysts try to find all kinds of happenings which constitute an isolated, subterranean, hidden province of the Psyche, as they put it; in an hysterical subject of the age of 30, they look for “perversions” at the age, perhaps, of 7, which were not fully lived through or satisfied then and of which he must be made conscious again, because this will cure him and so forth. It is a game with extremely dangerous weapons, my dear friends! Out yonder on the physical battlefields, war is being waged with very dangerous weapons. Here, in many domains, with weapons of knowledge no less dangerous, a game is being played because people are not willing to deepen their thought in the sense of Spiritual Science and so to acquire a true understanding of these phenomena. The problem is approached with inadequate means of knowledge and it is a very dangerous game. It is, of course, perfectly true that the Subconscious works in many people today, without ever rising into consciousness. But what the psychoanalysts believe they have unearthed is usually of the least significance of all and, for this reason successes so far as cures are concerned are in most cases highly dubious. When hysteria in a lady of 30 is put down to some sexual perversion which occurred, say, at the age of 14 and has gone on simmering in the Subconscious—this is probably the most unimportant factor of all. In some few cases it may actually be correct and then, if its importance has been wrongly estimated, it will be all the more misleading. But it is absolutely true that countless factors lurk within human beings today, trouble them and give rise to the diseases of modern civilisation.

Think of what I said before. The thought of the absent Dead dwells in some way in the soul although little attention is paid to it; the thought dwells there because the soul today is still heedless—and is rather susceptible to these heedless thoughts. According to an eternal law, the Dead is then forced to dwell with these thoughts; the Dead haunts the soul of the one who is still living. True contact with the Dead can only be established by knowing: “the Dead lives!” And human beings on the physical plane will be more and more prone to psychological illnesses as a consequence of the prevailing disbelief in the existence of the Dead. The causes of these hysterical manifestations are not, as a rule, early sexual troubles but unbelieving thoughts. For thoughts in our age are destined to become powers—in more senses than one. They work as powers of thought per se, in that after death the soul takes on a stronger and stronger likeness to what, in the body, it pictures itself to be; but in a higher sense still, thoughts become real powers in that they fetter beings—the Dead in this case—in a wrongful way to the living. Only by sustaining the thought that the Dead lives on, can man guard himself, as well as others, against the link with the Dead becoming a source of danger to those who have been left behind—and in a certain sense the same applies to the Dead himself, who under an eternal, wisdom-filled law is compelled to lurk in the survivor in such a way that this influence remains in the Subconscious and manifests, ultimately, as illness.

Ask yourselves now: What will be the real remedy for many of the phenomena confronting the psychoanalysts today? The universal remedy, the universal therapy will be the spread of knowledge of the spiritual world—not these individual treatments.

Life demands of us that we shall abstain from the thought: here one has to devote oneself to physical existence only and the world of post-mortem existence will reveal itself all in good time. For this also is true: just as our life here is important for the existence into which we pass between death and a new birth, so too the life of souls living between death and a new birth is important for the soul living here on Earth.

What I have now said refers to one thought—namely, the thought of disbelief in the existence of the Dead. But the Dead are and should be connected by many links with the living. The link of which I have just spoken is improper, but there are many true links which must be there and which constitute the right connection with the spiritual world. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science strives to establish the true connection, for the life of men together on the Earth will only take its rightful course in the future, if this true relationship is established with the spiritual world. Failing this, it will become increasingly possible for certain individuals to embark upon intrigues and machinations of the kind of which I spoke last Tuesday, in order to usurp for themselves power over others.

Of one thing let us be quite clear. It is only possible to understand the deeply symptomatic events now proceeding in the East (of Europe) when we have a clear, inner conception of the nature of those lands and peoples. Think of what we have been saying for many years about the qualities of the peoples there as a basis for the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch. Only then can light be shed on all the difficult events and confusing influences that quite inevitably come from those Eastern lands. For, in effect, from what is happening there, something altogether different must in the course of time evolve. This, which is destined to evolve, is not so easy for the people of our time with their comfortable ways of thought to understand; no wonder they are taken aback by what happens there from day to day. But the important point is: to find the right way into all the streams and currents that are arising at the present time and will arise in the future. And little by little the right way is found when Spiritual Science is our guide to knowledge and understanding of the spiritual world. Thereby, too, the right relationship with the spiritual world is established.

In the last lecture here I told you of an improper relationship to the spiritual world that it is the aim of certain quarters to establish. I said that certain individuals are deprived of life here and sent into the spiritual world as the outcome of deliberate machinations; they have not, therefore, wholly lived out their life here and are still able to turn certain forces to account in the world where they live between death and a new birth. And then certain brotherhoods working with dishonourable motives, desiring only to satisfy their own lust for power, can use mediums for the purposes of receiving from the Dead the knowledge which the Dead have thus been enabled to acquire.

Occult brotherhoods of this kind are also, as a rule, those that lead men astray in regard to the events of greatest importance in the spiritual world. When I tell you that in 1879, in November, a momentous event took place, a battle of the Powers of Darkness against the Powers of Light, which ended in the sense of the picture of Michael overcoming the Dragon ... then the point is not, simply to tell you: such and such an event took place. For you can read in many books—it is not an esoteric truth at all—that such an event is appointed in world-evolution. What I really want to bring home is the significance of the event and the attitude that you should adopt towards it. Eliphas Levi, Baader, Saint-Martin, all knew and spoke of such an event—there is nothing really esoteric in the fact itself. But in our time, endeavours are on foot to spread confusion about such events—wherever possible, a confusion that makes men regard them as mere superstition, although they have already been proclaimed by ancient learning. Here, again, is a reason why correct and true ideas about these things are so important.

There exists today a right and proper path of approach to the spiritual truths, which since 1879 have been filtering down from the spiritual to the physical world. It is the path indicated by Spiritual Science. And if in the stream of Spiritual Science there is no deviation from sincerity and purity of intention, Spiritual Science will lead to the establishment of the right relationship between the physical and the spiritual worlds. But what is attained thereby, and must arise among men, involves and demands strenuous effort. Laziness in all its many forms must be put away. Strenuous effort is essential. When mention is made of impulses which, coming from the spiritual world, also work in the shaping of the future ... well, then people come and say: “I want to know this or that specific detail.” What they like best of all, nowadays, for example, is that one should give them a detailed description of what will happen in 1920 as the result of the present war. They do not understand that knowledge of the future ought not to be burdened with such detailed delineations, although this knowledge of the future can be absolutely reliable and effective. That is so terribly difficult to understand.

Let me make myself clear by means of a comparison. You will say: “Really that is unintelligible: he states on the one hand that details damage knowledge concerning the future, and on the other hand that one ought to pay attention to this knowledge because it speaks correctly about the future.” I want to make this point clear by means of a simple and trivial analogy. There are bad chess players and good chess players. Set a bad player down in front of a board and he will make bad moves and lose the game. A good player will get more opportunities and will win the game. The bad chess player simply makes the wrong move and the good player the right move, at the given moment. But does the good player apply his mind to detailed deliberation of the actual moves that the other player will make later on? Is it necessary for him, if he is a good player, to know now what moves the other player will make in two hours time? No, it is not! But that does not mean that his skill—the skill of a really good chess player—is ineffective. He will do what is the right thing for the future, because he knows the right moves and, if he has no such insight, he will make the wrong moves; but he is inevitably exposed to the free will of the other player. One cannot, therefore, ask: What is the good of being able to play chess really well, if the other player is always there? It is a very great help indeed to be able to play chess well! If you will ponder over this comparison, I am sure you will see what I mean.

The analogy will serve at the same time to point the truth of what everyone versed in occult matters of this kind will tell you, namely, that the moment a man draws his impulses for action in the physical world, from the spiritual world, he must be prepared to encounter other spiritual Powers; there are the “other players” to be reckoned with; there is no open field before him where he can just do what he has planned. That is the inconvenient fact! Suppose you have some knowledge of occult impulses, of impulses deriving from the spiritual world and then try—in the world of politics, let us say—to turn them to real account. If you are typical men of the present day, you will prefer everything to run smoothly and automatically so that you can have it all under control. But if you want to turn spiritual impulses, occult impulses to account in the physical world, you will have to reckon everywhere with the free will not only of men here on Earth, but also of higher Beings. In other words, with conditions as they are at present, you must not reckon upon having a free field before you; you must realise that the field is already crowded.

And so it is a matter of acquiring through genuine Spiritual Science, correct knowledge, for example of the character of the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch which is preparing in the East, and of putting the right occult impulse into action at the right moment, just as the chess player must make his move according to that of the other player. What is really necessary is that a man shall deepen his understanding of the spiritual world and learn to do the right thing in each individual case. A recovery of spiritual vitality, unbroken effort and exertion—that is what is necessary, not all these overlapping, abstract programmes. Humanity today likes to have abstract programmes, likes best of all to condense into four or five paragraphs what should be done all over the world, so that delegates appointed by all the nations may vote in a kind of World Court of Arbitration on what has to come about on Earth in accordance with a rule accepted once and for all. But what is really necessary is that men shall seek for knowledge of the spiritual world, shall seek lasting union with the spiritual powers.

But this is connected also with something else, namely, that you must reckon with the other powers in the field. You cannot merely rely on your own power; you must reckon with the others. The quest of power as such is, of course, ruled out. Impulses truly derived from the occult world will assuredly be right and will produce the right effects, but they will never be at the disposal of mere impulses of power. That would be out of the question.

What will one do on the other hand if one does want to serve mere impulses of power? Then one will act quite differently, trying to gain knowledge of the future by such improper means as I described last time, where mediumistic revelations about the future were elicited from souls who had first been precipitated through the Gate of Death in such a way that they might still make use of earthly forces. In this way, certain occult brotherhoods acquired knowledge concerning the relation of West and East, and on the basis of this knowledge all sorts of machinations were set on foot, the effects of which go on to this day. Knowledge of this kind, placed at the disposal of the lust for power, always has some particular object in view. If you acquire knowledge of occult forces in a right and honest way, all you will do in human life will at the same time be reckoning with the Angel-Beings, with every single Angelos of every one of the human beings concerned. You know the human beings in regard to whom you apply occult truths are in relation to the spiritual world. Every one of them, a living soul, has his connection with the spiritual world. You look on them as living beings. So should the West be dealing with the East—open always to what may arise, reckoning with the “other players” as with living beings—reckoning in effect with the Angels who guard the individuals concerned. This is found inconvenient. This kind of influence the Ahrimanic Powers want to do away with; they want mere power to prevail. And they can only achieve their end by such illicit means as I described last time, whereby they seek to gain possession of the forces leading on into the future. Our time is suffering great harm, in that the forces that were acquired in this way play their part in events. Hence the first task of the honest seeker after truth today is to convince himself of the existence of these evil forces and moreover that a right working into the future can be achieved only by finding access to these true impulses, which can be sought for in the sincere, straightforward ways of Spiritual Science.

Truly, the service to be rendered by Spiritual Science is by no means one-sided—for it is rendered both by the Living and the Dead. This is a solemn, serious matter. And as friends in Zurich are proposing to take steps to introduce spiritual Science in certain chosen circles, I have felt it necessary, in our Society here, to speak of these very serious aspects of spiritual knowledge in our time. That opposing powers are at work in manifold ways is to be observed even within our own Society. Think, too, of all that has been going on, really ever since this war began, in the way of calumny, of suspicion as to my own intentions and those of a few others! Here, too, of course, inimical powers are playing a part.

The very way in which we have spoken in these lectures will show you that our age sorely needs a renewal of spiritual life, needs to be wakened from a certain condition of sleep. There are so many who think that peace will come after the war and then it will all be over and done with. By no means! The events of the present time are portentous signs. To those who will not deepen their knowledge of Spiritual Science these signs will remain unintelligible. And because the times are so grave, because it will become more and more difficult to fight even such a battle as friends here have to fight before work can be done, I want to express my special, personal gratitude—it is a gratitude which comes, too, from Spiritual Science—that friends in Zurich have taken up the struggle so warmly and so effectively against unfavourable conditions and have been undaunted in their efforts to find opportunities for lectures. Thus it has actually been possible for the aim of friends in Zurich to be fulfilled at this time, when on account of the ever-increasing obstacles, such opportunities are hard to come by. I want to stress the fact that these difficulties will grow. And as in the immediate future we shall certainly have to think about making good use of the time still remaining open to us for the arrangement of meetings, I do not want to leave unexpressed my thanks for the great efforts made in connection with the public lectures and these two lectures to the Members here. Later on, when we look back over events, it will assuredly seem significant that now, at a time of such tragic world events, we could be together and speak together as we have done.

And so, with the impulses of Spiritual Science, we will continue to work, trying to make the best of what can be wrested from the difficult conditions of the times, in the conviction which arises from a true understanding of Spiritual Science, that, insignificant as it may appear within the great stream of tragic, devastating happenings today, we are doing something of great and incisive importance for the times. The things we do in this way flow into the stream of events. Although this may still not be very apparent today, it has significance, nevertheless. If we are filled with this thought it will give us the strength to go further and it will contain in itself the power to ray out into the times. Our age must assimilate such thoughts. Let us live in this conviction as in a spiritual atmosphere! It can arise in us in very truth if we understand Spiritual Science aright.

In this sense, my dear friends, we will remain together.

[1] “Anthroposophy and Natural Science.” 12^th November, 1917.

In these days I have tried to show you the conditions of human life from an individual aspect, and also from a wider aspect. You will have noticed that even during the public lectures which I held recently, I was anxious to point out the problems of spiritual science needed for an understanding of mankind. For we must abandon certain vicious circles of thought that are now to be found throughout the world, and are, really, one of the causes which led to the catastrophic events of the present.

Above all, people must understand where the boundary line between the so-called physical world and the spiritual really lies. This boundary-line really lies in the very center of man. In order to understand the world, it is very important to know that this boundary-line between the physical world and the spiritual world can be found in man himself. I have often pointed out, from the aspect of spiritual science, the great importance of scientific methods of thinking, both for the present and for the future, and have shown that scientific thought really stands more or less where it has always stood from its beginnings. One might well say that it is qualified to spread darkness over some of the most important truths of life.

Let us be quite clear that the evolution of the times only begins today to introduce scientific thinking gradually into the conceptions of the universe and of life. Today a few monistic societies, and others too, are engaged in introducing scientific conceptions into the consciousness of the general public—often in a shockingly amateurish way. This is only one of the channels through which scientific thinking will flow gradually into the human soul. A far more effective and incisive way is the one of publicity.

Not by chance, but in accordance with an inner reality, the new scientific way of thinking entered the evolution of mankind at the same time as the invention of printing. All new things that mankind has learnt so far through printed books (with the exception of books containing old things that existed already) came from the scientific consciousness. I mean that the new element came from the scientific consciousness. Above all, the way in which thoughts have been captured came from a scientific way of thinking.

Theologians will of course raise this objection: Have we not printed theological wisdom and all kinds of religious things during the last years, decades and centuries? Yes, this is true, but to what has it led us? The way in which human souls have become conversant with spiritual life under the auspices of printing has brought about this result, that the spiritual element has gradually left the sphere of religious consciousness altogether. Under the influence of scientific thought, even Christ-Jesus has become the “simple man of Nazareth” (you know this already) and although he has been characterized in many ways, he has nevertheless been placed on the same level as other great personalities of history—but for the present at least he still stands above the others. The real spiritual element connected with the Mystery of Golgotha gradually disappeared—at least for those who think that they have advanced in the civilization of our times.

I have already explained that the scientific way of thinking was obliged at first to cooperate in producing a certain darkening of the spirit, in support of what the Spirits of Darkness bring into human thinking, ever since 1879. In the scientific sphere this assumes a very subtle aspect. The scientifically trained thinker, or better, the scientific expert who cooperates in the general education of our age and in the formation of a world-conception, cannot help diverting man from casting a glance at the boundary-line between the physical world and the spiritual world, which exists in him. He cannot help this because science is as it is, and he does his very best (excuse this banal expression) to work in this direction by popularizing the scientific methods of thought. A future age will dawn for human thinking (it is terrible that such things are mentioned today – terrible for those who follow a particular line of thought), an age in which certain ideas will be looked upon as comical—ideas now ruling in science, which have not entered the consciousness of the masses, but influence them, because scientists (forgive me) are considered to be authorities.

I have often pointed out the following thought—even publicly in my book Riddles of the Soul: It is a current scientific idea that in the nervous system (we will limit ourselves to man, for the moment, although this can also be applied to animals) we can distinguish sensory, or sense-nerves or perceptive nerves, and motor nerves. It can be drawn schematically, by showing, for instance, that any nerve, say a nerve of touch, carries the sensation of touch to the central organ—let us suppose, to the spinal cord. The sensations from the periphery of the body reach the spinal cord. Then, from another point of the spinal cord goes out the so-called motor nerve. From there, the impulse of the will is sent on (see drawing).

In the brain this is shown in a more complicated way, as if the nerves were like telegraphic wires. The sense-impression, the impression on the skin, is led as far as the central organ: from there, an order goes out, as it were, that a movement must be carried out. A fly settles somewhere on the body—this causes a sensation; the sensation is led on to the central organ; there, the order is given to lift the hand as far as the forehead to chase away the fly. From a diagrammatic aspect, this is an idea that is generally accepted. A future age will look on this as something very comical indeed, for it is comical only for him who can detect this. But it is an idea that is accepted by the majority of professional scientists. Open the nearest book on the elements of science dealing with these things and you will find that today we must distinguish between sensory and motor nerves. You will find that they mention particularly the very comical picture of the telegraphic wire—that the sensation is conducted to the central organ and that the order is given out from there for the production of a movement. This picture is still very much diffused in popularized science.

It is far more difficult to see through reality than through the thoughts that set up comparisons with telegraphic wires, reminding us of the most primitive kinds of ideas. Spiritual Science alone enables us to see through reality. An impulse of the will has nothing in common physical matter. Nerves—both sensory and motor nerves—obey a uniform function, and this can be seen no matter whether the nerve-cord is interrupted in the spine or in the brain; in the brain it is merely interrupted in a more complicated way.

This interruption or break exists not only in order that something from the external world may be conducted through the one half to the central organ and then, in the form of will, from the central organ through the second half to the periphery—this interruption exists for an entirely different reason. Our nervous system is interrupted in this regular way because at the very point of the interruption, reflected in an image in man, there lies the boundary line between physical and spiritual experience; it is the bodily reflection of a complicated spiritual reality. This boundary exists in man in a very remarkable way. Man enters into a relationship with the world immediately around him, and this process is connected with that part of the nerve-cord that goes as far as the interruption. But man must also have a link with his own physical body as a soul-being. This connection with his own physical body is transmitted through the other nerve-cord. When an external impression causes me to move my hand, the impulse to move the hand already lies here (shown in the diagram), already united with the soul, with the sense-impression. And that which is conducted along the whole sensitive nerves, along the so-called motor nerve, from a to b, is not “conducted as a sense-impression as far as c, where an order is given that gives rise to b”– no, the soul-element is already fructified when an impulse of the will takes place at a, and passes through the entire nerve-path indicated in the diagram.

It is quite out of the question that such infantile ideas should correspond to any form of reality—ideas which presuppose that the soul is to be found somewhere between the sensory and the motor nerves, where it receives an impression from the exterior world and transmits an order from there, like a telegraphic operator. This childish idea, which is met with again and again, is very strange when found in conjunction with the demand that science must at all costs avoid being anthropomorphic! Anthropomorphic lines of thought must be avoided, yet people do not realize how anthropomorphic they themselves are, when they say that an impression is received, an order sent out, etc., etc. They talk and talk and have not the slightest idea what mythological beings they conjure into their dreams about the human organism! They would realize it if they would take things seriously.

Now the question arises: Why then is the nerve-cord interrupted? It is interrupted because, if this were not so, we should not be included in the whole process. Only because at the point of interruption the impulse springs over the gap, as it were (the same impulse, let us say, an impulse of the will, starts from a), because of this fact, we ourselves are in the world and are at one with this impulse. If the entire process were uninterrupted, with no break at this point, it would be entirely a process of Nature, in which we would not participate.

Imagine this process in a so-called reflex movement: A fly settles somewhere on your body, you chase away the fly, and the whole process never enters your consciousness fully. The entire process has its analogy, an entirely justified analogy, in the sphere of physics. Inasmuch as this process demands an explanation by means of physics, the explanation will be only a little more complicated than that of another physical process. Take a rubber ball, for instance: you press it here, and deform it. But the ball fills out again and reassumes its former shape. You press in and the ball presses out again. This is the plain physical process, a reflex movement, except that there is no organ of perception, there is nothing spiritual in the process. But if you interpolate something spiritual at this point by interrupting the process, the rubber ball will feel itself an individual being. However, in this case the rubber ball must have a nervous system, so that it can feel both the world and itself. A nervous system always exists in order that we may feel the world in ourselves: it never exists in order to pass on a sensation along one side of the wire, and a motor impulse along the other side.

I am pointing this out because the pursuance of this subject leads us into one of the many points where natural science must be corrected before it can supply ideas that correspond approximately to the real facts. The ideas ruling today are instruments of the impulses coming from the Spirits of Darkness. The boundary line between physical and spiritual experience lies in man himself.

