The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Karma is best understood by contrasting it with that other impulse in man—the impulse which we indicate by the word freedom. Let us first, in a very crude way, I should say, place the question of karma before us. What does it signify?

In human life we have to record the fact of successive earth lives. By feeling ourselves within a given earth life, we can look back—in thought at least, to begin with—and see how this present earth life is a repetition of a number of previous earth lives. It was preceded by another, and that in turn by yet another life on earth, and so on until we get back into the ages where it is impossible to speak of repeated earth lives as we do in the present epoch of the earth, for in going farther backward, we reach a time when the life between birth and death and the life between death and a new birth become so similar that the immense difference which exists be- l ween them today is no longer present. Today we live in our earthly body bet ween birth and death in such a way that in every-day consciousness we feel cut off from the spiritual world. Out of this every-day consciousness, men speak of the spiritual world as a “beyond.” They even speak of it as though they might doubt its existence, as though they might deny it altogether, and so forth.

This is because man's life within earthly existence restricts him to the outer world of the senses, and to the intellect; the latter does not look far enough to perceive what really is connected with this earthly existence. Out of this, countless arguments arise, all of which actually are rooted in something unknown. No doubt, you will have often stood among people and experienced how they argued about monism, dualism, and so forth. It is, of course, quite absurd to argue about these catch-words. When people argue in this way, we are reminded of some primitive man, let us say, who has never heard that there is such a substance as air. It will not occur to anyone who knows that air exists, and what its functions are, to speak of it as something belonging to the beyond. Nor will he think of declaring: “I am a monist; air, water, and earth arc one, and you arc a dualist, because you regard air as something that extends beyond the earthly and watery elements.”

All these things are pure nonsense, as, indeed, are mostly all arguments about concepts. There can, therefore, be no question of our entering into such matters, but it can only be a question of drawing attention to them. For just as the air is not present for the one who knows nothing about it, but for him is something belonging to the “beyond,” so for those who do not yet know the spiritual world, which also exists everywhere just as the air, this spiritual world is something belonging to the “beyond;” but for those who take the matter into consideration, the spiritual world is something that belongs very much to this side. Thus, it is simply a question of our acknowledging the fact that at the present earth period the human being between birth and death lives in his physical body, in his whole organism, in such a way that this organism gives him a consciousness whereby he is cut off from a certain world of causes which, none the less, affects this physical earth existence.

Then, between death and a new birth he lives in another world, which we may call a spiritual world in contrast to our physical world; in this spiritual world he does not have a physical body which can be made visible to human senses, but he lives in a spiritual nature. And in this life between death and a new birth the world through which he passes between birth and death is just as alien, in turn, as the spirit world is now alien to every-day consciousness.

The dead look down onto the physical world just as the living that is the physically living—look upward into the spiritual world, and only the feelings are, so to speak, reversed. While the human being here in the physical world between birth and death has a certain aspiration toward another world which grants him fulfilment of much of which there is too little in this world, or of which this world affords him no satisfaction, he must between death and a new birth on account of the multitude of events, and because too much happens in proportion to what a human being can bear, feel a constant longing to return to earth life, to what is then the life in the beyond; hence, during the second half of the life between death and a new birth, he awaits with great longing the passage through birth into a new earth existence. Just as in earth existence the human being is afraid of death, because an uncertainty prevails about what happens thereafter—for in earth life a great uncertainty prevails for ordinary consciousness about what happens after death—so in the life between death and a new birth the condition is just the reverse, there prevails an excessive certainty about earth life. It is a certainty that stuns the human being, that makes him literally faint, so that he is in a state resembling a fainting dream, a state which fills him with the longing to descend again to earth.

These are only a few indications of the great difference prevailing between the earthly life and the life between death and a new birth. If, however, we now go back, let us say, even only as far as the Egyptian period, from the third on up into the first millennium before the founding of Christianity—and, after all, if we go back into this epoch, we go back to those human beings who were none other than ourselves, in a former earth life—indeed, then, at that time during earth existence, life was quite different from our so brutally clear consciousness of the present day. At present human beings have, indeed, a brutally clear consciousness; they are all so clever—I do not at all intend to be ironical—the people of today are, indeed, all very clever. In contrast to this brutally clear consciousness of today, the consciousness of the human being of the ancient Egyptian period was much more dream-like, a consciousness that did not, like ours, strike against outer objects. It passed through the world, as it were, without striking against objects. Instead, it was filled with pictures which, at the same time, revealed something of the spiritual existing in our environment. The spiritual still penetrated into physical earth existence.