You see, this piece of nerve that I indicated in red really serves to place us into the physical world, so that we may have sensations in the physical world. The other piece of nerve, indicated in blue, really serves to make us feel ourselves as body. There is no essential difference whether we experience a color consciously from outside, through the nerve-cord a c, or whether we experience an organ, or the position of an organ, etc., from inside, through the cord d b; in essence, this is the same. In the one case we experience something physical is in us, i.e., enclosed within our skin. Not only that which is outside, but also what is within us, places us in the process that can be experienced as a will-process. The strength of the perception varies according to the nerve-cords that transmit it—the cord a c, or the cord d b. Indeed, a definite weakening of the intensity takes place. When an idea is linked up with a will-impulse in a, the impulse is passed on from a; when it jumps from c to d, the whole process weakens to such an extent in our consciousness or experience that we experience its continuation—for instance, the lifting of our hand—only with that slight intensity of consciousness which we possess during sleep. When we lift our hand we are again aware of the will, but in the form of a new sensation from another side. Sleep extends continually in an anatomical and physiological sense into our waking life. We are connected with the exterior physical world, but we are completely awake only with that part of our being that goes as far as the interruption of the nerves. What lies in us beyond this interruption in the nerves is wrapped in sleep, even by day. In the present stage of the evolution of the Earth this process is not yet physical; it takes place on a certain spiritual level, although it is connected to a great extent with the lower qualities of human nature. However, I have often expounded the secret that just man's “lower nature” is connected with the higher manifestations of certain spiritual beings. If we note all the places in the human being where the nerves are interrupted, and jot them down in a diagram, we obtain the boundary-line between the experiencing in the physical world and the experience that comes from a higher world. Hence I can use the following diagram: Suppose that I indicate here all the nerve-interruptions—here is the head and here is a leg. Now suppose that a so-called impression goes out from here and that the interruption of the nerve is in this place. “Walking” will be the result, and the real process consists in this—that everything that we experience through the nerve here, is experienced by day in a waking way. But what we experience here as unconscious will is experienced in a sleeping way, even when we are awake. The spiritual world forms and creates directly everything that lies below the point of interruption in the nerves.

You may find these things difficult if you hear them for the first time, but they should make you aware that you cannot enter into the more intimate questions of knowledge without some difficulty.

When it becomes clear to you that everything above the boundary line connects man with the physical world, and everything below the boundary with a spiritual world, of which he possesses only an inferior kind of physical image, you will be able to reach the following conception:—Think of the plant-world; the plants grow out of the earth, but they would not do so unless they received from the universe forces which are intimately connected with the life of the Sun, and which receive everything that the earth generates in the form of forces. All these cosmic forces, everything that pours in from the universe out of the Sun's life, with all that emanates from the earth, belongs to the life of the plants.

This joint action of cosmic and telluric, or earthly, forces is part of the life and existence in the physical world, as we must understand it. The forces working on the plants below this line, from the earth, together with the plant's germinating force (the seed is put into the earth) are of the same kind as those that we must seek here, where the red lines are indicated [original article notes “This diagram cannot be given.”] You must look for the forces that the plant receives from the earth through its roots, above the boundary-line indicated in the diagram. Man takes from the earth in a more delicate way, through his eyes and ears, and above all through his skin, what the plant assimilates from the soil through its roots. Man is an earthly being through his nerves, and through what he receives in the form of telluric or earthly forces in the air he breathes, and in the food that the earth gives him. What the plant receives from the earth (except that the plant sends its roots into the earth), man receives through organs that he unfolds after death, from the earth; but he receives it in a more delicate way, and the plant in a coarser way through its roots.

The plant receives other forces as well; it receives forces that stream in from the Sun's sphere, from the heavenly sphere—the sphere of the cosmic spaces, or the universe. In my diagram, this sphere is indicated in blue; it represents the forces that the plant receives from the universe. They are of the same kind as those indicated in blue, beyond the boundary line. Man draws out of his body what the plant draws out of the universe. From the earth, man receives in a more refined state the forces and substances which the plant assimilates more coarsely from the soil through its roots. From this body, man receives more coarsely the same forces and substances that the plant draws from the universe in a more refined state. These forces do not exist in the universe in the form in which man draws them out of his own body; they existed as such during the old Moon period. Man has preserved them from that period. Through what lies beyond this limit (shown in the blue part of the diagram) man does not receive his perceptions immediately from the present, but from what he brought over as an inheritance from the old Moon period. He has carried the cosmic conditions of a past age into the present. Man has preserved the Moon-conditions in his body.

You can see, therefore, that we are cosmic to a certain extent and are even connected with the universe in such a way that we bear within us an image of what has already been conquered by the universe outside.

This is again an example of what I mentioned last time, that it will not be of much use if we say, from a general, vague and nebulous standpoint, that man must take up again a cosmic way of feeling and cosmic ideas. These things are only of value if we approach them quite concretely, and if we really know how matters stand, how they are connected. This will place the experimental attempts of the present day on a sound basis, on a really sound basis. If we know that everything in the human body lying beyond the nerve-interruptions is connected with the Moon nature, we shall find in the universe and in the life on earth the forces that make us ill or that heal us. We shall find them through these relationships, and when we know how that which lies on this side of the boundary-line is connected with the conditions of the earth (in a finer way than the plant's connection with the soil through its roots), we shall find, in a really conscious way, the connection between illness and health and the qualities of certain plants.

These things are still in the experimental stage. Man's thinking must first be placed on a sound basis, and then there will also be a sound foundation of knowledge for the conceptions and ideas which he develops, in order that his thinking may regulate, permeate, and give a certain structure to the social, ethical, pedagogic and political aspects of life.

In many realms of knowledge, we perceive that just those people, who in their scientific thought are broad-minded, able experts, begin to romance, to talk absolute nonsense, when they transfer their habitual ideas to the sphere of social life. But the sphere of social life is not an entirely independent sphere. The human being, with his physical soul and spiritual nature, takes his place in social life, and it is not possible to separate these things from one another. We must not content ourselves with the fact that men are made scientifically stupid in the social sphere in order that they may only be able to talk nonsense where the social sphere is concerned!

Today it is quite easy to prove that experienced scientists begin to talk nonsense when they cross the boundary between science and spiritual life. Medical men, especially, are very prone to all kinds of absurdities when they enter the spiritual sphere with the ideas that are gained today in the realm of science. We need not search far afield: any example taken from human life will serve, for wherever we look we shall find confusion in this respect.

For instance, here is a pamphlet by a very good doctor, entitled: “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life.” In order not to arouse your prejudice, I will not even say what a good doctor he is. This excellent medical man, however, observed the nervous system, concerning which science has not even a glimmer of a correct idea (this can be realized from the few examples I have given today); he observed to what extent the nervous system has been injured by the present war conditions. We need only consider the most primitive examples, in order to show how really sound thinking ceases when scientific conceptions are transferred to that which is connected, to some extent, with the spiritual sphere—I will not even say, the spiritual sphere itself! The discussion of such a subject as “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life” implies the necessity of expressing what is supposed to take place in the nerves, as a result of all kinds of things pertaining to the spiritual (mental) life—naturally, that spiritual life which takes its course on the physical plane—through all kinds of ideas which are taken from this spiritual life.

This man, for instance, brings forward an idea that is supposed to be justified under certain conditions of abnormal life of the nerves, the idea of “over-estimated thoughts.” They are a symptom of diseased nerves. “Over-estimated thoughts”—what does this mean? You see, anyone who brings forward such a conception must make sure that it is really effective in life. What is an over-estimated thought? This doctor says it arises when the feeling, or the sensation, in the thought is emphasized too strongly, when it is a one-sided thought; in fact, he brings forward all kinds of vague ideas. Of course, I cannot give you a precise idea of this, but do not ascribe this lack of a clear definition to spiritual science, for now I am quoting. An over-estimated thought arises, for instance, if one hates a foreign country excessively, owing to the war. A “valued thought” would be real patriotism. But this real patriotism becomes “over-valued” when the nervous system is irritated. One does not only love one's country, but hates the other countries: then the thought has become “over-valued.” The “valued” thought is sound, and from the valued thought one must conclude that the nerves also are sound. But if the thought is over-valued, the nerves are injured. Do we meet reality anywhere, if we characterize, on the one hand a nerve process, and on the other hand a thought which is supposed to have a certain quality? As a thought, it is supposed to be “over-valued”; the nerve process is on one side and the idea “over-valued” on the other. People would do well to think out such things always to the very end, for a thought reveals itself as correct or incorrect, i.e., as real or unreal, only if it is thought to the end. For instance, it would be an over-valued thought if I were to think that I am the King of Spain; undoubtedly this would be an over-valued thought. But it need not be “over-valued” if I really happened to be the King of Spain. In this case my nervous system would be quite sound, although the thought is the same. It has the same content. Hence the thought itself is not over-valued; otherwise we must believe the King of Spain to be afflicted with nerve troubles because he thinks that he is the King of Spain! This is so, is it not? Consequently, this connection is not important, nevertheless there is a great deal of talk about this. There is not only talk: conceptions, definitions, etc., are formed. The results are very strange and not worth more than idle chatter.

You see, now, that this man has formed the idea of over-valued thoughts. The over-valuation of thoughts is a symptom for disturbances in the life of the nerves. Very well. But his sub-consciousness does not feel very much at ease, for sub-consciously he feels that while he is explaining to people all these matters concerning the over-valuation of thoughts, they, too, have all kinds of sub-conscious thoughts, they think there is a flaw in the argument; but this remains, of course, in the sub-consciousness of people, for this person is an “authority”! Hence their impressions must not rise into consciousness , for, with the designation “over-valuation” is expressed not only the vivid and high valuation of the ideas in question, but also their “over-valuation” in connection with the real facts which lie at their foundation. The over-valued thought rules consciousness to such an extent that there is no room beside it for other objective thoughts, which are also justified. The latter are pushed aside and lose their efficacy in consciousness and their influence in bridling and limiting the over-valued thoughts. Thus a one-sided exaggeration arises when judgments are formed, a one-sided tendency in the strivings of the will, and a turning away from all other spheres of thought which are not immediately connected with the center of the over-valued thoughts.

(It is more or less the same thing as arguing that poverty comes from “pauvreté”!)

Certainly, two people may have the same thought substance, but in one case this is Lucifer, in the other case Ahriman, and in a third case it may be in keeping with the normal evolution of humanity. Instead of coining the empty expression “over-valued thoughts,” we must accept the idea of spirituality, such as the luciferic or the ahrimanic spirituality; then we shall know that the important point is to recognize whether a human being wills something out of himself, or whether something else in him wills it. But of course, so-called science still shrinks from such views.

And if we expect real, concrete results from science, things become very amusing! Listen to this:

“First of all, I will define” (he tries to explain himself, because he wishes to show the symptoms of certain nervous disturbances), “first of all, I will define the thoughts that often play the chief role in the nervous disturbances of individuals” (he means also in the modern nationality-mania), “the ideas of despondency, care, fear, lack of courage and of self- confidence.” Very well, these are the things that characterize the nervous system in the life of the nerves that is determined by over-valued thoughts.

Despondency, care, fear, lack of courage and of self-confidence—well, such a lecture is meant to be of help somehow, for this authority does not speak merely to cause vibrations in the air, but because he wishes it to be of use. Hence one would expect this gentleman to tell us how humanity can overcome these handicaps, because he finds, not only in individuals, but also in humanity, lack of courage, care, despondency, lack of self-confidence as symptoms of nervous disturbances; now we should expect him to tell us how to get rid of these things, how to get beyond this lack of courage, care, despondency, lack of self-confidence. One would take this for granted. Indeed he takes it for granted, for he says:

“Thus for a time at least, that discontented, discouraged mood can spread among the great masses of the people, which is to be feared more than anything else. For it leads to the abandonment of strong sound impulses of the will, it loosens the firm, united striving after a goal, and it weakens energy and endurance.”

Now we expect something, and he continues: “Not to be nervous, therefore, means above all courage, confidence, trust in one's own strength, and not swerving from what has been recognized as the right course of action.”

So now we have the conclusion. People are nervous when they are oppressed by care, lack of courage, despondency, lack of self-confidence. How do they get rid of their nervousness? When they are not oppressed by all this! This is quite clear, is it not? When they are not oppressed by all these things!

The worthlessness of thought is carried over into substantiality also in science. Certain authorities have at their disposal all the material, have taken possession of it. It is already confiscated when any attempt is made to work upon it with reason. But when they work upon it themselves, they do so with worthless thoughts. All anatomical, physiological and physical subject matter is consequently lost. Nothing is created, for at the very table where something useful for humanity should be produced, people stand with these worthless thoughts. Certainly nothing can come of the dissection of a corpse, when—forgive the hard expression—an “empty head” dissects. Here already the matter becomes social. Things must be considered from this point of view. And a very promising treatise ends in the manner I have just shown.

I have given you one example. Not be become nervous means above all not to lose courage, confidence and trust. But when today the average reader takes up such a treatise and reads: “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life”—and thinks, “here I shall be enlightened, for this is by Professor So-and-so, director of the Medical Hospital in So-and-so.”—well, now he is clear about it, now naturally he is enlightened.

But on page 27, where national hatred is discussed, we read:—“Certainly similar impulses flared up within us, and we found it almost a relief and satisfaction to oppose our greatest enemies with a similar attitude on our side. And yet, only a little quiet consideration is needed to realize that this general national hatred is only the outcome of a diseased, overstimulated attitude of soul, into which the various peoples have fallen through mutually inflaming, inciting and imitating one another.”

How then has the history of national hatred arisen, according to this statement? Here are various peoples: a, b, and c, but neither a, b, nor c is in any way capable of hating, of itself, for the whole history has not arisen thus,—this general national hatred has developed through a diseased, over-stimulated attitude of soul into which the various peoples have fallen through mutually inflaming, inciting and imitating one another. Thus, a cannot bring it about, b also cannot, nor can c; but what each is unable to do, they achieve by mutually provoking one another. Consider how ingenious the thought is. I explain something and have before me a, b, and c. All this is unable to provide an adequate explanation, but does so just the same. I explain something therefore out of nothing at all in the most beautiful manner

People pick up such things and read them without observing that they are simply nonsense.

It is necessary to point out such things for they show how disjointed and worthless the thought is which today assumes authority. Naturally in science, which pertains to what already exists, this does not come to light so strongly and cannot be controlled. But just as people think here in the realm of science, so they also think in social, pedagogical and political life and this has been prepared during the last four centuries. This is the present situation.

So it has come about that gradually out of the disjointed, worthless thought, just such impulses as those which meet us in the present catastrophic events have arisen. Here we must penetrate thoroughly to the roots of the matter. And only when people then come to the surface of things, where the matter becomes actual for the single individual, and may also become so for the social structure of whole peoples, there the matter becomes especially terrible and tragic. It is our task on the one hand to grasp these things, is it not? We must learn to know them within their mutual limits, if we are to understand them. If we wish to understand such an event as the present war, which is so complicated and which unquestionably cannot be grasped in its details from the physical plane, we must—as people say—trace it back to its sources. But everyone believes, when he has traced a matter back to its source, when he has understood it in this manner, that it was a necessity, that it had to happen just as it now is. Today for instance, one does not in the least notice that the one has nothing whatever to do with the other. Because we understand something in its interrelationships, this does not also establish the fact that the event had to take place, that it could not have been omitted. He who tries to make clear to himself, in a more or less intelligent way, why the present war had to come, why it is not something determined by a few people, but something connected with deeper causes in the evolution of humanity—often goes away satisfied and says: Now I understand that nothing else was possible except that this war should come. It is obviously a necessity—in the sense that when we know its causes it develops with absolute necessity out of them, out of these concrete conditions. But this does not mean that we may draw the conclusion that things had to happen just as they have happened. No event arising in world history is necessary in this latter sense. Although in the former sense it is necessary, no event is necessary in this latter sense. Each event might have been different, and each might not have happened at all.

He who speaks of absolute necessity might reflect with the same right: I should like to know when I shall die. Now if I go to a life insurance company, they reckon out—determining the amount of the insurance policies accordingly—how many people out of a certain number have died in a given length of time and how many still live. The insurance money is paid accordingly. I go to a life insurance company for information and it must appear from their calculations whether I shall be dead or not in 1922.

This is naturally complete nonsense. But it is exactly the same nonsense when we try to derive the necessity of one event from another, from the realization of the cause that must lead to it. Here I touch upon a theme which indeed is not easy, for the reason that just in this sphere the most disjointed ideas are prevalent, because very little will to become clear about things exists in this realm today.

If we really wish to be clear on this point, we must recognize that when something takes place, it does so under the influence of certain conditions. In the sequence of circumstances we always come to a certain point where there are beginnings—real beginnings. If today we see a sapling that is still small, later on it will become larger; the largeness of the tree develops of necessity from its smallness. After a short time we may say: It is a necessity that this tree has developed thus. I could see how it developed according to necessity when it was still very small, perhaps while it was unfolding its very first germinating forces out of the earth. If I am a botanist I can see that in time a large tree must of necessity arise. But if the seed had not fallen into the earth at this particular spot—perhaps someone planted it there, but if he had not done so—then here would be a point where necessity would not have been introduced. For necessity must begin here. We have before us a mighty oak, let us say—it is not here in reality—we look at it and admire it; it was once naturally a sapling and has grown from this sapling, according to necessity. But now imagine that a good-for-nothing boy (or girl!) had come along while it was still very small and pulled it up. Because it is pulled up, the whole necessity does not result. In a negative sense also the necessity may be done away with. Starting points, where necessities begin, these reveal themselves to the thought that conforms to reality. This is the essential point.

But we do not reach these starting points when we observe merely the outer course of events. We reach them only when we can at least feel the spiritual foundations. For just as you have here a bunch of roses, and when you form a concept of it, if you are an abstract person, an idea will result which is a copy of the reality (for the bunch of roses is real and the idea of it is a copy of reality)—so for the occultist the bunch of roses is not a reality at all when he conceives it, because the bunch of roses does not exist; the roses can only exist when with their roots they are connected with the earth. The real concept does not result when we form an image of something that is from the outset external, but only when we have formed out of the reality this fully experienced concept. But this fully experienced concept yields itself only to spiritual-scientific contemplation—even in the case of outer sense reality.

A valid concept of a world-historical event is only reached when we can view this event according to the methods of spiritual science. Here we find that it may indeed be traced in regard to its necessity; we find its ramifications, its roots within reality. But something is accomplished only by actually tracing the roots, not by the general statement of an abstract necessity.

Had, for instance, certain events during the eighties of the nineteenth century been different, the events in 1914 would also have been different. But this is just the important point, not to proceed as the historian does, who says: What now takes place is the effect of preceding events, these are in turn the effect of preceding events, which are the effect of still other events, etc. We come thus not only to the beginning of the world, but still farther, into cornplete nothingness. One such idea rolls along behind the other. This, however, is not the important point, but we must follow the matter concretely to where it first took root. Just as the root of a plant begins somewhere, so also do events. Seeds are sown in the course of time. If the seeds are not sown, then the events do not arise. I have touched upon a theme here that I naturally cannot exhaust today. We will have more to say later on this subject that I will describe essentially thus: “In spite of all considerations of necessity, there is not a single event which is absolutely necessary.”

It is really essential that men of the present day should, in their whole attitude of mind, emerge from this frightful dogmatism that permeates modern science, and that matters should be [taken] seriously.

I will give you a good example. At Zurich and Basle I endeavored to explain what nonsense it is to consider a sequence of historical events in such a way that one event must necessarily arise from another. This is the same as if I said: Here is a light that illumines first an object a, then an object b, then an object c. I do not notice the light itself, but merely the fact that first a, then b, then c in turn becomes illumined. I should be mistaken if, on seeing a and then b illumined, I were to say that b is lighted from a, and when I see that c is illumined, I were then to say: c is lighted from b. This would be quite incorrect, for the illumination of b and c have nothing to do with a; they all receive light from a common source. I gave this example in my lectures in order to explain historical events.

Now suppose that somebody found this idea quite a nice one. This is possible, is it not, that an idea which has sprung up on anthroposophical soil should be found quite good? Indeed, here and there even our opponents have taken such ideas to use for themselves. Many indeed have become opponents because such things had to be censured. Thus it is quite possible that an analogy brought forward from an anthroposophical quarter should not be absolutely foolish. Suppose some person took it and used it in a connection differing from that in which I had used it. Suppose that he used it dogmatically, not symptomatically as I did. Suppose that he used it from quite a different attitude of mind, and that I heard a lecture in which he said: “The sequence of cause and effect is quite wrongly explained by saying that effect b is the result of cause a, effect c of cause b, for this would be the same as saying: ‘When three objects, a, b, and c, are illumined, then b is illumined by a, c by b’.”

Suppose I am listening to all this, and that the explanation is not given in the same connection in which I spoke at Basle and Zurich, then I should perhaps object to the lecturer's conclusions, arising from his connection. I should perhaps say: “Supposing that a, b and c are luminescent substances—there are such substances; when exposed to light they become luminous and can give light even when the source of light is removed—suppose that a, being luminescent, actually illumines b, and that b, being luminescent, illumines c, then b would in truth be lighted by a, and c by b. In this way the whole analogy can become very brittle, when it is used by someone who, in the course of his lecture, has not explained that concepts for the realities in the spiritual life are like photographs, which differ when taken from different points of view. If this is not said at the outset, if the lecturer does not lead up to ideas that conform to reality, so that these ideas are always ideas from a certain point of view, then what has been said quite rightly from a certain perspective may become nonsense when used in an absolute sense.