Do not ask: How could a man with this more dream-like consciousness, not the brutally clear consciousness of today, have performed the tremendous tasks which were actually achieved, for instance, in the ancient Egyptian or Chaldean epochs? You need merely call to mind the fact that mad people at times, in certain states of mania, possess an immense increase of their physical forces; they begin to carry things which they could not carry when in a completely clear state of consciousness. It was, indeed, a fact that the physical strength of the human beings of that time was correspondingly greater, although they were perhaps of slighter build than men of today. For, as you know, it does not always follow that a stout man is strong and a thin man weak. But they did not spend their earthly life in observing every detail of their physical actions; their physical deeds went parallel with experiences into which the spiritual world still extended.

And again, when the people of that time were in the life between death and a new birth, then far more of this earthly life extended upward into the life beyond—if I may be allowed to use the expression “upward.” Nowadays it is exceedingly difficult to communicate with those who are present in the life between death and a new birth, for languages have gradually assumed a form no longer understood by the dead. Our nouns, for instance, soon after death are absolute gaps in the dead's comprehension of the earthly world. They understand nothing but the verbs, i.e. the words of motion, of action. And while we here on earth have our attention constantly drawn by materialistically minded people to the fact that everything should be defined in an orderly manner, and every concept be limited and sharply defined, the dead no longer know anything of definitions; they only know what is in motion, not what has contours and is limited.

But in more ancient times that which lived on earth as speech, that which lived as usage and habit of thought, was still of such a nature that it extended up into the life between death and a new birth, and the dead still heard an echo of this long after their death, and also an echo of what occurred on earth even after their death.

And if we go still farther back into the time following the catastrophe of Atlantis—the eighth and ninth millennium before the Christian era t lit* difference between the life on earth and the life in the beyond, if I may so describe it, becomes even more insignificant. And then, as we go backward, we gradually reach the ages when the two lives are similar. We can then no longer speak of repeated earth lives.

Thus, repeated earth lives have their limit as we look backward, just as they will have their limit when we look forward into the future. For what begins quite consciously with Anthroposophy—the extension of the spiritual world into the ordinary consciousness of man—will have the consequence that this earth world will extend, in turn, into the world through which we live between death and a new birth; but, in spite of this, our consciousness will not grow dream-like, but clearer and ever clearer. The difference will once again grow less. So that this living in repeated earth lives is limited by outermost boundaries, which then lead into quite another sort of human existence, where it is meaningless to speak of repeated earth lives, because the difference between the earthly and the spiritual life is not so great as it is today.

If we now assume, however, for the long stretch of the present period of the earth age that behind this earth life there lie others—we must not say countless others, for they can even be counted by exact spiritual- scientific research—if we say: behind our present earth life there lie many others, then we have had certain experiences in these previous earth lives which represented certain relationships between human beings. And the effects of these relationships between human beings, which at that time lived themselves out in what we then underwent, extend into this present earth life in the same way as the effects of what we do in this present earth life extend into our next lives on earth. Thus, we have to seek in the former earth life the causes of much that now enters into our present life. Then it is easy for the human being to say: “Thus, what I experience now is conditioned, caused. How can I, then, be a free human being?”

Now, this question is, indeed, a rather significant one, if we consider it in this way. For all spiritual observation shows that in this way the subsequent earth life is conditioned by the earlier ones. On the other hand, the consciousness of freedom absolutely exists. And, when you read my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, you will see that we cannot understand the human being at all, if we are not clear about the fact that his whole soul life tends, is directed, is oriented toward freedom, but a freedom which we have to understand correctly.

Now, it is precisely in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity that you will find an idea of freedom which it is very important to grasp correctly. The point is that we have developed freedom, to begin with, in thought. The fountainhead of freedom is in thought. Man has an immediate consciousness of the fact that he is a free being in his thought. You may rejoin: “But there are many people today who doubt the fact of freedom.” Yes, but this only proves that the theoretical fanaticism of people today is often stronger than their direct experience in reality. Because he is so crammed full of theoretical concepts the human being no longer believes in his own experiences. Out of his observations of the processes of nature, he arrives at the idea that everything is conditioned by necessity, every effect has a cause, all that exists has its cause; thus, if I conceive a thought, this has also a cause. He does not at once think of repeated earth lives in this connection, but he imagines that what wells forth from human thinking is caused in the same way as that which comes out of a machine.