The difference lies in this: Does the speaker start from reality or ideas? If from the latter, he will always be one-sided. If he takes as his starting point reality—since he can only bring forward ideas and nothing else, and every idea is one-sided—he may and must produce one-sided ideas, for that is quite obvious. You will now understand that a complete, a fundamental alteration of the soul-life is essential. For this reason it is easy for people to criticize many ideas of which I am the author. I do not know if anyone has hit upon this particular criticism. I have myself already made all the criticisms that are necessary.

Men must now realize in what way the idea is related to the reality. Only then shall we be able to penetrate into reality. Otherwise we shall always quarrel about ideas. Today the whole world is fighting about ideas in the social sphere, even when this fight has been transformed into external deeds. The fight about ideas changes very frequently into external deeds. These things lead into the intimacies of the spiritual life. Those who would understand existence must reflect on such things.

I have called your attention to these matters today in a more theoretical way. Next time I will speak of contemporary history from this standpoint and will show how far certain events have been necessary, and how far they were quite unnecessary, how quite different events might have happened, and how the catastrophes under which we all suffer need not have happened at all. We shall speak of these important questions in the next lecture.

I shall continue, in a more aphoristic form, to bring you further thoughts on the subject we have been dealing with for weeks now, and which I have always characterized by saying that the great difficulty in matters of world-view now lies — I always emphasize the word “now”—that out of the views of the present time it becomes difficult for people to build a bridge between what is called idealism and what can be described as a view of the natural order of things. When modern man attempts to build such a bridge, when he tries to realize how, for example, moral ideas — if we take one group out of the sum total of ideas — now not externally but internally real to the views, to the concepts that one develops about the course of the causal natural order, he falls into a kind of world-view dualism, as one could express it spiritually. We have emphasized this again and again. Man tries to build such a bridge, but he does not succeed.

It will be easier for us to see exactly what is at stake here if we compare this modern dualism with what existed in ancient times – I mean in pre-Christian times, as we speak of pre-Christian times – as something similar. In ancient times, something similar to our present-day dualism existed for humanity in what can be called fatalism. People were almost forced into fatalism until the 2nd or 3rd century BC, and even more so later on – but it became more and more anachronistic. And basically, fatalism also lies at the root of the Greek world view. In modern times, all fatalism is actually anachronistic; that is, it no longer belongs in the present. Seduced, one might say, were the people of ancient times to fatalism, seduced are the people of the newer times, and most particularly of the present, to dualism.

Now let us try to understand why ancient people were so easily seduced into fatalism. We know, of course, that the state of mind of human beings has changed radically in the course of evolution, and it is a superstition to assume, as popular Darwinism does, that there has been only a gradual evolution. A radical change has taken place in the state of mind, and in this respect history is most of all a fable convenante. The state of mind of ancient people was such that the natural never really confronted them as it confronts today's people, and in contrast to this, the spiritual did not confront them conceptually, as in terms of ideas, as it confronts today's people. Everything that the ancient man imagined about nature, he imagined in such a way that he imagined the natural combined with the spiritual, and again he imagined the spiritual in such a way that he took images from the course of nature for the imagination. If you had old teachings about the gods, they are actually completely imbued, as myths completely imbued, with ideas taken from the nature that can be perceived by the senses. When people spoke of nature, they did not speak as we speak today, so dryly, so abstractly, but they spoke of elementary spirituality, of essences that carry and bring about natural phenomena.

This was not due to a great childishness of expression, but it was based on the real view, on the real state of mind. The ancient man did not see nature as we see it under the influence of today's science, even if we are not scientists; he did not see his spiritual being so abstractly, so merely in terms of ideas, as we have to today. Through this confusion of nature and spirit, man brought himself into fatalism; for in the way just described, when natural phenomena became imbued with spiritual acts for man, it was natural that all life should be intended in the external way in which human acts are intended. It was a picture, but the old man had no other picture; but that necessarily leads to the deception of fatalism.

Over time, however, a different state of mind arose. We have already characterized this change in the state of mind from the most diverse points of view; today we want to look at it from a very special point of view. Today we want to pose the question, which we can only answer on the basis of everything we have presented in the last lectures: What is it, objectively speaking, that a person sees when he observes the natural order, and what is it, objectively speaking, that a person inwardly conceives when he speaks of the spirit today? I am not talking about how we speak of the spirit in spiritual science, but rather how the general consciousness of humanity today speaks of the spirit, more or less nuanced in this or that way.

We know that even if a person is not a theorist (we are disregarding theorists here), if he wants to understand the natural order, he instinctively comes to the rule of matter and forces. I am not talking now about the scientific theories of substances and forces, but rather about how the average person today, in his simple way, imagines nature, and how he instinctively bases his ideas about natural phenomena on material processes permeated by forces. Man is led - when one really properly examines things, we know that - to an illusion. Because actually everything that can be said in such contexts about what matter and forces are, everything is illusion. The basis of today's view of nature is illusion. This is not based on a defect in thinking alone, it is simply based on the present constitution of the soul. We no longer speak of maya or illusion, as in the Indian worldview, because we do not see the facts in ordinary life. We do not see these facts, so that when we present nature, we actually always live in illusion. That is one thing.

The other point is: What about today's view of the spirit? This view of the spirit today is something that floats very, very much in abstractions. You can best follow this if you take one or the other philosophy. It does not matter which philosophy you take. You can take a philosophy that is half confused and rambling in words, like Eucken's; you can take one that rests on somewhat firmer foundations, like Liebmann's; you can get involved in one that speaks more to the popular consciousness, like Schopen and so on: in the philosophies and world views of the present day, there is talk of spirit; if the philosophies are not purely positivist, like the Comtean one we recently got to know, if they are not materialist, then there is still talk of spirit among philosophers. But what is it that is talked about in the philosophies, and what is called spirit from today's soul constitution? Just as that which man draws through natural phenomena like a net by assuming a certain material and energetic order makes the view of nature an illusion, so everything that is said about the spirit in current popular belief is basically a hallucination, and the usual philosophies are actually only a sum of unrecognized hallucinations. Basically, the human being today is constituted in such a way that when he looks towards nature, he hovers between illusion with his soul, and when he looks towards the spirit, he hovers between hallucination. What philosophers dream of spirit, in that they want to construct a certain view of spirit purely out of concepts, is actually only a sum of fine hallucinations, albeit fine ones, but still hallucinations. They are images that arise from the depths of the human being for reasons that we do not want to discuss today, and as such they have nothing much to do with reality.

I have often drawn your attention to such phenomena in the world of facts, which clearly show that everything that people can imagine need not have much to do with reality. To substantiate this, I have pointed out that, for example, in their naivety, a good number of philosophers today talk about man having to be thought of as consisting of body and soul. Even the world-famous Wundtian philosophy talks of body and soul and professes to be free of prejudice. But in reality – and I have already pointed this out – what is all of Wundt's philosophy or similar philosophies? It is only the execution of what the Eighth General Council of Constantinople decided in 869: that one should not speak - roughly one could define the council decision, which was of course couched in terms of conditions at the time - when speaking of man, of body, soul and spirit, but that the spiritual is only a property of the soul, that one should only speak of body and soul. And the trichotomy of body, soul and spirit was, after all, a heretical view throughout the Middle Ages. The theological philosophers trembled when they were pushed by reality to hint at body, soul and spirit, because it was a heretical view. Philosophers still hold this view today. They only expound what was dogmatized by that Council of Constantinople in the past, and they believe that they are unprejudiced, they believe that they are expounding something that follows from their pure views and investigations, whereas in reality they are only expounding a council decision. One must look at things without illusion; one must look at reality. Our young students learn in philosophy what was decided at the Council of Constantinople in 869.

Now I am not saying that what is taught today is a direct consequence or effect of that council decision; but what was dogmatized at the eighth council in Constantinople was, as a dogma, only the intellectual outflow of deeper events that are hidden beneath the surface of things and continue to this day. And all that wants to dogmatize - no matter whether it was done by the good philosophers of the Council of Constantinople or by the good professors of today's universities - all these conceptual webs are basically only conceptual hallucinations that arise in man and are too thin, I would say, in reality content, to really grasp the reality that prevails beneath them. Because today's human being, in accordance with the constitution of his soul, oscillates to a certain extent between the hallucinatory nature of his conceptual world and the illusory nature of his view of nature, he is therefore in danger of dualism. And he will always be in danger of being able to carry everything he devises as ideas, as ideals, only into the hallucinatory sphere of concepts, which does not reach into reality; or, he will be able to carry what he devises about nature into the illusionary sphere of the view of nature, which in turn has nothing to do with true reality, which is precisely an illusion. Man is simply never predisposed to find directly, or, I might say, comfortably, that which he calls truth – a word. He must start from something that can bring him discord, doubt, skepticism in life, and penetrate to the truth. In today's developmental cycle, man is forced to ascend from oscillating between the hallucination of philosophy and the illusion of the view of nature to the truly real, to that which really is.

Now one could raise the question – I am speaking more or less aphoristically, of course, only the whole should then provide a context: What can be given as the next reason why the old man could or can fall more into fatalism, the newer man more into dualism in matters of world view? One falls into such dangers when one abandons oneself to mere conceptual play; today one could also say: to mere dialectics.

Now, of course, you will object: today's people, with their sense of reality, are not at all predisposed to fall prey to mere conceptual play. —You are very much mistaken! Future ages, which will assess our age more objectively, will see that never before have people been so inclined to theorize and play with mere concepts as they are in the present. Today, people are very keen to abandon reality and turn to mere conceptual play. But when one leaves reality and begins to twist and turn, to connect and disconnect his concepts, at the very moment when one has turned away from reality, then there is already the danger of either fatalism or dualism. What is needed, and what today's man has to train himself to do, is precisely the sense of reality, which has often been emphasized here from the most diverse points of view.

Now it is not easy to cultivate a sense of reality, especially when it comes to spiritual matters, because more often than not we are dealing with mere playing with concepts, with playful dialectics. And what appears as an external illusion is, as soon as it enters into the moral and spiritual life of human beings, very apt to foster the illusionary. Man always tries to theorize about certain things. He tries to theorize about good and evil, about freedom or necessity; one could say that man is actually terribly inclined to theorize about the most important questions of life, that is, to indulge in mere conceptual play. And what one encounters today here and there in discussions of world views actually only runs within the dialectic of concepts. People are even deceived about this, believing that they have concepts, when in reality they cannot have concepts at all; rather, in addition to the concept, they still have sympathies and antipathies for certain concepts and against certain concepts, and according to one's sympathies and antipathies, a person then forms this or that conceptual context and the like. But I do not want to dwell on that. In the vast majority of discussions of world-views, which are a game of concepts in questions, a disregard of reality is inevitable.

To make it clear what I actually mean here, let us start from a fact that often occurs in life: from hatred, from the existence of hatred. Something like the existence of hatred in human nature needs to be explained. With a mere play on words, one very often tries to explain such and similar things. Hatred is a phenomenon of the soul, a psychological reality. But anyone who engages with these things soon finds that certain concepts cannot truly capture the full color of the phenomenon of hatred. Such things as hatred can only be understood by trying to move from the world of illusion to the true world of reality. Hatred is something that plays into the human soul from a deeper world of reality. We must now ask ourselves: is this hatred the same in the world of reality as it appears in the human soul? If it is different in the world of reality than it appears in the human soul, then we will soon see how important it is not to arrive at any spiritual insight by merely getting to know hatred in the human soul. If one seeks out hatred in the cosmos using spiritual scientific methods – not in the individual human being, but hatred plays a role in the individual human soul – if one seeks it out in the cosmos, it is something quite different. You find the same thing that manifests itself as hatred in the human soul outside in the cosmos. You just must not fall for the trap of merely seeking such natural forces as today's scientific illusion seeks. But in the cosmos, this hatred is something essentially different from what it is in the human soul. In the cosmos, hatred is a force without which individualization could never occur. Special beings could never come into being, nor could the special human being, if the force of hatred did not exist in the cosmos. I am not speaking of the illusory repulsion of atoms, but of something real. Hatred arises in the cosmos, but in the cosmos hatred must not be judged so morally as when it plays into the human soul. In the cosmos, hatred is a force that underlies all individualization. The whole world would merge into a great unity, as nebulous pantheists would like it to be; no being would separate itself, no being would divide itself, if it were not for the cosmic principle that humans do not see in the cosmos at first, but which plays into the human soul and takes on the special form in the human soul that we know as hatred.

Now, however, the question arises: what is the relationship between the human and the cosmic? I have already hinted at something about this from a certain point of view; today we want to add a few aphorisms. When reasonable philologists – today philology, too, has firstly become abstracted and secondly rather philistine – but when reasonable philologists studied the languages that could be found among the so-called wild people in America when the “civilized », I say that in quotation marks, had penetrated into America, when these civilized people had discovered the wild Americans, the more insightful philologists found it remarkable that these wild people had such logically transparent languages! A great number of such languages were found there in which, as philologists can assure us, and as is also true, the refinements of Spanish and Italian can be found in the formation and structure of the language. Such things were found among the wild natives of Greenland. Now there is no doubt about it: these savages did not have the intellect of which modern man is so proud. Nor would this modern intellect get very far if it were to engage in language formation and creation; for what the modern intellect achieves when it wants to be creative in language can be sufficiently demonstrated in many places. In fact, objective reason was at work in the human soul, which was still a wild one, which did not yet have the present intellect. This objective reason I also showed you at work in humanity's creativity in language the other day. Reason held sway there. This reason that held sway there did not yet affect man as strongly individualized as today's world reason affects man; it affected man even less individualized, less separated, and worked in him even more as cosmic reason. And so it has come about in the development of mankind. In those ancient times, man was not the wild creature that today's anthropology awakens illusionary ideas about, but he was a member of a whole organism - although this is of course figuratively speaking - and he gradually individualized himself. So he was a member and expressed more and more cosmic reason, or one could also say that cosmic reason was expressed more and more in him.

This gives you a real indication of how the cosmic that is at work here plays into the human soul. And now you can also transfer this to a special phenomenon such as cosmic hatred finding its way into the human soul. And we know, of course, that in the spiritual realm, as in the natural realm, we have to speak of certain polarities. How did that which is cosmic reason enter into language? Today humanity is no longer creative in language; it was creative in language; what appears in languages today are only residues. How did that cosmic reason enter into the human soul, how did it become individual? If we seek to answer this question, we come to all that we call the Ahrimanic. And how does something like the appearance of hatred enter the human soul from the cosmic? Here we come to the Luciferic, which is the opposite pole to the Ahrimanic. Today's man is ashamed to speak of Ahriman and Lucifer, while he is not ashamed to speak of positive or negative electricity or positive or negative magnetism. But the fact that he is ashamed is based only on a modern superstition.

Even if we are clear about the fact that spiritual entities really did enter on the one hand as the Luciferic in such things as hatred, or as the Ahr in such things as speech or even thinking, on the other hand we must also realize how things are significant in the whole context of the world, how this enters into the whole context of the world. When I look at hatred in such a way that I say that the great initial facts rest on it, precisely that it can individualize itself, separate itself, that not everything floats together in a general primeval slime, then I am pointing to the phenomenon, to the fact of hatred in the distant past, in that past in which man did not yet exist in his present form; I am pointing to a very, very distant past. So, in a sense, I am giving you an insight into hatred that corresponds to a distant, distant past, the past in which man had not yet separated himself from the rest of the world. We can speak of the different kingdoms of nature, of which we know — you only have to read my 'Occult Science' — how they have developed as mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms. We can speak of these nature kingdoms. If we speak of them completely, not in their illusory but in their reality, the power of hatred lives in all of this, but hatred as I have illustrated it to you as cosmic hatred.

Now there comes a point in evolution when that which is otherwise a general cosmic fact plays into the human soul; it plays into the human soul through luciferic, ahrimanic forces: now it is within the human soul, now it is raised out of the cosmic, as this cosmic has formed itself from the past until now.

Now we know – if we draw schematically the cosmic of the past up to the present (violet) – after we have spoken so much about the so-called law of the conservation of energy or matter, which does not exist! – that, to a certain extent, what is purely naturally real in the present, except for the material, ceases. We know that what is merely spiritually present today is also the germ of the material substance of the future (red). If we look at things spiritually, we have to say that everything that is now in the order of the past has flowed out of the spiritual. That which has flowed out will find its end. What is the future order is only now flowing out of the spiritual. It could never assert itself as the natural order if there were conservation of energy and matter. But the idea that there is conservation of matter and energy is the strongest of all superstitions that have ever existed. The spiritual, which today announces itself in mere thoughts, is just as much the germ for the natural order of the future as the small plant germ, which announces itself in the plant of this year, is the germ for the plant of the next year.

Thus man himself stands in an ambivalent way within the world order. And one is pointed to man in his ambivalence if one wants to understand the whole context, if one wants to find a transition from cosmic hatred to the individual-soul hatred that occurs in human nature. You know that when we look at the human being as he stands before us today, we can say that his nature is made up of perception, feeling and will. He divides himself into a perceiving, a feeling and a willing being, which form a unity. But all the beautiful things that philosophy says about it come to nothing if we cannot also clearly and precisely distinguish the other side. Now even the somewhat conceptually-minded psychologists of the present day are realizing that we actually know nothing right about will. I have already explained the nature of will to you; today it is enough to point out that even contemporary psychology has to admit that we know nothing right about will. In fact, will is also overslept in the waking life of a person, in its entity, in its essence. One could also say that the human being does not reach down with his soul to the will. He believes – I have discussed this in the context of Augustine on the basis of a concrete fact – he believes that he stands inside the essence itself by imagining; but he cannot say this with regard to the will. For, however any intended purpose is connected with the complicated mechanism of the hand or the movement of the legs, man knows as little about it in waking life as he knows about his body when he sleeps or about his surroundings when he sleeps. The present man actually oversleeps the will. If one now advances through the method of spiritual science from mere imagining to willing, one learns from the facts, albeit from spiritual facts, to understand how it comes that man today oversleeps his will.

With our thinking, with our intellect as human beings, we would actually be in a very bad way if it were not for the other circumstance that I have mentioned and which I will explain in more detail in a moment. With our thinking we would actually be in a very bad way, because our thinking basically always remains childlike in relation to our human nature. In the course of our life between birth and death, our thinking acquires some knowledge about the immediate present of the world; about the past and the future, nothing, or at most something in hypotheses, but these disintegrate immediately if one only really takes them seriously. This thinking is precisely the germ of the future. And just as the germ in the plant is as yet of no significance in the reality of the plant world, but will only have significance next year at the earliest, so today's thinking has no reality value as yet. It stands in the same relation to its reality value as a small child stands to a human being. Thought is really directed entirely towards the future; but only that which comes into being out of it, just as the plant germ becomes a plant, will have a real significance in the future. The actual content, the substance of thinking, has only a germinal value today. But if we descend spiritually into the realm of will and try to recognize the subject of will — for will is only an activity — then will is something that carries within it the consciousness of the most distant past, the cosmic past. You can never understand anything about the evolution of the world with the intellect, without placing yourself in the volition through imagination, inspiration and intuition; for only in the human volition, which at the same time builds up the whole human organism, lies a subject that has the memory of the cosmic past just as you have the memory of your ordinary life.

The difference between the human intellect and the human will is that the human intellect develops at most a memory for personal, individual life, but the will, which the human being cannot reach with his intellect, has the memory of the cosmic past. Man carries within himself the memory of the cosmic past, but he cannot reach it with his intellect without spiritual scientific research. So we can say that on the one hand, the human being stands there as a volitional being, bearing within himself, if I may call it memory - it is only a figure of speech - the memory of the cosmic past. He stands there as an intelligent being, bearing within himself, as an intelligent being, only the present, because the intellect is only a germ for the future, not yet something present. Just as the germ of a plant is not yet present, but something of the future, so the intellect in relation to the will is the same as the small plant germ is to the whole plant. In that we are volitional beings, we stand as cosmic human beings through the individual on the soil of the whole past; in that we are intelligent human beings, we stand in the present and prepare to grow into the future.

In the same way, our volition can be compared to our intellect, one could say, with an old man and a child. Just as the old man relates to the child, so, of course with a corresponding extension of time, our volitional human being relates to our thinking human being.

How is the balance achieved? Now, what I have often called the Ahrimanic before, cosmic reason, is at work in our thinking human being. If we were dependent on our human nature without the working of Ahriman, our intellect would be quite differently ordered in the present day. The Roman Catholic Church could be terribly satisfied with humanity if it had only the measure of intellect that grows out of human nature today. For this intellect is childlike in relation to what man is capable of in the whole Cosmos, just as our will is senile.

In our thinking - and this thinking is inconceivable in evolution without the participation, for example, of the linguistic element - the Ahrimanic element comes into play. The Luciferic element comes into our will. The Ahrimanic element permeates us by raising our intellect, which in the overall evolution is still weaker today, which is childlike, to a certain height. But there is also the other side of the coin: we have an intellect that does not actually grow out of us; we have an intellect that could be compared not to a plant that grows out of the ground and then has the germ, but to a plant on which another plant is placed that does not carry a germ but carries another plant, and a far more perfect plant.

Our intellect is organized in an Ahrimanic way, with Ahrimanic structure. Therefore our intellect has something deluding about it for the human being. Of course, we do not take the view that, if we are humanities scholars, we should not use this intellect because it is Ahrimanic; but one must only look at things without illusion, one must only be clear about the fact that the human intellect is a light that shines strongly, shines more strongly than what could shine as intellect already flows out of human nature today. The intellectual principle has something blinding about it for human nature, something that draws things back into a certain sphere for him, in which he is blinded. Just as a strong, blinding light would fall on things, so it is when man himself illuminates things with his intellect. In doing so, he actually makes them essentially an illusion.

Just as the Ahrimanic enters into our intellect, so the Luciferic enters into our will, so that it falls asleep, so that it falls asleep properly. Just as the Ahrimanic principle brightens our germinal intellect, so the Luciferic lulls and puts to sleep our volitional subject, which actually carries the memory of the whole past within itself, so that the human being is unaware of this past.

This is, in a somewhat deeper sense, the basis of the dualism in man, this dualism that must be bridged, but that cannot be bridged by merely turning to theories, but that can only be bridged by turning to the facts themselves, to the facts of spiritual life, by knowing that our intellect originates in the world differently than our will. Our intellect and our will are like placing a child and an old man side by side, and artificially deceiving oneself by positing the abstractum man, which is just a mere abstractum, and saying: The child is a man, and the old man is a man. Such concepts are, of course, to the liking of people today, who mix everything up. Thus, for example, the assertion of the unified soul is made today, and it is believed that the soul as such arises in the same way with intellectual thinking as with loving volition, whereas, in the way I have just indicated, if one really, actually wants to understand the human being, one must distinguish. What we think through mere intellect as a world view can therefore never approach reality, but remains hallucination, because it comes from our intellect being permeated with a spiritual essence that does not belong to this world: with Ahrimanic spiritual essence that does not belong to the world order into which we look with our eyes. Likewise, on the other hand, it is in relation to the will, which is permeated with Luciferic essence.

These things have always been felt, and in one way or another people have expressed them. For example, it is little noticed that the Old Testament already has at least an inkling of this polar opposition of the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic. I say it is little noticed because people read so nicely when they read the Bible, chapter after chapter in succession, and do not distinguish there either; do not distinguish such a contrast as exists between the Book of Job and the Books of Moses. But in this contrast between the Books of Moses and the Book of Job there is already an inkling of that polar contrast between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, which one must grasp. Moses raises the question of evil in human nature, that is, of something like the cosmic hatred, the human hatred, as it were, that enters into man. Moses raises the question of evil. And then he presents the Fall of Man in a magnificent picture. We know that behind this Fall of Man is hidden what we call the entry of the Luciferic into human nature. Then a certain conclusion is drawn from this view of Moses, that all misfortune and also death actually stems from this human sin - let us say pre-human sin, if you prefer. So that one can say that Moses' view is: misfortune and death are the consequence of sin.

The radically opposite view is that of the Book of Job. First of all, you do not have a snake, but a purely spiritual being, an ahrimanic being, which comes close to the divine being itself. And in the case of Job, it is not about a human being like Adam, who can fall prey to sin, but rather about someone who is supposed to be “righteous”. And how does this being, who approaches God, want to make Job fall into sin? By bringing misfortune upon him! It is exactly the opposite: this being wants to bring misfortune upon Job so that he will sin. Misfortune is already there, and from misfortune comes sin. In the Book of Moses, evil is said to come from sin, while in the Book of Job, sin comes from evil. This contrast is felt. Even at this early stage, a certain intuitively sensed dualism plays a part. There is a radical contrast in outlook between the more pagan Book of Job and the fully Jewish Book of Moses. But as I said, these things are read one after the other without always paying attention to them.

Today it is absolutely necessary for humanity that not that foolish “self-knowledge”, which is often defined as something desirable, seduces people, but that people really learn to know themselves, that they learn to distinguish between intellect and will just as objectively as they learn to distinguish between hydrogen and oxygen; otherwise they can only seemingly overcome a certain dualism.

But what happens in any given age is always preceded by a long period of preparation. And in fact we can only study that which emerges as particularly significant in a particular age. In our endeavor to build a bridge between the dualisms of the present, we want to take a particularly close look at the hallucinatory aspect of the intellect, which is connected with everything I have described, and at the illusory aspect of natural phenomena, which in turn is connected with what I have described. This leads man into a kind of inner conflict in life. I would say that there are two currents at work in him, whereas he must strive for one current. And today, one of these currents is particularly seductive: the one that arises from the relationship between man and his soul and the natural order. Today's man, who sees in it a reality that is the same for all things – the anatomist, if I choose a nearby example, or the physiologist – today takes the human body and differentiates only externally, not internally, the individual limbs of this body. I would say he puts the heart next to the liver and examines both only in a purely external way, not taking into account the time perspective of which I spoke recently; whereas in fact one only gets a proper understanding of the nature of the heart as well as the liver if one takes this time perspective into account , for example, if one really proceeds spiritually scientifically in embryology in such a way that one learns to distinguish in time the disposition of the heart in the development of the embryo, and furthermore, that one does not simply let them exist next to each other and consist of cells, which on the one hand is right and on the other hand is nonsense. Because something can be right and nonsense at the same time, as we know.

So, in explaining the natural order, today's scientific trend, as it were, takes no account of that which is temporally apart, placing it side by side and thereby arriving at its abstraction. There the temptation is particularly great to simply place one thing next to the other: cause, effect; cause, effect; cause, effect – an abstract, illusory causal order! We know from the presentations that I gave you here last year and also already this year that you cannot look at nature in this way, that nature can only be explained if you look at it primarily as a reflection of a spiritual being. That is when you come to the true metamorphosis, that is when you come to real Goetheanism. In this way, the human head appears as an education that depicts the distant past; the organism of the extremities appears as that which points to a distant future. But what stands in the individual is not just next to each other according to causes, but it is imagination, an image of what stands behind it. We do not understand the human head if we understand it only as if it grew out of the rest of the human organism, whereas in truth it is formed out of the whole cosmos, and out of the cosmos in a different way than, for example, the organism of the extremities. In physics, everyone would find it ridiculous if someone were to explain that a magnetic needle always points north because it has the inner power to point north; instead, the explanation is that the cosmos, i.e., the earth's magnetism, is the guiding force for the magnetic needle in one pole and the other. Only in the case of humans or other organisms should everything grow out of itself in a straight line! Just as the magnetic needle points to the north for cosmic reasons on one side and to the south on the other, so man, for reasons of cosmic time, points with his head backwards into primeval, distant pasts, even into pasts in which the earth itself was metamorphosing, and he points with his limb organism into primeval, distant futures. He is temporally and cosmically oriented. And that will be the formation of the doctrine of metamorphoses, that is real Goetheanism: rising from the mere illusory causal order to the conception of nature through imagination. By recognizing that which one has before one as an image of another, one rises above mere illusion.

'But one must not stop at nature. One needs a correlative, one needs something supplementary. He who speaks of nature in this way would again become a fantasist if he were to understand nature only in this way and were not to explain on the other side: What more recent philosophy opposes to nature as spirit is also hallucination, and this too must not be left at that. Because that which lives today has developed slowly, humanity has gone through the most diverse stages, in order to gradually, I might say, advance to the state of the human soul in the spirit. And there we can distinguish three stages. Just as the concept of nature today can still be somewhat confused, and tends towards the levels of knowledge described in my book 'How to Know Higher Worlds?' as imagination, inspiration and intuition, so one can say that the human soul has gradually developed intellectually through three stages to a real standing in the spirit, to a real grasping in the spirit.

These are the three stages: the intuitive experience of the spirit, which is of course something hallucinatory because one takes the spirit in the present and does not recognize that it is a germ for the future; the intuitive experience, the dreamy-intuitive experience of the spirit. The second stage is the prophetic vision, where, in the sense of the old Hebrew prophets, for example, the future is really experienced in visions, where something of the spirit being germinal for the future is already living in it. And the third stage, which is still little understood, but which has something profound about it, is the apocalyptic view of the world. But all these are preliminary stages for the spiritual-scientific view, which, on the other hand, must be connected — because otherwise it would be in the air, figuratively speaking — with the pictorial view of nature. A pictorial view of nature lifts one above the illusory nature of science. Real behavior towards that which goes beyond the intuitive perception of the future, the visionary view of the future - prophetic visionary vision, apocalyptic vision - lifts us above the hallucinatory nature of intellectual life.

We must not – and this is the task of the human being in the present – take the spirit as the newer philosophies take it. We must not take nature as the naive view of nature takes it, nor as the theoretical natural science of the present takes it. Rather, we must, as it were, discard the delusion we have about nature and recognize how nature is merely an image of another, and we must recognize how the spirit, as it presents itself to philosophy today, is merely a shadow image. Then the bridge will be built between the ordinary view of spirit and the ordinary view of nature.

And a third will exist. You can never overcome something like dualism through mere discussion, but only by facing the facts, but then the complete facts, and finding a third to the duality. Therefore, the symbol that expresses this must express a trinity. Of course, today we realize that concepts are only a way of expressing something that is more profound. But we must have concepts; if we do not overestimate them, they do no harm. We speak here of the normal human, of the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, and we also depict it: it is to be the central point of our structure. Auguste Comte also sensed that a view that runs in a threefold structure must be there, by setting up that Trinity of which I spoke to you recently. This true Trinity, which will include spiritual and natural views and thereby truly overcome dualism, must contain anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Therefore, one cannot arrive at genuine anthroposophical spiritual science without seriously addressing all the light and shadow sides of today's natural science and today's spiritual science. One must take things seriously. The seriousness of today's world cannot be addressed by merely throwing things together and forming theories about them.

Life does not take place in a primeval soup, but rather proceeds in a differentiated and individualized way. That which must strive for a future must be striven for in a differentiated way from the outset. Today, there is still a widespread bad habit of, if I may put it in trivial terms, lumping everything together. Today, if someone has a political theory, he also forms everything else according to this political theory, world views and so on. If someone today has philosophical views, he also uses them as politics and so on, slapping everything over the same stick, and indeed over the one that the person in question uses as his favorite stick. That is the way it is in our time. Life is differentiated. Only the person who knows how life is differentiated is free of illusions. The future does not strive for a primeval soup of life, but for a strong structure: for the spiritual life as science, a certain inner life, of which one still has little conception today, and which, according to the customs of ancient times, one can call a religious life, and for the political life. If you mix things up, if you try to regulate one thing after another, then you fall into the same mistakes as those I characterized here last year, or even two years ago. For things proceed in separate currents: on the one hand, social life according to socialism, on the other hand, religious life according to freedom of thought, and scientific life according to pneumatology, according to knowledge of the spirit. Only in the living interaction of the three will the future have a certain healing power for human development, not a paradise on earth, that does not exist, but a certain healing power. But it would be a bad idea to present the outer life pneumatologically, for example, to found religious sects, to imbue them with pneumatological life, and thus to pursue politics from the point of view of pneumatology. That would achieve nothing. Likewise, it would achieve nothing if politics were pursued in the old sense in religious communities. Just as little as the hands can do what the head of man can do, so little the legs can do that, so little can pneumatology achieve what socialism should achieve, or religion achieve what socialism should achieve, or what pneumatology should achieve. What matters is the differentiation of certain things, but not just theoretically, but the differentiation of certain things in life. And that is what I want to conclude with today and continue with tomorrow. As I said, they are only intended to be aphorisms, to teach us something new about the fundamental questions that concern us now.

{For words following the lecture, see the end of the volume under “Notes” on p. 326]

We have been occupied in showing how those spiritual forces that we call the luciferic and ahrimanic powers play their part in the historical growth of mankind. We have seen how what is to be carried over from one age into another in the course of world evolution is carried over through such powers, and we have been at pains to show how in the desires, instincts and strivings for knowledge, in the impulses, too, of man's social life, something is present that can only be grasped concretely when one recognizes those super-sensible forces that underlie world historical evolution. We have seen how what must come to expression in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch has been in preparation since the fifteenth century. We have seen what new faculties of mankind have evolved in the whole European cultural life since that time.

If we wish to find a spirit who has brought to expression in the most concentrated and clearest manner what the impulses of our time ought to be, then we can look to Goethe. We have already observed that equally in his conception of nature and in his imaginative world, Goethe has expressed something that can form the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. I must remind you today how I have often pointed out that Goethe has expressed in intimate fashion in his Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily what he regarded as the right impulses of culture, knowledge, feeling and will; that is, what he was obliged to look upon as necessary for the activity of man in the future. He has concealed in his fairy tale what he knew of the spiritually hidden active forces at work in mankind since the fifteenth century, and that will be at work for about two thousand years more. You know, too, how in our Mystery Dramas we have sought to bring to life in all possible detail what Goethe saw when he composed this Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. The intention was to bring to expression, in the way in which it can again be brought to expression today, a hundred years later, what inspired Goethe and is to inspire the entire fifth post-Atlantean culture as the highest spiritual treasure. Such depths of soul underlying so great and powerful a work as the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, in spite of its being symbolic, and such great impulses underlying Goethe's Faust as a poem of mankind, point again and again to forces lying deep below the surface of consciousness. All this worked in such a soul out of the depths of old cultural impulses. Today I should like to speak a little about such cultural impulses in connection with yesterday's lecture, and of how they went through a kind of spiritualizing process in Goethe.

We must go back to that age in which the impulses for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch were first laid down in germ, back before the fifteenth century because things that are to develop spiritually must be prepared long beforehand. One can only recognize how in the European life of soul, as well as in the European social life, in the striving toward the True, the Beautiful and the Good, the normally progressive divine-spiritual forces intermingle in our age with luciferic-ahrimanic powers when one goes back into the time when the earliest impulses were given. We learned about these first impulses of earlier ages yesterday. Today, we will learn about a similar impetus from the middle of medieval times, and come to know how certain spiritual tendencies were born out of human evolution. In doing so, we will no more than indicate the historical background since nowadays one can read about it in any encyclopedia.

In order to describe the configuration of the cultural impulses that underwent a certain spiritualization in Goethe, I must refer to the age in which the impulse of the Crusades arose out of the European will: in fact, out of the Christian impulses of the European will. At the time when the will to visit the Holy Places originated in the civilized inhabitants of Europe there were bitter conflicts in the life there between what are called the luciferic and ahrimanic powers. That is to say, into the progressive, good, truly Christian impulses those other powers worked in, as it were, from the direction that was described yesterday. They worked in the way in which they are permitted by the wise guidance of the world. Thus, what happens in the wise guidance of the world may be duly influenced by other impulses working from the past and interpenetrating the impulses of the present in the way we have described.

When we consider it, among much that brings rejoicing to the soul, among much that originated soon after the Crusaders won their first successes, we see the founding of the Order of the Knights Templar in the year 1119 A.D. Five French knights united under the leadership of Hugo de Payens and, at the holy place where the Mystery of Golgotha occurred, they founded an order dedicated entirely to the Mystery of Golgotha. Its first important home was close to the place where Solomon's Temple once stood, so that the holy wisdom from most ancient times and the wisdom of Solomon could work together for Christianity in this spot with all the feelings and sentiments that have arisen from entire and holy devotion toward the Mystery of Golgotha and its Bearer. In addition to the religious vows of duty to their spiritual superiors usual at that time, the first Knights Templar pledged themselves to work together in the most intensive manner to bring under European control the place where the events of the Mystery of Golgotha had occurred.

The Written and unwritten rules of the Order were such that the Knights were to think of nothing except how they could completely fill themselves in heart and soul with the sacred Mystery of Golgotha, and how with every drop of their blood they could help bring the holy places within the sphere of influence of European authority. In each moment of their lives they were to think and feel dedicated with all their strength to this task alone, shunning nothing in order to realize it. Their blood was no longer to be their own but was to be devoted solely to the task we have indicated. Were they to meet a power three times as great as themselves, it was commanded that they were not to flee but were to stand firm. In each moment of their lives they were to think that the blood coursing in their veins did not belong to them but to their great spiritual mission. Whatever wealth they might acquire belonged to no one individual but to the Order alone. Should a member of the Order be killed, no booty should be available to the enemy except the hempen cord girding his loins. This cord was the sign of their work, which was freely undertaken for what was then regarded as the healing of the European spirit. A great and mighty task was set, less to thought than to deep feeling, which aimed at strengthening the soul life as individual and personal with the intention that it might be entirely absorbed in the progressive stream of Christian evolution.

This was the star, as it were, that was to shine before the Knights Templar in all that they thought, felt and understood. With this an impulse was given, which in its broader activity—on the wider extension of the Templar Order from Jerusalem over the countries of Europe—should have led to a certain penetration of European life by a Christian spirit. With respect to the immeasurable zeal that existed in the souls of these Knights, the powers who have to hold evolution back, leading the souls to become estranged from the earth and to led away from it to a special planet, leaving the earth uninhabited, those powers who desired this, set to work quite especially on souls who felt and thought as did the Knights Templar. They desired to devote themselves entirely to the spirit and could easily be attacked by those forces that wished to carry away the spiritual from the earth. These forces do not want the spiritual to be spread over the earth to permeate earth existence. Indeed, the danger is always at hand that souls may become estranged from the earth, become earth weary, and that earthly humanity may become mechanized.

There we have a powerfully aspiring spiritual life that we can assume will easily be approached by the luciferic temptation; a foothold is here given it. Then we also have, however, at the same time as the spread of the Templar Order over the various countries of Europe, the possibility of a sharp intrusion of ahrimanic powers in Western Europe. At the close of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Templar Order—not the individual Knights but the Order—had attained great prestige and wealth through its activity and had spread over Western Europe, we have a human personality ruling the West who can actually be said to have experienced in his soul a kind of inspiration through the moral, or the immoral, power of gold. He was a man who could definitely use for his inspiration the wisdom materialized from gold. Recollect the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily in which the Golden King became the representative of wisdom. Since spiritual forces also exist in the various substances, which are always only maya with spiritual forces standing behind that [which] the materialist cannot perceive, it is absolutely possible for gold to become an inspirer.

A highly gifted personality, Philip the Fair, who was equipped with and extraordinary degree of cunning and the most evil ahrimanic wisdom, had access to this inspiration through gold. Philip IV, who reigned in France from 1285 to 1314, can really be said to have had a genius for avarice. He felt the instinctive urge to recognize nothing else in the world but what can be paid for with gold, and he was willing to concede power over gold to none but himself. He wished to bring forcibly under his control all the power that can be exercised through gold. This grew in him to be the immense passion that has become famous in history. When Pope Boniface forbade the French clergy to pay taxes to the State, this fact, in itself not very important, led Philip to make a law forbidding anyone to take gold and silver out of France. All of it was to remain there, such was his will, and only he was to have control of it. One might say that this was his idiosyncrasy. He sought to keep gold and silver for himself and gave a debased currency to his subjects and others. Uproar and resentment among the people could not prevent him from carrying out this policy, so that, when he made a last attempt to mix as little gold and silver as possible in the coinage, he had to flee, on the occasion of a popular riot, to the Temple of the Knights Templar. Driven to do so by his own severe regulations, he had had his treasures deposited for safety with them. He was astounded to see how quickly the Knights calmed the popular uprising. At the same time, he was filled with fear because he had seen how great was the moral power of the knights over the people, and how little he, who was only inspired by gold, availed against them. The Knights, too, had by this time acquired rich treasure and were immensely wealthy, but according to their rules, they were obliged to place all the riches of the Order in the service of spiritual activity and creative work.

When a passion is so strong as avarice was in Philip the Fair, it presses out strong forces from the soul that have a great influence on the unfolding of the will toward other men. To the nation, Philip counted for little, but he meant much to those who were his vassals, and these constituted a great host. He also understood how to use his power. As Pope Boniface had once opposed his will to make the clergy in France pay as much as possible, Philip hatched a plot against him. Boniface was freed by his followers but he died of grief soon after. This was at the time when Philip undertook to bring the entire Church completely under his control, thereby making Church officials mere bondsmen of the kingly power in which gold ruled. He thereupon caused the removal of the Pope to Avignon, which marked the beginning of what is often known in history as the “Babylonian Captivity” of the papacy. This lasted from the year 1309 to 1377.

Pope Clement V, former Bishop of Bordeaux, resided in Avignon and was a tool completely in the hands of Philip. Gradually, under the working of Philip's powerful will, he had reached the point of having no longer a will of his own, but used his ecclesiastical power only to serve Philip, carrying out all he desired. Philip was filled with a passionate desire to make himself master of all the then available wealth. After he had seen what a different significance gold could have in other hands, it was no wonder that he wished above all things to exterminate those other hands, the Knights Templar, so that he might confiscate their gold and posses their treasure himself. Now, I said that such a passion, aroused in such a materialistic way and working so intensely, creates powerful forces in the soul. At the same time, it creates knowledge, although of an ahrimanic order. So it was possible for a certain second-hand sort of knowledge to arise in the soul of Philip, of those methods that we have seen flame up in the harshest, most horrible way in the Mexican mysteries. The knowledge arose in Philip of what can be brought about by taking life in the correct way, although in a different, more indirect way from that of the Mexican initiates. As if out of deep subconscious impulses, he found the means of incorporating such impulses into humanity's evolution by putting men to death. For this, he needed victims. In a quite remarkable way this devilish instinct of Philip's harmonized with what developed of necessity in the bosom of the Knights, resulting from the dedication of their lives to the things I have indicated.

Naturally, where something great and noble arises, as it did among the Knights Templar, much that does not belong—perhaps even immorality—becomes attached to that greatness and nobleness. There were, of course, Knights who could be reproached for all sorts of things; that shall not be denied. But there was nothing of this kind in the spirit of the foundation of the Order, for what the knights had accomplished for Jerusalem stood first, and then what could be accomplished for the Christianizing of the whole of European culture. Gradually the Knights spread out in highly influential societies over England, France, Spain, part of Italy and Central Europe. They spread everywhere. In each single Knight was developed to the highest degree this complete penetration of the soul with the feeling and experience of the Mystery of Golgotha and of all that is connected with the Christian impulse. The force of this union with the Christ was strong and intensive. He was a true Knight Templar who no longer knew anything of himself, but when he felt, he let the Christ feel in him; when he thought, he let the Christ think in him; when he was filled with enthusiasm, he let the Christ in him be enthusiastic. They were perhaps few in whom this ideal had worked a complete transformation, a metamorphosis of the soul life, and who had really often brought the soul out of the body and enabled it to live in the spiritual world, but in respect of the entire Order they were, for all that, a considerable number. Something quite remarkable and powerful had thus entered into the circle of the Templar Order without their having known the rules of the Christian initiation other than through sacrificial service. At first in the Crusades, then in the spiritual work in Europe, their souls were so inspired by intense devotion to the Christian impulse and the Mystery of Golgotha that consequently many Knights experienced a Christian initiation. We have before us the following world historical event: on the world historical basis of the experience of a number of men, the Christian initiation, which is to say the perception of those spiritual worlds that are accessible to men through Christian initiation, arises from the fundamental depths of human development.

Such events always call forth opposing forces, which, indeed, in those times were abundantly at hand. What thus enters the world is not only loved; it is also excessively hated. In Philip, however, there was less hatred than the desire to rid the world of such a Society and to filch from it the treasure that had flowed abundantly to it and that was used only in the service of the spirit.

Now in such an initiation as was experienced by a number of the Knights, there is always the possibility of perceiving not only the beneficent, the divine, but also the luciferic and ahrimanic forces. All that draws men down into the ahrimanic world and up into the luciferic, appears, to him who goes through such an initiation, side by side with the insight into the normal worlds. The one thus initiated is confronted with all the sufferings, temptations and trials that come upon man through the powers hostile to good. He has moments in which the good spiritual world disappears before his spiritual gaze, the gaze of his soul, and he sees himself as though imprisoned by what tries to gain power over him. He sees himself in the hands of the ahrimanic-luciferic forces that wish to seize him to gain control of his willing, feeling, thinking and sense perception. These, indeed, are spiritual trials that are well-known from the descriptions of those who have seen into the spiritual world.

There were many in the circle of the Knights Templar who could gain a deep insight into the Mystery of Golgotha and its meaning and into Christian symbolism as it had taken shape through the development of the Last Supper. They beheld as well the deep background of this symbolism. Many a one who in consequence of his Christian initiation could look into the Christian impulses passing through the historical evolution of the European peoples, also saw something else; he experienced it in his own soul, as it were, since it always again came over him as a temptation. Recognizing the unconscious capabilities of the human soul, he repeatedly overcame the temptation that showed itself to him. The initiate thus became conscious of it and sought to overcome what otherwise remained in the subconscious. Many Knights learned to know the devilish urge that takes possession of the will and feeling to debase the Mystery of Golgotha. In the dream pictures by which many such initiates were haunted, appeared in vision the reverse, as it were, of the veneration of the symbol of the crucifix. This was possible owing to the way in which the initiation had come about, and particularly because the luciferic forces had stood close by with their temptation. He saw in vision how the human soul could become capable of dishonoring the symbol of the Cross and the holy ritual of the Consecration of the Host. He saw those human forces that urge men to return to ancient paganism, to worship what the pagans worshipped and to scorn the advance to Christianity. These men knew how the human soul could succumb to such temptation since they had to overcome it consciously.

You are looking here into a life of soul of which outer history relates but little. Philip the Fair, through his ahrimanic gold initiation, had also a correct knowledge of these facts of soul life, even if only instinctively. He knew enough of it, however, to be able to communicate it to his vassals. Now, after a cruel judicial process had been contrived involving all manner of investigation, a course of action, decided upon beforehand, was begun. Plots were made, instigated by Philip together with his vassals who had been summoned to make investigations against the Knights. Although they were innocent, they were accused of every imaginable vice. One day in France they were suddenly attacked and thrown into prison. During their confinement their treasures were seized.

Trials were now arranged in which, entirely under the influence of Philip, torture was extensively employed. Every Knight to be found was subjected to the severest torture. Here, therefore, torture was also used to take life, the significance of which you have already learned to know. The intention of Philip was to put to the rack as many persons as possible, and the torture was applied in the most cruel way so that many of the harassed Knights lost consciousness. Philip knew that the pictures of the temptations emerged when, in terrible agony on the rack, their consciousness became clouded. He knew: the images of temptation come out! Under his instigation a catechism of leading questions was so arranged that the answers were always suggested in the way the questions were put. The Knights' answers were, of course, given out of a consciousness dulled by the torture. They were asked, “Have you denied the Host and refrained from speaking the words of Consecration?” In their clouded consciousness the Knights acknowledged these things. The powers opposing the good spoke out of their vision and, whereas in their conscious life they brought the deepest reverence to the symbol of the Cross and the Crucifix, they now accused themselves of spitting upon it; they accused themselves of the most dreadful crimes, which normally lived in their subconscious as temptations. So from the admissions made by the tortured Knights, the story was fabricated that they had worshipped an idol instead of Christ, an idol of a human head with luminous eyes; that on their admittance to the Order they were subjected to repulsive sexual procedures of the vilest nature; that they did not conduct the Transubstantiation in the right way; that they committed the worst sexual offences; that even on their admittance to the Order they forswore the Mystery of Golgotha. The catechizing had been so well organized that even the Grand Master of the order had been tortured into making these subconscious avowals.

It is one of the saddest chapters of human history, but one that can only be understood if one sees clearly that behind the veil of what is related by history stand active forces, and that human life is truly a battlefield. Because of lack of time, I will omit all that might be said further on this subject, but it would be easy to show how there is every ostensible reason for condemning the Knights Templar. Many stood by their avowals, many fled; the majority were condemned and, as stated, even the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was forced under torture to speak in the way described. Thus it came about that Philip the Fair, Philip IV of France was able to succeed in convincing his vassal, Pope Clement V—it was not difficult—that the Knights had committed the most shameful crimes, that they were the most unchristian heretics. All this the Pope sanctioned with his benediction, and the Order of the Templar was dissolved. Fifty-four Knights, including Jacques de Molay, were burned at the stake. Shortly afterward in other European countries—in England, Spain, then right into Central Europe and Italy—action was also taken against them.

Thus we see how the interpretation of the Mystery of Golgotha and its influence penetrated into the midst of European evolution through the Order of the Templar. In a deeper sense, however, these things must be looked upon as determined by a certain necessity. Humanity was not yet ripe to receive the impulse of wisdom, beauty and strength in the way the Knights desired. Besides, it was determined on grounds we have yet to learn, grounds that lie in the whole spiritual development of Europe, that the spiritual world was not to be attained in the way in which the Templars entered it. It would have been gained too quickly, which is the luciferic way. We actually behold here a most important twofold attack of the forces of Lucifer and Ahriman: Lucifer urging the Knights on, driving them into their misfortune, and Ahriman working actively through the inspiration of Philip the Fair. We see here a significant twofold attack effected in world history.

But what lived and worked in the Knights Templar could not be eradicated. Spiritual life cannot be rooted out; it lives and works on further. With the Knights, notably with the fifty-four who had been burned at the stake through the agency of Philip, many a soul was certainly drawn up into the spiritual world who would still have done much work on the earth in the spirit of the Templar Order, and who would also have attracted pupils to work in the same spirit. But it had to turn out differently. In the spiritual world these souls lived through those experiences they had undergone in the most terrible agonies that were brought about under the influence of the visionary avowals extorted through torture. Their impulses, which now, between their death and their next birth, go out to souls who have since descended, and also to souls who are still above awaiting incarnation, must be metamorphosed from the character of the activity of the physical earthly world into spiritual activity. What now came from the souls of the Knights, who had been murdered in this pitiful way and who before their death by burning had to undergo the most frightful experience a man can suffer, was to become for many others a principle of inspiration. Powerful impulses were to flow down into humanity. We can prove this in the case of many human souls.

Today, however, we will keep more to the sphere of knowledge and intellect as we have done also in the other examples given in recent days. Inspiration from the cosmic knowledge of the Knights Templar—this was always given. The fact that ultimately people came to look on the Templars as heretics after they had been burned to death is not to be wondered at; nor is it to be wondered at that people also believed they had committed all sorts of infamous crimes. Had someone been pleased to condemn as specially heretical the Devil's act, which has just been presented here,¹ in which Mephistopheles, the Lemures and the thick and thin Devils appear, perhaps—I do not know—countless persons in the nation would also look on that as something heretical. The methods of Philip the Fair are, however, no longer employed in the present rather more lamentable times. The cosmic wisdom that these Knights possessed has entered many souls. One could cite many examples of how the inspiration of the Knights Templar had been drawn into souls. I will read you a passage from the poem “Ahasver” by Julius Mosen, which appeared in 1838. As you can read in the lecture cycles, I have often referred to Julius Mosen, the author of the profound poem “Ritter Wahn” (Knight Chimera). In the very first canto of the third section of “Ahasver”, Mosen leads his hero to those parts of the earth where, in Ceylon and the neighboring islands, the region is to be sought that we describe in the cosmology of our spiritual science as the approximate locale of Lemurian evolution. This region of the earth is distinguished in a special way. You know that the magnetic north pole is located at a different point from that of the geographic north pole. Magnetic needles everywhere point toward the magnetic north pole and one can draw magnetic meridians that meet at this point. Up in North America where the magnetic north pole lies, these magnetic meridians go round the earth in straight lines. Remarkably, however, in the Lemurian region the magnetic meridians become sinuous serpentine lines. The magnetic forces are twisted into a serpentine form in this region. People notice these things far too little today. One who sees the living earth, however, knows that magnetism is like a force vivifying the earth;

in the north it goes straight, and in the region of old Lemuria it goes in a tortuous winding line. Just think how profoundly Julius Mosen speaks as he sends his Ahasver toward this region in the first canto of the third epoch—it is divided in epochs—of the poem:

In line direct and straight from Southern Pole
Takes the Magnetic Line its chosen course,
When suddenly it twines in serpent-curve

There before India and its neighbor isles
Before the dungeon where in deepest woe
Sits the Eternal Mother ever bound.

In circle form the Line drew back its length,
And twining swift and secret on itself
With a single plunge in swirling vortex fell.

There the Great Spirit in a first embrace
Held the poor spouse, and from their ardent fire
Sprang the Earth-demons instantly to life.

When thus the first creation came to naught,
The Great, the Nameless Spirit in his wrath
Stamped down the bridal couch beneath the sea.

So it goes on. We see inspiration emerge with wonderfully intuitive knowledge. The wisdom lives on that could only enter the world amid sufferings, tortures, persecutions and the most frightful offences. Nevertheless, it lives on in spiritualized form.

When we seek the most beautiful spiritualizations of this wisdom that has entered the development of Europe, as we have described, then we find one precisely in all that would work and live in the powerful imaginations of Goethe. Goethe knew the secret of the Templars. Not without purpose has he used gold as he has done in his Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, in which he made the snake consume the gold and then sacrifice itself. By this deed the gold is wrested from the powers with which Goethe truly knew it must not be allowed to remain. Gold—naturally everything is also meant here of which gold is a real symbol. Read once more Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily and try to feel how Goethe knew the secret of gold, how, through the way in which he lets gold flow through the fairy tale, he is looking back into earlier times. May I perhaps add here the personal confession that when for the first time in the eighties of the last century, I faced the question of the gold in Goethe's fairy tale, the meaning of the story emerged for me through the development of the gold in it.

Through the way in which Goethe lets gold flow through this fairy tale, he shows how he looks back into the time in which wisdom—for which gold also stands, hence, “The Golden King of Wisdom”—was exposed to such persecutions as those described. Now, he sought to show past, present and future. Goethe saw instinctively into the future of eastern European civilization. He could see how unjustifiable is the way in which the problem of sin and death worked there. If we wished to designate, not quite inappropriately perhaps, the nationality of the man who is then led to the Temple and the Beautiful Lily, who appears at first as without vigor as if crippled, then, from what we have had to say recently about the culture of the East and of Russia, you will not consider it unreasonable to deem this man to be a Russian. In so doing, you will almost certainly follow the line of Goethe's instinct. The secret of European evolution in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch lies concealed within this fairy tale, just as truly as Goethe was able to conceal it in his Faust, especially in the second part, as we know from his own statement. It is clearly to be seen in Goethe—we have already shown it in various respects; later it can be shown in others—that he begins to regard the world and to feel himself in it, in accord with the fundamental demand of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

In Goethe we have a true continuation of the life of the Knights Templar but, as I have said, in a spiritualized way. This Goetheanism, however, will only be able to enter slowly and gradually into human understanding. I have already shown in certain respects how the impulse for everything of a spiritually scientific nature lies in Goetheanism. All of spiritual science can be developed from Goethe. I have shown in a public lecture (Berlin, April 15, 1916) that I gave a short time ago how the first elementary scientific foundation for the doctrine of reincarnation, of repeated earth lives, lies in Goethe's doctrine of metamorphosis. He begins the teaching of metamorphosis by showing how the leaf changes into the blossom, how an organ appears in different forms. When one follows this through with penetration, there lies implicit in it what I have often explained here; that is, the head of man is the transformed body, and the rest of the body is a human head still to be transformed. Here is metamorphosis in the ultimate degree, which for science will develop into a direct knowledge of reincarnation, of repeated earthly lives. But Goethe is still but little understood; he must first become familiar in the cultural life of humanity. Not only centuries but millenniums will be needed in order to unravel what lies in Goethe. As a matter of fact, even today there is not a foundation for a study of Goethe such as a monograph or biography could provide that would be produced really in his very style.

Let us see what has been done in particular instances in modern culture toward the understanding of Goethe's personality. We can, of course, only cite single examples. Herman Grimm has, however, rightly said, “A certain Mr. Lewes has written a book, which was for some time the most famous book on Goethe; one can even say the best. It is a book treating of a personality who was supposed to have been born in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1749, and to have had a Frankfurt councilor for a father. He then developed and grew up in such a way that Goethe's youth was ascribed to him, along with all sorts of other things taken from Goethe. Goethe's works were attributed to him; he also traveled to Italy in the same year as Goethe, and died the same year Goethe died. This person, however, is not Goethe but a fantasy of Mr. Lewes's”.

Then we also have a relatively good book in which Goethe's life and creative work is described with immense industry and better than many other works on Goethe. It is filled, however, from the first to the last page with hatred and aversion. This book is by the Jesuit, Baumgartner. It is an excellent but, in fact, a Jesuitical, book; but antagonistic to Goethe. At least, it is better written than the countless others on Goethe that have appeared throughout the nineteenth century and now on into the twentieth. A great number of these works are unpalatable. One continually sneezes because the dust of the library and professor gets into one's nose. They have been written by pedants who call it Goethe. Often they have been written with pedantic pride, but they are also fusty with library dust or the air one must breathe when one guesses how often the man who is writing about Faust, for example, has opened Grimm's or some other glossary in order to decipher a word or passage—and so on. One could say: Oh horrible, most horrible, what has been written in this field!

One book, however, stands out in a quite unusual way. These are Herman Grimm's lectures on Goethe given in the seventies at Berlin University. Grimm was, as we can see, a spirit who had the best will and the most wonderful traditions to aid him in familiarizing himself with Goethe. His book is an intelligent and excellent one that has developed right out of the Goethean atmosphere. Grimm grew up in the age when there were still Goethean traditions, but this book shows something quite remarkable. In fact, in a certain respect it is not at all a book that has developed from Goethean traditions; it is both Goethean and un-Goethean. For Herman Grimm does not write in a Goethean style but, strangely enough, in a style that leads one to say that the book was written by an American, a German American! One can call Grimm's lectures a book written by an American but in German. In style it is American—a style in which Grimm has educated himself. As one of the most enthusiastic followers of Emerson, he has studied him, read, digested, translated him, has quite familiarized himself with him. Now, Grimm finds his way into this American-Emerson style so that he is complete master of it; at the same time he grows enthusiastic about it. One can see at once on reading his novel, Invincible Powers, how he is able to let everything American live on in him. Enthusiasm for what is American and at the same time a wonderful feeling of internationalism is poured out in Herman Grimm's Goethe lectures.

In spite of all this, much, very much in the spiritual life of man must come about before Goethe and similar spirits will be understood! If sometimes they are rightly understood, it must be in quite another way from that of Herman Grimm. Once, in a conversation with him, I wished to make just a few references to the path by which one could gradually enter the spiritual world. The movement of his right arm will always remain unforgettable—a gesture of warding off; he wanted to push that aside. He created a Goethe who is simply delightful to see from outside, but one does not see into his heart. This Goethe of Grimm's, as he makes his way through historical development, as he stands there, as he moves about and comes into relation with people, as human relations flow into his works, as the contemporary world conception flows into his works—this Goethe goes past our mind's eye as a ghost who flits through the world unseen by the living. Goethe will only be understood when one has deepened Goetheanism to become spiritual science. Then, much will emerge from Goethe that he could not express himself. Goethe, truly understood, leads, in fact, to spiritual science, which is really developed Goetheanism.

From the beginning Goethe also understood that Christianity is a living thing. How he longed for a possible expression for the Christianizing of the modern world conception. It did not lie in his time to find it, but in the new age spiritual science is already working to attain it. Let us take his poem, “The Mysteries” (Die Geheimnisse), in which Brother Mark is guided to the Temple where the Rose Cross is on the door, and let us look at the whole picture. We shall see that the Christian mood is in this fragment, “The Mysteries,” the mood born of the feeling that the symbol of the Cross becomes a picture of life through the living roses entwining it! Then, too Goethe lets his Faust end with a Christian conception; he spoke of it to Eckermann in his old age. A time will come when in a much more active, intense sense, one will connect with Christianity the thoughts that ring through the conclusion of Faust, although Goethe, who was inwardly modest in such things, was far from doing so himself. He was, in reality, on the way that he made his Brother Mark take—to the Cross encircled with roses. In this lies ultimately all that is to flow from such wisdom as was striven for by the Knights Templar. (Their striving was too rapid and unsuitable to physical evolution.)

A longing for the full Christianizing of the treasures of wisdom concerning the cosmos and earthly evolution gradually broke through—a longing for the full Christianizing of earthly life so that suffering, pain and grief appear as the earth's Cross, which then finds its comfort, its elevation, its salvation in the Rose symbol of the Crucifix. Repeatedly in men thus inspired, in whom lived on what was thought to have been destroyed with the burning of the Templars—in these inspired men lived ever again the ideal that in the place of what brings strife and quarrels something must appear that can bring good to earth, and this good may be pictured in the symbol of the Cross in conjunction with the roses.

The book, Ruins (Shutt), by Anastasius Grün has been given to me today by one of our members. I have here again the same verses that I read to you some time ago to confirm the fact that this mystery, which this poem also expresses, is not merely something put forward by us, but that it comes to life again and again. Anastasius Grün, the Austrian poet, composed these poems; the eighth edition appeared in 1847. In his own manner he wrote of the progress of mankind, and I will read again today the passage I read years ago as proof of the role played by the image of the Rose Cross in evolving humanity; that is, among those who are incarnated in the new age. Anastasius Grün turns his gaze toward Palestine and other regions after having described how much confused fighting and quarreling has been spread over the earth. After he has seen and described much that causes fighting and strife he, who is a great seer in a certain way, turns to a region of the earth that he describes thus. I cannot read all of it as it would take too long, but one's eye is first turned to a part of the earth where the ploughshare is used.

As children once were digging in a meadow
They brought a shapeless thing of iron to light,
It seemed too straight, too heavy for a sickle,
For plough it was too slender and too slight.

With toil they dragged it home as new found treasure;
The elders see it, yet they know it not;
They call the neighbors round within the circle,
The neighbors see it, yet they know it not.

There is an ancient greybeard, wan and sallow,
Whose lifetime lingers on like tale forgot
Into the present world of busy dealing,
They show it to him, but he knows is not.

Well for them all, that they have never known it,
Else must they weep, and still must be deplored
The folly of their fathers, long since buried,
For what was known by no one was a sword!

Henceforth it shall but cleave the earth as ploughshare;
Shall point the seed-corn's path into the ground,
The sword's new hero-deeds are peaned
When sun-filled airs with song of lark resound.

Once more it came to pass, that in his ploughing
The farmer struck what seemed a piece of stone.
And as his spade unloosed the earthy covers,
A structure of a wondrous shape was shown.

He calls the neighbors round within the circle;
They look at it but still they know it not.
Thou wise and aged one, thou'lt surely tell us?
The greybeard looks at it, yet knows it not.

Thus, in ploughing, something was dug up and even the aged man does not recognize it.

Though known to none, yet with its ancient blessing
Eternal in their breast it stands upright,
Scatters its seed around in every roadway;
A Cross it was, this stranger to their sight!

They saw the fight not, and its bloodstained symbol,
They see alone the victory and the crown,
They saw the storm not, and the lashing tempest
They only see the rainbow's glistening shine.

The Cross will always be known, even in a region where it was already buried and drawn out of the earth as a cross of stone, where civilization has so withdrawn that an un-Christian culture has developed. There, Anastasius Grün wishes to say, a cross is found and men know it in their inmost breasts, even though the oldest among them fails to recognize it through tradition.

Though known to one, yet with its ancient blessing
Eternal in their breast it stands upright,
Scatters its seed around on every roadway,
A Cross it was, this stranger to their sight.

They saw the fight not and its bloodstained symbol,
They see alone the victory and the crown,
They saw the storm not and the lashing tempest
They only see the rainbow's glistening shine.

The Cross of stone they set up in the garden;
A venerable relic strange and old,
Flowers of all species lift their growth above it,
While roses climbing high the Cross enfold.

So stands the Cross weighty with solemn meaning
On Golgotha, amidst resplendent sheen;
Long since 'tis hidden by its wealth of roses;
No more, for roses, can the Cross be seen.

But it is there! There is the Cross! There are the roses! One only learns the meaning of history when one turns one's gaze to what lives in the spiritual and pervades human evolution, when, too, one will turn one's attention to what shows us under what auspices, under what insignia things enter world history. I think that one can feel the deeper connection between what we have characterized for later times and what has been characterized in the ideal of the Knights Templar and their fate in the world at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

• 1. A presentation of Faust had presumably just taken place.

Our real purpose in this lecture, as you already know from what has been said, is to lead the way to an understanding of the karma of the individual and, in a broader sense, the collective karma of our time. But even when we consider human life as it concerns single individuals, it is extraordinarily complicated, and we must follow many threads that link a man to the past and present worlds if we wish to answer questions regarding his destiny. This fact will, perhaps, explain to you the detour I am taking, although I really wish to discuss something that is close to every person. Goethe's life was important in world history, and I will associate reflections with it that are intended to light up each individual existence. His life, to be sure, is accessible to us in many details. Even though the destiny of each human life is far removed from the destined course of such an exemplary spirit in world history, it is possible for each of us to gain viewpoints from the contemplation of it. Therefore, let us not be annoyed if the connections with our special questions, which we shall gradually approach, are here somewhat expanded.

When people trace Goethe's life in the way many do who pretend to be his biographers, they fail altogether to observe how rash men are in their tendency to link cause and effect.

Scientists are constantly reminded nowadays that many blunders are due to the adoption of the principle, “After a thing, therefore because of that thing” (post hoc, ergo propter hoc); that is, because one thing follows another, it must, therefore, be an effect proceeding from its cause. This is refuted in the scientific sphere, but in the field of the observation of human life we have not yet come to reject this principle altogether. Certain uncivilized people belonging to the Kamchadales believe that the water wagtails or similar birds bring on springtime because spring follows their arrival. Such conclusions are frequently drawn when people say: A thing that follows another in time must derive from it as the effect from its cause. We learn from Goethe's own narrative, from the description of this life shining above ordinary humanity, that he had this father and that mother and that he experienced certain things in his youth. We then derive what he did later in life, which made him so important for humanity, from these youthful impressions according to the principle that, because one thing follows something else in time, it must proceed from it. That is no more intelligent than when the coming of spring is supposed to be brought on by the water wagtails.

In the scientific sphere, this superstition has been sharply reproved; in the sphere of spiritual science there is still need to do so. It is explained quite nicely, for instance, that at a rather youthful period while Goethe was still a boy and French officers were quartered in his father's house during the occupation of Frankfurt, he saw how the famous Lieutenant du roi Thoranc³⁸ directed theatrical productions and employed painters there. Goethe thus came into contact with painting and the art of the theater while scarcely more than a child. His later inclination to art is thus glibly traced to these youthful impressions. To be sure, in his case we see his foreordained karma clearly at work from his earliest youth. Is not an especially prominent trait in Goethe's life the way in which he unites his views of art, the world, and nature and has always behind his artistic fantasy the aspiration to know the truth in natural phenomena? Do we not see that a clearly prescribed karma leads the boy of six or seven to assemble minerals and geological material that he finds in his father's collections and place them on a music stand to make of them an altar to the great God of Nature? He then sets a candle on this altar made of natural objects and instead of producing a light in an ordinary, mechanical way, he lets the earliest rays of the morning sun pass through a magnifying glass to light the candle, kindling a flame to offer to the great God of Nature. How impressive and beautiful is this orientation of the mind to what lives and weaves as spirit in the phenomena of nature even in this boy of six or seven! Most certainly, this trait must have come from an original potentiality, if we choose to call it that, and not from the environment, and we see how what he brought into this incarnation worked with special force.

When we consider the time into which Goethe was born, we shall observe a remarkable harmony between his nature and contemporary events. In accordance with the present world conception, people are often inclined to say that what Goethe created—the Faust and other things that he did for the elevation and spiritual permeation of humanity—have come into existence simply because he produced them according to his talents. It is more difficult with the things he has given to humanity to prove that they cannot be bound up in this simple sense with his person. But, in reference to certain phenomena of existence, just consider how shortsighted many kinds of reflections are even though they are supposed to be fundamentally concerned with the truth. In my most recent book, The Riddle of Man,³⁹ you can find de la Mettrie's statement that Erasmus of Rotterdam and Fontenelle would have become entirely different human beings if only small particles in their brains had been different. According to this view, we must assume that nothing of all that they produced would exist if, as de la Mettrie⁴⁰ suggests, they had been fools instead of wise men because of a slightly different constitution of the brain.

Now, this does apply in a certain sense for the things Erasmus and Fontenelle produced, but consider this question in relation to another case. Can you imagine, for instance, the development of modern humanity without the discovery of America? Think of all that has entered into the life of modern humanity through the discovery of America. Could a materialistic person assert that if Columbus's brain had been a little different he would have been a different sort of man, a fool, who then would not have discovered America? Certainly, this could be asserted, just as it can be said that Goethe would not have been Goethe, nor Fontenelle have been Fontenelle, nor Erasmus have been Erasmus if, for example, their mothers had suffered accidents so that their children would have been stillborn. But we can by no means suppose that America would never have been discovered if it had not been discovered by Columbus. You will find it rather self-evident that America would have been discovered even if Columbus had suffered from a brain defect.

So you will certainly have no doubt that the course of world events is one thing and the participation of an individual in these events another. You will have no doubt that these events summon those individualities who are especially fitted through their karma for whatever is demanded of them. With reference to America we can easily think through to this conclusion. But, for those whose vision penetrates more deeply, the same truth applies to the genesis of Faust. We should have to assume utter nonsense in the evolution of the world if we had to suppose that there would have been no necessity for the creation of such a poetical composition as the Faust even if what the materialists like to emphasize so much had actually occurred and a tile had fallen on Goethe's head when he was five, making him an imbecile. Anyone who traces the course of spiritual life through the decades preceding the time of Goethe will see that the Faust was really a demand of the age. Lessing, indeed, is the typical spirit who wished to create a Faust—in fact, actually wrote a fine scene. It was not merely Goethe's subjective needs that demanded the Faust, it was demanded by the age. With respect to the course of events in world history, the truth is that a relationship similar to that between Columbus and the discovery of America exists also between Goethe's creations and Goethe himself.

I have said that, if we observe the age into which Goethe was born, we note at once a certain harmony between the individuality of Goethe and his age when taken in the broadest sense of the term. Bear in mind that, in spite of all the dissimilarities between Goethe and Schiller, there is, nevertheless, something quite similar in them—not to mention other less important contemporaries. Consider, for example, how much is resplendent in both Goethe and Herder. But we can go much further. When we look at Goethe, it does not, perhaps, appear at once—we shall come back to this later—but, when we look at Schiller, at Herder and Lessing, we shall say that their lives were different, of course, but that in their tendencies and impulses a portion of the soul's potentialities is present that, under other circumstances, might just as well have made a Mirabeau⁴¹ or Danton⁴² of them. They truly harmonize with their age. In the case of Schiller, this would by no means be so hard to prove; as the poet who composed The Robbers, Fiesko, Intrigue and Love, he will not seem to anyone to be far removed in disposition from a Mirabeau or Danton or even a Robespierre.⁴³ This same soul's blood flowed likewise in Goethe, even though we might at first consider him far from being a revolutionist. But by no means is he so remote from this. There comes about in Goethe's complex nature a special complication of karmic impulses, of destiny, that places him in the world in a most unusual way, even in earliest youth.

When we trace the life of Goethe with spiritual scientific vision and disregard all other things, we find that it falls into certain periods. The first proceeds in such a way that we can say that an impulse which we have already observed in his childhood continues to progress. Then something comes from without that changes the direction of his life; that is, his becoming acquainted with the Duke of Weimar in 1775. Then, again, we see how his soujourn in Rome⁴⁴ changes the course of his life, how he becomes an utterly different person through having been able to absorb this Roman life. If we should wish to view the matter more accurately, we might say that a third impulse, which comes as if from without—but this, as we shall see, would not be entirely accurate in a spiritual⁴⁵ after he had experienced his Roman transformation.

If we study the first part of Goethe's life up to the year 1775, observing the events more intently than we usually do, we shall discover that there lives in him a powerful revolutionary mood, a rebellion against what was in his environment. His nature, however, is spread over many things. For this reason, because the impulse toward rebellion does not appear so strongly as when concentrated in Schiller's The Robbers but is more diffuse, it does not appear so strikingly. Anyone, however, who is able to enter in a spiritual scientific way into Goethe's boyhood and youth finds in him a spiritual force of life, brought with him through birth, that could not have been present throughout his life if certain events had not occurred. What was living within him as the Goethe individuality was far greater than what could be taken up and expressed in life by his organism.

This is obvious in Schiller. His early death was due primarily to the fact that his organism was consumed by his mighty, spiritual vitality.⁴⁶ This is obvious. Indeed, it is known that after his death his heart was found to be dried up, as it were. He sustained himself as long as possible only by his powerful spiritual vitality, but this also devoured his bodily life.

With Goethe, this force of soul became even stronger, and yet he lived to an advanced age. What enabled him to live so long? You will recall that I reminded you yesterday of a fact that intervened significantly in Goethe's life. After he had spent some years in Leipzig as a student,⁴⁷ he became seriously ill and stood face to face with death. He virtually looked death in the face. This illness is, to be sure, a natural phenomenon in the organism. However, we never learn to understand a man who creates out of the elemental forces of the world—indeed, we never learn really to understand any man—unless we take into consideration such events in the course of his karma. What really happened to Goethe when he became ill in Leipzig? We may describe it as a complete loosening of the etheric body in which the life forces of the soul had been active until then. It was loosened to such an extent that, after this illness, he no longer had that closely knit connection between the etheric and the physical bodies that he had formerly possessed.

The etheric body, however, is the super-sensible member in us that really makes it possible to form concepts, to think. Abstract concepts such as we have in ordinary life, the only concepts that are approved by most persons who are materialistically disposed, come about through the fact that the etheric body is, as it were, closely united with the physical by a strong magnetic union. It is also through this fact that we possess a strong impulse to project our will into the physical world, that is, provided the astral body is strongly developed. In the case of Robespierre, Mirabeau and Danton, we have an etheric body strongly united with the physical but also a powerfully developed astral body. This works, in turn, upon the etheric body, which establishes these human individualities strongly in the physical world.

Goethe was also organized like this, but another force now worked in him and brought about a complication. The result was that the etheric body was loosened and remained so through the illness that had brought him to the point of death. When the etheric body is no longer so intimately united with the physical body, however, it no longer thrusts its forces into the physical but retains them. This explains the transformation Goethe passed through when he returned to Frankfurt. There, during his acquaintance with Fräulein von Klettenberg,⁴⁸ the mystic, and with various medical friends who were devoted to studies in alchemy, and through the writings of Swedenborg, he really developed a systematic spiritual world conception. It was still somewhat chaotic, but nevertheless a systematic spiritual world conception, and he was profoundly inclined to occupy himself with super-sensible things.

These things are, however, connected with Goethe's illness. The soul that had brought this predisposition for this illness into his earthly life also brought the impulse so to prepare his etheric body through his illness that it should not be expressed merely in the physical. It maintained the urge and the capacity to become permeated with super-sensible concepts. So long as we merely consider the external biographical facts of a person in a materialistic way, we never discover what subtle interrelationships exist in his stream of destiny. But, as soon as we obtain an insight into the harmony between the natural occurrences affecting his organism, such as the illness of Goethe, and what manifests itself ethically, morally, spiritually, it becomes possible for us to sense the profound effect of karma.

The revolutionary force would certainly have been manifest in Goethe in a way that would have consumed him at an early age. Since an external expression of the life of these revolutionary forces would certainly not have been possible in his environment, and since he could not have written dramas as Schiller did, this force would necessarily have consumed him. It was turned aside through the loosening of the connection of the magnetic union between his etheric and physical bodies.

Here we see how a natural event seems to enter with immense significance into the life of a human being. Undoubtedly, it points to a deeper interrelationship than the one the biographers generally wish to reveal. The significance of an illness to a man cannot be explained on the basis of hereditary tendencies but rather points to the connection between a man and the world in such a way that this relationship must be conceived spiritually. You will note also how Goethe's life was thus complicated; such experiences determine how we take things in and what we are ourselves.

Goethe now comes to Strassburg⁴⁹ with an etheric body that is in a sense filled with occult knowledge, and in this condition he meets Herder, whose vast conceptions had to become something quite different in Goethe because the same conditions did not exist in Herder's more subtle constitution. This event of near death appeared in Goethe at the end of the sixties in Leipzig, but its force had been prepared long before that. Anyone who undertakes to trace such an illness to external or merely physical events has not yet attained the same standpoint in the spiritual sphere as that occupied by the natural scientist who knows that what follows must not be viewed necessarily as the result of what it follows. This tendency to isolate himself from the world to some degree was a manifestation of the connection between physical and etheric bodies. It was always present in Goethe, and it really only became a crisis through his illness.

In anyone possessing a compact connection between the physical and etheric bodies, the external world exerts its influence and, as it makes impressions on the physical body, they pass over immediately into the etheric body; this is one and the same thing. Such a person simply lives in direct contact with the impressions of the external world. In Goethe's case, the impressions are, of course, made upon the physical body, but the etheric body does not immediately respond because it is loosened. As a result, such a person can be more isolated, in a sense, from his environment, and a more complicated process takes place when an impression is made on his physical body. If you establish a connection between this organic structure of Goethe and the fact that, as we learn from his biography, he lays himself open even to historic events without forcing them, you have then arrived at an understanding of the peculiar functioning of his nature. I told you that he took the autobiography of Gottfried of Berlichingen and, influenced only by the dramatic impulses received from Shakespeare, did not really alter much in it. So he did not call it a drama but The History of the Iron-handed Gottfried of Berlichingen, Dramatized. You see, this soft and almost timid handling of things, as I might call it, without taking hold of them forcefully is due to his quite unusual connection between the etheric and physical bodies.

This relationship between the etheric and physical bodies was not present in Schiller. For this reason, he creates characters that he has certainly not derived from external impressions but has formed forcefully out of his own nature; Karl Moor is an example. Goethe, however, needs the influence of life, but he does not force it; he only helps with a light touch to elevate the living into a work of art.

It was the same when he was confronted with the experiences that he later reduced to artistic form in Werther. His own life situations as well as those of his friend Jerusalem⁵⁰ are not twisted; he does not alter the form greatly but takes life and retouches it a little. Through the delicate manner in which he renders assistance by means of his etheric body, life is transformed into a work of art. But because of this organization he gains, I might say, only an indirect contact with life, and thereby he prepares his karma in this incarnation.

Goethe goes to Strassburg. In addition to the experience that advanced him on his way, he experienced also, as you know, the romantic involvement with Friederike, the daughter of the pastor in Sesenheim.⁵¹ His affections were deeply involved in this relationship, and many moral doubts may be raised against the course of it—doubts that may also be fully justified. We are not now concerned with that aspect of the matter, but rather with an understanding of it. Goethe really passed through everything that, in another, not only must, but obviously would, have led to a permanent life union. But he does not experience directly. Through what I have explained, a sort of chasm had been created between his unusual inner nature and the external world. Just as he does not alter by force what is living in the external world but only delicately modifies its form, he also does not carry his feelings and sensations, which he can experience only in his etheric body, through the physical body to such a firm contact with the external world—something that, in others, would have led to quite definite events in life. So he withdraws from Friederike Brion, but one must accept this from the viewpoint of the soul.

The last time he went to Sesenheim, he met himself; you can read of this in his autobiography.⁵² Goethe meets Goethe! Long afterward he related how he then encountered himself, Goethe meeting Goethe. He sees himself; he drives out to Sesenheim and Goethe comes to meet him, not in the same clothing he was wearing, however, but in another outfit. When he went there again many years later to visit his old acquaintances, he realized that he was unintentionally actually wearing the clothes in which he had seen himself many years before. We must believe this even took place in the same way we believe anything else he relates. Considering the love of truth with which he described his life to us, to find fault with it is not appropriate.

How does it happen, then, that Goethe, so remote that he could actually withdraw, and yet in such loose contact with the circumstances that for anyone else it would have led to something quite different—how does it come about that he meets himself? Now a man who has an experience in his etheric body finds that it easily takes objective form when the etheric body is loosened. He sees the experience as something external; it is projected outside him. This actually happened to Goethe. In a moment peculiarly appropriate, he saw the other Goethe, the etheric Goethe who lived in him, who remained united in karma with Friederike of Sesenheim, and he met himself as a ghost. But this is just the kind of event that so profoundly confirms what is to be perceived from the facts regarding his nature.

We see here how a man may stand within external events and how it is also necessary to grasp the special, individual way in which he stands among them. It is a complicated relationship that exists between the human being and the world; it is complicated also by the interrelationship between what he brings from the past into the present. Through the fact, however, that Goethe had wrenched his inner nature out of the corporeal connection, it was possible for him even in his early youth to cherish in his soul the profound truths that so astonish us in his Faust. I say astonish purposely for the simple reason that they really must astonish us. I scarcely know anything more simple-minded than when biographers of Goethe repeat over and over the statement, “Goethe is Faust and Faust is Goethe.” I have often read this in biographies of Goethe. It is, of course, an ordinary bit of nonsense. What we really have in Faust, when we permit it to work on us in the right way, so impresses us that we must sometimes say that we cannot imagine that Goethe had a direct experience of a similar kind or could even know of it. Yet there it is expressed in Faust.

Faust constantly grows beyond Goethe. This can be understood completely by one who knows the surprise experienced by a poet when he has this composition before him. That is, we do not have to suppose that the poet must always be as great as his work, anymore than a father must be as great in forces of soul and genius as his son; the truly poetic creative process is something living; just as one cannot say it is also impossible to assert that one who is spiritually creative never creates above his own level. But through the inner state of isolation that I have described in reference to Goethe, those profound insights in his soul appear that we find in reading his Faust. Such works are not poetic compositions like others. The Faust poem flows from the entire spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean culture period; it grows far beyond Goethe. Much that we experience in connection with the world and its process of becoming sounds forth to us from Faust in a strange manner. Call to mind the passage you have just heard:⁵³

To us, my friend, the ages that are passed
A book with seven seals, close fastened, are
And what the spirit of the times men call
Is merely their own spirit after all. ...⁵⁴

These words by Faust himself are passed over too lightly. One who experiences the statement in its fullest depths is reminded of much that confirms its truth. Consider the knowledge possessed by modern man of the Greeks and the spiritual life of Greece, through Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides! Suppose men steep themselves in this Greek spiritual life—let us say, in Sophocles. Is Sophocles a book with seven seals? That will not easily be admitted! More than eighty dramas were written by Sophocles,⁵⁵ who lived to be ninety-one; only seven of these dramas now survive. Do we really know a man if he has written eighty-one or more dramas and only seven of them survive? Is this not truly a book with seven seals? How can anyone assert that he knows the Greek world from what has been handed down to us, when he must simply recognize the fact that seventy-four of Sophocles' dramas, by which the Greeks were fascinated and inspired, are nonexistent? Many of the dramas of Aeschylus no longer exist. Poets lived in Greek times whose names are not even known any longer. Are not the times past truly a book with seven seals? We must admit this when we consider such external facts, and

... 'tis delightful to transport
Oneself into the spirit of the past,
To see in times before us how a wise man thought,
And what a glorious height we have achieved at last.

Wagner types believe they are able to transplant themselves quite easily into the spirit of a wise man; that is, when somebody before them has already done the exercise! It is a pity that we cannot put to the proof what the critics would have to write about Hamlet if it had been written today and were to be performed for them by some large municipal theater, or if a drama of Sophocles should be presented for them at this very moment. Perhaps no impression would be made on these gentlemen even by what Sophocles had to do to convince his relatives of his greatness in his advanced old age of ninety-one. His relatives had had to wait so long for their inheritance that they tried to prove he had become feeble-minded and could no longer manage his property. He had no other way to protect himself than by writing the Oedipus in Colonna, thus proving that he was not yet in his dotage. Whether this would work with present-day critics I do not know, but at that time it did help. Anyone who enters deeply into the tragedy of the ninety-one year old Sophocles, however, will be able to estimate how difficult it is to find the way to a human individuality and how such an individuality is bound up in the most complicated fashion with world events! Many things could be adduced to show under what deep layers we must penetrate in order to understand the world. But how much is alive, even in the earliest parts of Faust, of that wisdom that is necessary for an understanding of the world! This wisdom must be attributed to the peculiar course of Goethe's destiny which reveals to us in a real sense that nature and the work of the spirit are a unity in human development and that an illness not only has an external significance but may also possess spiritual meaning.

Thus we see a decided continuation of the karmic impulses that existed in Goethe. Then in 1775, however, his connection with the Duke of Weimar appeared as if from without. Goethe is called from Frankfurt to Weimar. What does this signify in his life? To further understand the life of a man, we must first understand what such an event means to his life. I know how little inclined the present world is really to arouse those forces of the soul that are necessary to fully sense and feel such a phenomenon—to completely feel what is already alive in the first scenes of Faust. In order to write the Monologue in the Study, Spirit of the Earth that has just been presented, a richness of soul is needed, and it will cause one who beholds it to linger long in an attitude of fervent reverence. One is often pained to the depths of one's soul to realize that the world is really still decidedly dull and cannot feel what is truly great. But, if we feel such a thing completely, we shall then also see where one who is deeply permeated with spiritual science arrives in his feeling. Such a person comes to the point of saying to himself that something lived in Goethe that consumed him; he couldn't go on in such a way.

Two things must be clear if we are to appreciate, in the proper sense and in the right light, these first scenes of Faust. We might imagine that Goethe had written them gradually between his twenty-fifth and fiftieth years, in which case they would not have strained his soul so intensely, nor been such a burden. Certainly! But this is impossible because, after his thirtieth or thirty-fifth year, the youthful force necessary to give such form to these scenes would have been lacking. In accordance with his individuality, he had to write them in those early years, but to continue to live thus was no longer possible. He needed something like a damper, a partial soul-sleep, to reduce the intensity of the fire that burned in his soul as he wrote these first scenes. Then, the Duke of Weimar called him to make him a minister in Weimar. As I have already said, Goethe was a good minister, and while he labored assiduously, he could refresh himself by partially sleeping off what burned in his soul.

There is really a tremendous difference between Goethe's mood up to 1775 and that after 1775, a difference that may be compared with a mighty wakefulness followed by a subdued life. The word “Dumpfheit,” an inner feeling of numbness, comes into his mind when he describes his life in Weimar, where he engages himself so much in events but responds to them more than at an earlier age, when he had rebelled against them. It is peculiar that after this dampening down for ten years there followed a period when events confronted him in a more gentle way. Just as the life of sleep is by no means a direct effect of the preceding daytime life, so also this sleep life of Goethe was not at all the result of what had gone before. The interrelationships are far greater than is generally supposed. I have already frequently pointed out that it is indicative of a superficial view when, to the question—Why does a man sleep?—the answer is given: Because he is tired. This is a lazy truth and one that is itself asleep since it is nonsense. Otherwise, it would not be true that individuals such as non-working persons living on their private incomes who are certainly not tired, fall comfortably asleep after a full meal when they are expected to listen to something that does not particularly interest them. Tired they certainly are not. The fact is not that we sleep because we are tired, but waking and sleeping are a rhythmic life process, and when it is time or necessary for us to sleep, we become weary. We are tired because we ought to sleep; we do not sleep because we are tired. But I will not discuss this further just now.

Just consider in what a tremendous interrelationship the rhythm of sleeping and waking stands. It is a reproduction within the nature of man of day and night in the cosmos. It is natural, of course, that a materialistic science should undertake to explain sleep as resulting from weariness caused by the day's activities, but the reverse is true. The explanation of the rhythm of sleeping and waking must be drawn from the cosmos, from vast interrelationships. They also explain that the period when Faust was fermenting in the soul of Goethe was followed by the ten-year period of dampening in Weimar. Here your attention is called directly to his karma, about which we cannot speak further at present.

The consciousness of the ordinary human generally lets him wake in the morning thinking he is unchanged from what he was when he fell asleep. In reality, such is never the case. We are never the same upon waking as we were when we fell asleep but, as a matter of fact, we are somewhat richer, though unconscious of it. However, just as the trough of a wave has followed after a crest, as it was in Goethe's Weimar years, the awakening that follows is at a higher stage; it must follow at a higher stage because the innermost forces strive toward this. In Goethe also the innermost forces strive to awaken again from the inner state of numbness in Weimar to a fullness of life in an environment that could now really bring him what he lacked. He awakened in Italy. With his special constitution he could not have awakened in Weimar. In this fact, however, we can see the profound relationship between the creative work of a real artist and his special experience.

You see, a writer who is not an artist can produce a drama gradually without difficulty, one page at a time; he can do this perfectly well. The great poet cannot; he needs to be deeply rooted in life. For this reason, Goethe could bring the most profound truths to expression in his Faust in relatively early youth, truths that ranged far above the capacities of his soul, but he had to set forth a rejuvenation of Faust. Just bear in mind that Faust had to come into an entirely different mood in spite of the fact that his nature was so deeply formed. In the end, in spite of all his depth, what he had taken into his soul up to that time had brought him near to suicide. He had to be rejuvenated. A lesser individual can describe perfectly well, and even in pretty verses, how a man is rejuvenated. Goethe could not do this so simply; he first had to experience his own rejuvenation in Rome. It is for this reason that the rejuvenation scene, The Witch's Kitchen, was written in Rome in the Villa Borghese.⁵⁷ Goethe would not have ventured to write this scene earlier.

Now, a certain condition of consciousness, even though dulled, is associated with such a rejuvenation as Goethe experienced. In his time there was not as yet a spiritual science, so this state of consciousness could not be heightened but only subdued. Furthermore, special forces are associated with such a rejuvenation as Goethe experienced. In his time there was not as yet a spiritual science, so this state of consciousness could not be heightened but only subdued. Furthermore, special forces are associated with such a rejuvenation that are projected over into the next incarnation. Here experiences are woven together that belong to the present incarnation and also much that projects its influence into the next. When we bear this in mind, we are led to consider an especially profound and significant tendency in Goethe.

You see, if I may be permitted to interject this personal comment, I have occupied myself for a number of decades with Goethe's view of nature—I may say since 1879-80, and intensively since 1885-86. During this time, I have arrived at the view that there is something in the impulse that Goethe gave to the conception of nature, which contemporary scientists and philosophers really do not understand, that can be developed, but it will take centuries to do so. It may well be, therefore, that when Goethe returns in another incarnation it will still be possible for him to work formatively on what he could not perfect in his views of nature in this incarnation. Many things that are implicit in his view of nature have not yet even been surmised. In regard to this, I have expressed myself in my book, Goethes World Conception, and in the introduction to Goethe's Natural Scientific Writings in Kürschner's Nationalliteratur. We may really say, therefore, that Goethe bears within him in his view of nature something that points toward remote horizons. It is, however, intimately related with his rebirth as this was connected with the period of life through which he was passing when he was in Rome.

You may read for yourselves how I have presented these matters, how the metamorphosis of plants and animals, the archetypal plant and animal, took form during his journey in Italy; how upon his return he tackled the problem of the theory of colors, something that is scarcely understood at all at present; how he took hold of still other things. You will then see that his living penetration into a comprehensive view of nature is intimately bound up with his rebirth. To be sure, he did relate to Faust what he had arrived at in the course of his own life, not, however, as a minor, but as a major poet would do this. Faust experiences the Gretchen tragedy. In the midst of it, we are suddenly faced with Faust's view of nature, which admittedly is closely related with Goethe's. It is expressed in the following words of Faust:

Exalted spirit, all you gave me, all
That I have asked. And it was not in vain
That amid flames you turned your face toward me.
You gave me royal nature as my own dominion,
Strength to experience her, enjoy her. Not
The cold amazement of a visit only
You granted me, but let me penetrate
Into her heart as into a close friend's.
You lead the hosts of all that is alive
Before my eyes, teach me to know my brothers
In quiet bushes and in air and water.
And when the storm roars in the wood and creaks,
The giant fir tree, falling, hits and smashes
The neighbor branches and the neighbor trunks,
And from its hollow thud the mountain thunders,
Then you lead me to this safe cave and show
Me to myself, and all the most profound
And secret wonders of my breast are opened.⁵⁸

A great world conception, ascribed by Goethe to Faust! Only during the journey to Italy had Goethe acquired it with such penetration of soul. The scene beginning, “Spirit sublime, thou gavest me, gavest me all,” was also written in Rome, not earlier. These two scenes—the rejuvenation scene in The Witch's Kitchen, and the scene, Forest and Cave, were the portions that were written in Rome.

Here you see a real rhythm in Goethe's life that reveals an inner impulse just as the rhythm of waking and sleeping reveals an inner impulse in the human being. In a life such as Goethe's we can study certain laws in an especially clear light, but we shall also learn that the laws we discover in great personalities may become important for the life of every individual human being. In the last analysis, the laws working in an eminent human being apply to all individuals. Tomorrow we will continue to speak of the relationships of life as they may be grasped from this point of view.

• 38. Francois de Théas, Comte de Thoranc (1719–94).
• 39. Vom Menschenrätsel, Bibl.-No. 20, CE (Dornach, 1957), p. 155.
• 40. Julien Offroy de la Mettrie (1709–51) was a French physician and materialist philosopher who wrote L'homme machine (1748) and who was a friend of Frederick the Great of Prussia.
• 41. Honore-Gabriel Comte de Mirabeau (1749–91) was a Jacobin revolutionary leader and a celebrated orator.
• 42. Georges Jaques Danton (1759–94) was one of the leading figures of the French Revolution.
• 43. Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–94) was the French revolutionary whose name is usually associated with the infamous Reign of Terror.
• 44. Goethe left Karlsbad on September 3, 1786, arrived in Rome on October 29, 1786, left Rome on April 23, 1788 and arrived back in Weimar on June 18, 1788.
• 45. The friendship between the two men lasted from the summer of 1794 to the death of Schiller on May 9, 1805.
• 46. Cf. Rudolf Steiner's remarks in “Der pädagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der Pädogogik“ [The Pedagogical Value of the Knowledge of Human Beings and the Cultural Value of Pedagogy], Second Lecture of July 18, 1924, Bibl.- No. 310, CE (Dornach, 1965).
• 47. Goethe arrived in Leipzig on October 3, 1765 and left the city on August 28, 1768. His illness began the end of July, 1768.
• 48. Susanna von Klettenberg (1723–74), a well known Pietist, became Goethe's prototype of “die schöne Seele,“ [the beautiful soul] in his novel Wilhelm Meister.
• 49. Goethe left for Strassburg on April 1, 1770, and returned from that city to Frankfurt on August 14, 1771.
• 50. Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem (1747–72) was secretary of the Brunswick Legation in the city of Wetzlar. He committed suicide on October 30, 1772, with a pistol borrowed from J. C. Kestner, who was also a friend of Goethe. The tragedy is generally believed to have prompted Goethe to write his Werther, as if he wanted to vindicate his friend's action. Werther, too, borrowed a pistol from a friend to kill himself.
• 51. Cf. footnote 18.
• 52. Poetry and Truth, XI: “I perceived, not with the eyes of the body but of the mind, how I approached myself on horseback, yet wearing clothes -- pike-grey with a little gold -- that I had never worn before. As soon as I shook myself loose from this dream, the apparition had disappeared. The strange thing is that after eight years from this incident when I was travelling on the same road to pay a visit to Friederike, I was wearing the very same clothes I had dreamt about -- not by choice but by coincident.“ The later visit to Friederike Brion took place on September 25, 1779, during Goethe's second journey to Switzerland.
• 53. This lecture was preceded by a presentation of the scene in Faust's study (Earth Spirit, Faust, and Wagner).
• 54. Ann Swanwick's translation of Faust, Part I, lines 575–579, with Faust speaking to Wagner. Kaufmann's rendering of lines 575–585 is given in footnote 21.
• 55. Sophocles (496–406 B.C.) wrote 130 plays, seven of which are extant: Ajax, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonos, Antigone, Electra, The Trachiniae, Philoctetes. Recently, fragments of a satyr play, Ichneutae or The Trackers, were also found.
• 57. The scene was written in March, 1788.
• 58. Faust, Part I, “Wood and Cave,“ lines 3217–3234. The translation is by Walter Kaufmann.

We have been speaking of what hinders modern man from coming to recognition of the spiritual world, as it must be understood through the spiritual knowledge of Anthroposophy, and two things have been indicated as having been the cause of this hindrance. These two things are leak of courage, lack of strength where recognition of the spirit is concerned, and lack of interest about the actual form of the spiritual life. Now today I should like to go into these things from a point of view from which I have touched on them still more lightly. When such things are spoken of it must always be borne in mind that man's ordinary sound intelligence, as I have often said, suffices for understanding and receiving open-mindedly all things concerning Spiritual Science. If I may say so, through the fact that sound human intelligence; when rightly directed, is sufficient for the understanding of the things of the spiritual world today, in a certain sense through merely understanding, through open-minded acceptance, everyone may have all that the investigating Anthroposophist receives from the spiritual world. And with the courage and interest to receive these things with sound human intelligence, man has himself the possibility of rising slowly and gradually, in accordance with what his own karma permits, into the spiritual world. Already today it is necessary, and will become increasingly so for all men, to learn to understand the spiritual world, to learn to understand it with sound human intelligence in the way the spiritual world is spoken of in Spiritual Science. How far man can become ripe to look into the spiritual world himself is quite another question, a question that can be settled only by each individual in his own inmost soul, a question to which each one will settle in the right way in his inmost soul when he seeks to understand the things of the spiritual world simply through his sound human intelligence, and not through intelligence prejudiced by natural science or any thing else.

Now the next question that arises above all about this is why so many people today avoid making their sound human intelligence active so that it may understand, or be prepared to accept, what is derived from Spiritual Science? And something can be learnt about this question by hearing what the things and beings of the spiritual world actually look like when this world is entered by the spiritual investigator. In former times the Initiates were allowed to speak of a great deal about the spiritual world that was different from what has to be given out today. But naturally in those olden days much also could be said of a similar nature to what can still be said now. Thus, for example, it was always given out in a way that today is still right, what actually happens when a man seeks to enter the spiritual world before his soul is ripe to do so. Today this can indeed so happen that the man says to himself: What! Sound human Intelligence?—that is the last thing to bother about if one wants to understand the spiritual world! People are not fond of the effort entailed; they would much rather accept some particular thing through belief in authority. There is really far less liking today for sound human understanding than people imagine, and they would like to get round this need for sound human understanding by penetrating directly to the spiritual world in a way that they imagine to be easier, even though this is an unconscious opinion, namely, through all manner of brooding and things of that kind, which they call meditation. This preference for actually penetrating into the spiritual world without the help of sound human intelligence is indeed very common. Those initiated into such things however were already saying what is right concerning this in past times, and it continues to be repeated by Initiates today. When an attempt is made to penetrate into the spiritual world by anyone who is insufficiently mature in his whole attitude of soul, it happens all too easily that after some time he ruins his whole endeavour, brings it so near complete disaster, that he is left with a feeling like someone who, grasping a red hot piece of coal, is undecided whether to burn himself or let the coal drop. This is an experience arising very often in those who meditate. They do not seek to let their sound human intelligence prevail in the same measure as their zeal for the so-called exercises, which indeed in themselves naturally have their justification. It is always emphasised, however, that sound human understanding may not be excluded, it must be actively, diligently, applied. If for sometime it is sought to make a practice of excluding sound human intelligence and also of excluding the accompanying moral self-discipline that up until then has actually not been acquired, this characteristic feature will appear—that all this will be experienced as if someone were to touch a piece of glowing coal with his fingers, not only touched it but jumped back, thus men would jump away from the spiritual world. As I have said this is always emphasised. It is emphasised because it is an experience made in earlier ages by countless teachers of Spiritual Science in the form this took in atavistic times; it is an experience that can also be very prevalent today. This is emphasised; but today we must find out the reason why there should arise this sensation of touching and recoiling as if from glowing coals.

Now if we seek to understand this fact, we may be able to recall a basic truth of our Spiritual Science perfectly well known to us, namely, how we as men behave when we bear in mind our entire life in its alternating states of sleeping and waking. With the help of the old mode of expression, we might say that while we sleep we leave the physical body and the etheric body lying in the bed whereas with the Ego and the astral body we fly out, if I can put it thus, into the world that otherwise surrounds us; we do not inhabit our body when asleep, we are poured out into the surrounding cosmos. In this way when we are sleeping our consciousness as a man is slight. When the sleeping condition is unbroken by dreams which implies a certain increase in the intensity of consciousness, but when we keep in mind dreamless sleep, then our consciousness is so inconsiderable that we do not become aware of the infinite and important number of experiences gone through in the state between going to sleep and re-awakening. This is just that we really should keep in mind, and not the abstract words: In sleep, with our ego and astral body we are outside the physical body—no, we should bear in mind that our body is tremendously rich between going to sleep and waking up again: (Compare Z-233) we do not know it, however, because our consciousness is then weakened, because our sleep-consciousness is not yet as strong as the consciousness that is able to be united with the instrument of the physical body. In actual fact a tremendously intense experience takes place in ego and astral body within the world where we also are the rest of the time—an intense experience. Man, however, during his ordinary state on earth is protected from the immediate perception of this life, this life developed when we as ego and astral body force ourselves—if I may express it thus—through the same things to begin with in which we are when making use of our physical body and its organs. The life during the state of sleep is one of tremendous richness. But this life does not cease when we wake and plunge down into our physical body and etheric body. We are still connected through our ego and astral body with the world surrounding us in a way that the ordinary consciousness has no inkling of; only this remains quite unnoticed. We can now look at this precise relation more closely. It may be asked what actually comes to expression in this relation of our soul and spirit to our physical and etheric?

You see, for our present state of experience it would be a very bad thing were we henceforth always to have to perceive what in sleep we experience with the things outside in space and in time. We do not indeed do this, but were we to do it we should always have to go on doing it and could not do otherwise. Our body, that is to say, has a certain characteristic where these experiences are concerned. It may be said to weaken these experiences. Our body weakens all that in actual truth we experience with the surrounding world; we perceive only what has been weakened by our body and not our real experiences. Our real experiences are related to what we perceive of our environment through our body—and this is a very pertinent picture indeed because not only is it actually a picture but it corresponds to an occult reality—our body or the experiences of our body are related to our real experiences in the same way as the sunlight, that shines on a stone and is reflected back so that we can see the stone, is related to the actual sunlight streaming towards us from the sun overhead. Look at the stone the sunlight falls upon; you are able to look at the stone, your eyes can bear the reflected, thrown back light. When you turn from the stone to the sun and gaze straight into the sun you are blinded. It is approximately the same with the relation between our real experiences in connection with the world around us, and What we experience through the organs of our body. What we experience in reality with our environment has the strength of the sunlight, and what we experience through the organs of our body has of this strength only the weakened form which the weakened light of an object reflected back to us has of the strength of the real sunlight. In our innermost man we are sun beings, but so far we cannot endure what it entails to be sun beings. Therefore as with our external physical eyes we have to look at the softened down light of the sun because direct sunlight blinds us, we must also perceive our environment through what results in a softened down form from our body and its organs, because we should be unable directly to face what in reality we experience of our environment. As men we are actually as if we were blinded by a sunbeam and what we know of the world and of ourselves has not our real being in it, not as things would be experienced in streaming sunlight but in light thrown back from objects, light that no longer blinds the eyes. You can gather from this that when you wake up in the world that ordinary consciousness cannot endure, you have the feeling you are in sunlight as if you really would live with the sunlight. And in the actual experience, in the actual practical experience there is indeed a very concentrated sunlight.

There you have the facts about what is often said—that people throw away the experience of Spiritual Science as if it were a red hot coal. You come to a region of experience where you have experiences like that of the soul when your finger is burnt. You jump back and do not want to burn it. Naturally you need not twist round what I say. Nobody can come to spiritual experience by having his finger burnt. On that account I say like the soul experience when one burns a finger, for in Spiritual Science things must always be expressed with exactitude.

The real state of affairs is that entrance into the spiritual world is certainly not at first anything providing man with an empty kind of happiness; entrance into the spiritual world is such that it has to be bought with that inner, one might say, unhappiness, experienced when one is burnt by fire. (Naturally there are many other experiences of the same kind). To begin with man experiences spiritually with the things, beings and events of the spiritual world, exactly the same as, for example, when he burns himself. The real experiences of the spiritual world have to be acquired through these painful experiences. What gives happiness from these experiences of the spiritual world, what gives satisfaction to life, is the afterglow in thought. Those who have these experiences imparted to them and grasp them through their sound human intelligence, can have this just as well as anyone who enters the spiritual world. Certain individuals, however, must naturally enter the spiritual world, otherwise it would not be possible for anything at all to be experienced of the spiritual world.

These feats to which I have referred must be borne in mind. Fundamentally it is not very difficult just from the external facts to gather what I have been speaking of. You will find everywhere the spiritual world is spoken of seriously—not in the way of charlatanism but seriously—that the passing over is spoken of not as being made through pleasant but through painful experiences. And you know how often I have said that whoever in life has acquired a little real knowledge of the spiritual world looks back, but not resentfully, on the sorrow, on the suffering of his life. For he says to himself: The joys, the exhilarating moments of life I accept thankfully as a divine gift and I rejoice over the destiny that has brought me these exhilarating moments of joy. But all that I know comes from my pain, my knowledge comes from my suffering. Everyone who has gained actual knowledge of the spiritual world will see this. Only in this way are we allowed to acquire knowledge of the spiritual world while here on the physical earth.

And now you will be able to realise why people Shrink from understanding the spiritual world in spite of the fact that this understanding is to be acquired simply with sound human intelligence. Usually the only thing they do not recoil from in their understanding is what they would not recoil from in external life. Now you would naturally be most stupid and unreasonable if you wilfully burnt your finger just to find out what it was like. Added to which, if you burn your finger you pay so little heed to what your soul is experiencing that you do not gain any real experience of what it is like to burn your finger. Us, there is indeed a psychological fact rightly grasped only when seen in the light flowing from this knowledge. Now in that I am going to say I am not speaking here to you individually, for naturally I am not expecting each of you to do this, I only believe, of Course, that each of you will have heard of such things, you will have heard of them from others and remarked them in others. You will perhaps have remarked that people cry out when they burn their fingers. Now, my dear friends, why do many people cry out on burning their fingers? They cry out for the simple reason that by thus crying out the soul experience may be drowned. People cry out and make a noise at any kind of pain to make things easier for themselves. Ay crying out you will not be able to experience in full consciousness the whole extent of the pain; it is really drowning the suffering, sending it outside. In short, in ordinary life man has not much experience of the things that will be experienced in the spiritual world; nevertheless it is clear that these things can be understood with sound human intelligence because everywhere in the external physical world they have analogies through which we gather our experiences. It is certainly not the case that things of the spiritual world are incomprehensible; we must, however, make up our minds to strengthen certain qualities of our soul, for example, courage. We must have the courage not usually possessed when we do something and then recoil because it is painful. We must have this courage, for penetrating to the spiritual world always means pain. Therefore we have to strengthen certain forces of the soul, this is necessary. But many people today do not,want to strengthen their qualities of soul in the systematic way that is recommended, for example, in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. They have no wish to do this; they have no wish to enhance certain attributes of their soul. Were they to enhance them then in their capacity for forming concepts , in their sound human intelligence, there would easily prevail what is needful for understanding through this human intelligence he experience of the fingers in the spiritual world that, in the sense in which I have described it, is a painful experience. We are actually living in an age in which this strengthening of the human attitude of soul is a necessity, for otherwise mankind cannot reach their goal, and because catastrophe on catastrophe will have to arise bringing us finally to chaos.

Now, however, while discussing these things just at a time when it is particularly necessary, I have placed strong emphasis on something else. This is, that with the weakening of the attitude of soul existing among men today, there can be excellent scientists in the modern sense of the word. For even with the intelligence, that is not sound human intelligence but human intelligence carried to a high pitch through the authority of science, the external part of our physical environment can be particularly well understood. It cannot be understood inwardly, spiritually, but directly understood in its external aspect. What is not possible for people with the concepts given by science, with just what people today are accustomed to when applying their thought, is however to bring order into the social structure of man's cooperative life which is gradually becoming chaotic. To put it differently: Present social demands, and social demands for the near future, will never find their solution through what may be referred to as the thinking about nature and natural phenomena. It is on this very point that our contemporaries have terribly much to learn; in this very point again our contemporaries do not fall in with what must be told them by Spiritual Science out of its most intimate understanding of the being of our universe. Indeed, in spite of all the opposition which today will be forthcoming more and more, Spiritual Science must say just on this point that even with any amount of bungling around and doctoring up in the sphere of social questions no bungling around or doctoring up will lead to anything better; it will lead on the contrary to still greater social confusion than is already present in individual spheres of world existence unless it is recognised that insight into social questions can come only from the spiritual understanding of world existence. Social questions must be solved with knowledge of Anthroposophy—anything else in this sphere is dilettantism.

Thus we must turn to something else if we are to speak about things from a certain point of view. What largely holds men back from pressing forward to Spiritual Science is lack of interest in the spiritual life. This lack of interest in spiritual life is prevalent among modern scientists. They are indifferent about the spiritual life. They deny it or give laws to everything they can observe through the physical senses, everything that allows of investigation by means of microscope or telescope; but they take no interest in what is revealed every time there is real deep observation of nature, namely. that the spiritual holds sway behind all-phenomena of nature, all facts of nature. This lack of interest in the spirit is particularly noticeable today in those who would meddle in social affairs. And again there is a particular reason for this.

Now, my dear friends, from all kinds of things that I have spoken about lately, you will have gathered that when confronting each other as man to man we are in a very special inner life of soul. I have gone quite deeply into what kind of mood of soul we are in when as man we are face to face with another man. I told you that actually standing face to face with another man always has a soporific effect on us. Where the innermost qualities of our human nature are concerned we actually go to sleep in the presence of another man. It is not to be wondered at that outward behaviour deceives us as to this falling asleep. For we certainly see the other man with our eyes, offer him indeed our hand and touch him, do all kinds of things; but still this does not alter the fact that the other man causes us to fall asleep in the depths of our human being. Just as we are asleep to nature at night, something is sent to sleep in us by the presence of another man. When this goes to sleep, however, it does not cease to be active. Thus in social life there are always taking place between men activities about which, just because they are together with their fellows, people are unable to have any clear consciousness. People fail to notice in ordinary consciousness exactly what is of most importance in the social life, because their actual capacity for conceiving the most important things in social life has fallen asleep and they act out of instinct. It is no wonder that as in the forming of conceptions the intellect is most easily lulled to sleep, the most chaotic instincts should be taken as perfectly justified in modern social life because clear thinking about these things is sent to sleep simply by men being together. The moment a man enters the spiritual world, however, what was sent to sleep wakes up, and it becomes clear what is holding sway between man and man. For this reason the solutions can also be found of the so-called social questions and social demands. Thus, as I have already said here, it is possible to find these solutions only beyond the threshold of physical consciousness.

And what mankind will want to have in future through the so-called solving of social problems, if it is to be a real solution, can be found only on the path of Spiritual Science, that is to say, the science of the superphysical, since all the most intimate foundations of human life in co-operation are of a superphysical nature. (cf. Z-234)

But then, if we wish to experience spiritually the things that have to do with man, mankind, and also with the human social structure, into our whole capacity for conception, into everything we experience, we must bring something which you will realise at once is hardly present today in ordinary consciousness. There is just one thing here in the physical world in the way of sensations, of feelings, that each of us must have if he does not want to investigate the social laws, the social impulses, in an unreal but in a fundamental way. This is only found in a limited form here in the physical world, only indeed when an absolutely healthy, absolutely right, relation exists between a father, mother and child, in the interest between father, mother and child. It is not to be found in anything that can be experienced between men anywhere else in the whole round world, Certainly not in ordinary consciousness.

Now while you are getting clear in your mind about, let us say, the mother's love (you can do it too in this fundamental way) about the love developed in the mother immediately she bears a child—this love of the mother for her child which obviously springs from the very sources of nature—try to become clear about this mother love, and then ask whether this mother love is dominant in any scientific investigations ordinarily carried out by the well-informed, even by those who are doing research work in social science. This mother love must be there in the thoughts developed about the social structure if these thoughts are to have reality in them and not unreality. The only form of thought in human life that could be right socially is what is thought out socially and with mother love.

And now take the various social reformers and social thinkers. Try for once to let work upon you such writings, for example, as those of Carl Marx, or people of his ilk, Schmoller or Reacher or anyone else you like, and ask yourself whether these, while thinking out their so-called social and political laws, in this devising of social and political laws, let themselves be influenced by what is there in the mother's love for her child when this love takes a healthy course. This must have attention drawn to it, my dear friends! A sound solution of the so-called social problem is possible only if this solution is forthcoming from thinkers able to develop mother love in solving their problems; you will understand what I mean by this. The solving of present-day social demands depends on this very human matter. It is not a matter of sagacity nor ordinary cleverness nor of belief in what is learned; it is a question of enhancing the capacity for love to the degree to which mother love can be developed, or we might also say the direct, intimate love in the common life of father, mother and child.

Here you will be right in making an objection. You will say: Yes, on earth matters are so arranged that the social structure has in a certain sense the family as its unit, and on earth the family as such is undoubtedly fully justified, yet the whole of mankind cannot be one family! This is an objection that naturally will be forthcoming at once. If we are to think out social laws with mother love, however, the consequence would actually have to be the whole of mankind becoming one family. Naturally that cannot be, Whoever knows what a real thought is, a real thought with nothing of the charlatan or abstract about it, will have to admit that of course nobody is immediately capable of behaving to every child as though it were his own, that every child cannot behave to all other women, all other men, as it would to its mother or father. Thus all mankind cannot become one family. That is perfectly right, my dear friends, but just because that is right another necessity arises for us. As we live here as physical men on the physical earth we should by no means be able to succeed in making all mankind into one family; whoever wanted this would naturally be wanting an absurdity. But we could arrive at it another way and in another way indeed it must happen. As physical men we should not be able to stand in the relation of father, mother and child. But when there takes root in mankind the knowledge that spirit and soul live in every human being, that a divine spiritual being shines forth from the eyes of everyone, and the message of a divine spiritual being rings in his words, when in other words man's immortal soul is no longer recognised simply in the abstract, then, my dear friends, the moment will have arrived, not indeed where physical man is concerned but with regard to what man hides intimately within him as his baling of soul and spirit, when we shall be able to behave to one another as if all mankind were one big family. But this will not happen until people meet each other with immediate feeling and it is recognised: When I look people in the eye the infinite shines towards me; when I hear them speak it is not only physical sound speaking but the divine spiritual being of their soul—if this becomes direct experience, just as we experience any blue or red surface, then we shall feel that man when expressing himself is of a divine spiritual nature, and shall learn not to recognise simply with blind faith that a man has an immortal soul, but we shall directly perceive this immortal soul in what he utters. For in this way we shall be able to enter into connection with the soul and spirit of each human being. This is something that will alone make the solution of the so-called social question possible, the one and only thing. Therefore we find this solution of the social question in the recognition of man's divine spiritual nature, in the recognition that what goes around on the earth as the human physical body, is only the outward expression of what lights up in every man out of the eternal. We can have the same relation to what lights up in every man out of the eternal, as we can have in the right relation of the smallest family unit. This is possible, possible in every sense. When recognising this we can capture that love for all men which is as great as the love of family.

There is naturally no point in the objection, which would be superficial too, if we remarked about things in the following way: Yes, but there are also bad people. There are also bad children, my dear friends, whom we even have to punish, but there is love in our punishment. The moment we see the divine spiritual light up in human beings, when we see it is necessary we shall punish, but punish lovingly; above all we shall learn one thing which might be said to be practised only instinctively, that is, to meet other men as if we both belonged to the same family. When we meet another man in this way we punish but we do not hate the man; even when we punish him we do not hate the human being who is our son, but we hate his wrong doing. We love the man, we hate his misdeeds and his faulty training, and we know how to distinguish in him between the man and what has overcome him. When people have once understood the great, the infinite, difference existing between human love, and hatred of the misdeeds that assail mankind, a right relationship can be established among men. When we fellow our inmost human nature there is never any possibility for our hating anyone. Naturally we have much cause to hate human crimes, misdeeds, human weakness of character, human lack of character. Where we largely go wrong in our social behaviour is as a rule in bringing against the man what should be brought against the misdeed, the crime. We do this today instinctively, but must become conscious that the development of mankind today lies in the direction of distinguishing between hatred for the misdoing and the love that all the some can be felt for the man.

Oh, my dear friends, more would be done to solve the burning social demands of today by recognising truths of this kind than by much else going around the world as social quackery or social theory. In face of the materialism that everywhere employs what is grossly material, it is difficult to make any impression when speaking of such things as these, for the simple reason that people today are largely materialistic in their instincts, which is a more harmful matter than their holding materialist theories. Crime, lack of character, cannot be seen and do not exist materially. But because people want to hate what is material, they associate the material man with their hate and there arise countless misunderstandings.

What arises from this as a bad misunderstanding is that sometimes from some kind of misunderstood sensations and feelings, man is confused with what he does in another direction also. There is carelessness in judging what a man does when it is said: Oh, we do not want to hurt the man, now and then one has to overlook things for sheer love of one's fellows. If a verdict is given in the matter by turning ones's eyes towards the wrong doing and not confounding the man in his inmost life of soul with his misdeed, then indeed the right judgment will be arrived at. It is less trouble on the one hand, if you dislike someone, to mete out so-called justice to him; it is also easy because it suits us to excuse failings which may cause harm in the external world. In the common life of mankind a very great deal hangs on the way we are able to separate what ought to arouse our antipathy from the immediate being of man as man.

My dear friends, I have often emphasised that what is spoken here about these connections is not meant as a criticism of the culture and conditions of the times; it is simply a description of them. Therefore you will also understand when I say that mankind of so-called western civilisation, the people of Europe with their American cousins, for a time must go through the stage not only of taking things materialistically in accordance with science, but also of taking life itself materialistically confounding men with their deeds in the way referred to. This has to do with the education; for the right development of other qualities to be possible, men, must in this sphere, too, pass through the stage of materialism. Men, however, who have remained behind at earlier stages of culture have preserved a great deal of these former cultural stages in which there was still atavistic clairvoyance. And atavistic clairvoyance has since resulted in quite definite trends of feeling and attitudes of soul. We people of Europe can only be a match for what assails us from certain directions, if we reflect upon the arguments put forward today. For let us not forget this—that thinkers looked upon as very enlightened as, for example, Immanuel Kant, speak—not indeed out of a certain basis of Christianity but of the church—a thinker of this ilk speaks of human nature being fundamentally evil. And how widespread is this error—for it may indeed be called so—that human nature in its actual depths is evil: In the civilised world of Europe and its American sister country it is said that if human nature is not under control it is evil. This is actually a European opinion, an opinion of the European Church.

There is a race of men who do not hold this view, who have preserved another view from former times, for example the Chinese people. In the Chinese world-conception, as such, there rules the proposition, there rules the principle, that man is by nature good. Here is a mighty difference which would play a much greater part than is thought in the conflict that will develop between men. To be sure, speaking of these things today, people believe one as little as they would have done had the war we are now engaged in been spoken of in 1900. Yet it is true all the same that a struggle is also being prepared between the Asiatic and European peoples. And then quite other things will play a part than have been played, are played even now or will be played later, in the catastrophic struggle we are in the midst of today.

There is really a great difference in the whole way of experiencing whether the Chinese have the conviction that man is by nature good, or the European holds that human nature is fundamentally weighed down by evil—from the standpoint of the world-conception of the people there is a great difference in which way a man thinks. How a man thinks is expressed in the whole of life's temperament, in the entire attitude of the life of soul. For the most part men have their attention riveted on the outer features of life's conflict and they generally pay little heed to what is lying in the depths of the inner nature.

There is just one thing I should like to mention. You see, the fact that the European, although he may not generally admit it, is always at heart convinced that man is actually bad and has to be made good only through education and restraint, restraint by the State or any other kind, this outlook, from historic necessity, is closely connected with something else. It is connected with—not with the fact itself but with the qualities of feeling underlying the fact—connected with European people having developed through this a certain life of soul in the form we call logic and science. From this you will find it comprehensible that those who really know the Chinese—I don't mean Europeans who know them but those who, Chinese themselves, (cf. The Karma of Vocation) have got to know Europe too, as for example, Ku Hung Ming, often mentioned by me here—that these Chinamen lay stress on there being no equivalent in the Chinese language for logic and science. Thus for what we Europeans call science, for what we call logic, the Chinese have no word at all, since they do not have the thing, because, what Europeans believe to be Chinese Science is something quite different from what we call science and what we call logic, something entirely different from what we Europeans think to be logic in the Chinese soul. So different are men on earth! Attention must be paid to this unless attention is focused on this no discussion of the social problem can bear any fruit. But when heed is paid to such a matter the spiritual horizon becomes wider. And this widening of the spiritual horizon is particularly necessary for the sound understanding of Spiritual Science.

And when many different questions are asked concerning all these things—we have already touched on two today and could still touch on a third—when it is asked why today people in accordance with custom still keep their distance from the truths of Spiritual Science this reason is found among others, that the horizon, the spiritual horizon, of modern man is a very narrow one. However much man may boast of his spiritual horizon today, however greatly, the fact remains that this spiritual horizon is very narrow. Its narrowness is shown in particular by the extraordinary difficulty modern man generally has in getting out of himself where certain things are concerned. And this not only has an effect on his understanding, it influences also his whole life of sympathy and antipathy.

I should like to refer to a fact, a fact well known to quite a number of you, that is to say, the effect of this fact is well known to a number of you; this fact I have already mentioned to you once and should like to mention it again. Now you know that a certain relation existed some years ago between the so-called Theosophical Society and those who today form the Anthroposophical Society. I experienced something remarkable in connection with just those members of the Theosophical Society who were prominent. Already by the beginning of this century, as you know, I had published communications from the so-called Akashic Record, information which I venture to say rested upon personal experience, as does all the rest of what I impart out of the spiritual world. (see Atlantis and Lemuria) When these communications were read by a prominent member of the Theosophical Society people could hardly understand how it arose. I was asked how these communications were received? And it was really impossible to come to any kind of understanding, for the actual methods of anthroposophical research suitable for the present age were totally unknown in that circle. There, more mediumistic methods were used for investigation. Really what was wanted was the name of the medium or medium-like person responsible for these Akashic Record communications. That they were actually the result of the direct observation of a certain human attitude of soul projected into the supersensible, was considered an impossibility! The narrowness of man's horizon speaks in things of this kind. Even in so momentous a sphere, people consider possible only what they are accustomed to, only what is easily understood.

Now I have quoted this instance just because if one is narrow-minded it is really quite im possible to press on to Spiritual Science. In everyday life, however, this narrow-mindedness is the common thing today, always to relate everything back to just the personal, accustomed standpoint. This is what must above all be considered by those very people who are attached to our Movement for Spiritual Science. My dear Friends, I am now going to say something that perhaps there would be no need to say in this way were the things to be said intimately, systematically, but which it is necessary to say when it comes to the external conditions of life. You see, those who take a more particular, active interest in our Movement know indeed how many attacks are made on the sources of this Movement, how bitterly it is persecuted, how many come to hate it who were formerly keen adherents, and so on. Last time indeed I spoke about these things from various points of view. Now it will not be superfluous, from certain aspects, to make clear the reasons for such hostility, such antagonism. I talked to you about the reasons for the antagonism seen here and there last time. Such hostility very frequently becomes particularly strong, however, when appearing among people who also belong, let us say, to some occult society. The hatred that develops in many adherents of one or another society against what is seen here as Spiritual Science, sometimes is really strikingly conspicuous, at times even taking grotesque forms. And it is not superfluous, my deer friends, to pay attention to these things, for we should pay attention to everything that makes us take our membership of this Movement very seriously. It is very true that nowhere is there more charlatanism in the world than where spiritual matters are represented in all kinds of societies. It is easy, therefore, because of so much charlatanism in the world to be suspicious of what arises as a Movement for Spiritual Science. Then those who want to, can easily find support if they say: Yes, once a Society appeared which maintained that it spread abroad all the wisdom of the world—then it was shown up as mere charlatanism! And now another has arisen, again it has proved to be charlatanism'! This must be admitted; there is infinitely much of this charlatanism in the world. Here the capacity for discrimination must come in to distinguish the true from the false.

But another case can arise; something, for example, in the nature of uncertainty may enter the soul. This uncertainty can consist in the following. A man of this kind may come to know what goes on here. Now if he has not an open mind, if he pursues what is personal, he may arrive at the following divided mood of soul. It is possible for him to foresee all manner of danger and to say: Dear me, how is this? I have so often heard of these societies, occult or whatever else they may be; I have never come across in them any knowledge, any real knowledge. It is true, every possible thing is talked of, it is in their books and given out in their ritual, but there is no stream of living knowledge. Now is this Anthroposophy of the same kind or is it something different? And he can find himself in a divided mood of soul. You see, in common parlance, when it is not possible for anyone to go deeply into what is actually living here, it may be said: Is this the kind of swindle that I really find more pleasant since it does not ask so much of one?

My dear friends, the things I give out here are not so unreal as that! Above all they are spoken because I want to point to the necessity for earnestness, dignity, and the capacity for discrimination. I have said this repeatedly, so that the unpleasantness should not arise which very often arises, namely, that the real life of spirit is all around, whereas because it is less trouble people actually prefer to hear it talked about. What calls forth so much antagonism is just the fact of what I have emphasised in my book Theosophy being true here—that only spiritual experiences are spoken of. The antagonism of the Theosophical Society also actually first arose when they noticed our claim to speak of real spiritual experiences. That could not be borne. People are preferred who repeat what has been given in their lectures and repeat it with a certain zeal, but independent spiritual investigation was, fundamentally, the great sin against the Holy Ghost of the Theosophical Society. And this independent spiritual investigation is not as yet to be so easily found in the world today. Once again I have wanted to intimate this at the end of what we have been considering. And it will indeed be necessary for you, my dear friends, really to my heed to these things with a sound mind but also with all earnestness. The times are grave and the remedy for the times that we wish to receive from the spiritual world must also be grave.

We should like to go on speaking of these things tomorrow.