As a result of this theory of universal causation, as it is called, the human being blinds himself frequently to the fact that he bears very clearly within himself the consciousness of freedom. Freedom is a fact which we experience, as soon as we really reflect upon ourselves.

Now, there are also those who are of the opinion that the nervous system is just a nature system, conjuring thoughts out of itself. According to this, then, the thoughts would—let us say—be necessary results, just like the flame which burns under the influence of a fuel, and there could be no question of freedom.

These people, however, contradict themselves in talking at all. As I have often related here, I had a friend in my youth, who had a fanatical inclination, at a certain period, to think materialistically. Thus, he said: “When I walk, for example, then it is the nerves of the brain, infiltrated by certain causes, which bring my walking into effect.” This led, at times, to quite a long debate with him. I finally said to him on one occasion: “Now, look here, you always say: ‘I walk.’ Why do you not say: ‘My brain walks?’ If you really believe in your theory, you ought never to say: ‘I walk, I take hold of things,’ but: ‘My brain walks, my brain takes hold of things.’ Why do you tell a lie?”

These are the theorists, but there are also the practical men. If they observe any nonsense in themselves which they do not wish to stop, they say: “O, I cannot get rid of that; it is just a part of my nature. It is there of its own accord, and I am powerless against it.” There are many such people; they refer to the immutable causation of their own nature. But, as a rule, they do not remain consistent. If they happen to be showing off something they rather like about themselves for which they need no excuse, but on the contrary are glad to receive a little flattery, they then abandon the aforesaid view.

The fundamental fact of the free human being—a self-evident fact can be directly experienced. Now, even in the ordinary, everyday earth life it is a fact that we do many things in complete freedom which, nevertheless, are of such a kind that we cannot easily leave them undone. And yet we do not feel our freedom in the least impaired through this fact.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that you now resolve to build yourself a house. It will take about a year to build it. In a year you will live in it. Will you feel that your freedom has been curtailed through the fact that you then have to say to yourself: “The house is now there, and I must move in, I must live in it; it is a case of compulsion?” No, you will surely not feel your freedom impaired through the fact of your having built a house for yourself. You see, therefore, even in ordinary life these two things stand side by side: You have committed yourself to something. It has thereby become a fact in life, a fact with which you have to reckon.

Now think of all that stems from former lives on earth, with which you have to reckon, because it is due to your own deeds—just as the building of the house is caused by you. Seen in this light, you will not feel your freedom impaired through the fact that your present life on earth is determined by former ones.

Perhaps you will say: “Very well. I will build me a house, but I still wish to remain a free man. I will not let myself be compelled. If I do not like it, I shall, in a year, not move into the new house; I shall sell it.” All right! We might also have our opinion about such a procedure; we might, perhaps, have the opinion that, if you do this, you are a person who does not know his own mind. Indeed, we might well have this opinion; but let us disregard this. Let us disregard the fact that a man is such a fanatical upholder of freedom that he constantly makes up his mind to do things, and afterwards out of sheer “freedom” leaves them undone. We then might well say: “That man has not even the freedom to enter upon the things he himself resolves upon. He constantly feels the goad of the will to be free and is positively persecuted by his fanatical worship of freedom.”

It is really important that these things not be taken in a rigid, theoretical manner, but be grasped in fullness of life. Let us now pass over to a more complicated concept. If we ascribe freedom to man, surely we must also ascribe it to the higher beings who are not hampered in their freedom by the limitations of human nature. If we rise to the beings of the higher Hierarchies, who certainly are not hampered by the limitations of human nature, we must, indeed, seek a higher degree of freedom with them. Now someone might propose a rather strange theological theory to the effect that God must surely be free; He has arranged the world in a certain way;

He has, however, thereby committed Himself; He certainly cannot change the world-order every day; thus, after all, He would in that case be unfree.

You see, if in this way you place in antithesis inner karmic necessity and freedom, which is a fact of our consciousness, which is simply a result of self-observation, you cannot then escape a continuous circle. In this way you cannot escape from a circle. For the matter is as follows: Let us take once more the illustration of the building of a house. I do not wish to press this example too far, but at this point it can still help us along the way. Someone builds himself a house. I will not say: I build myself a house—I shall probably never build one for myself—but, let us say, someone builds himself a house. Well, by this resolve he does, in a certain respect, determine his future. Now, when the house is finished, and he takes his former resolve into account, no freedom apparently remains for him, so far as the living in the house is concerned. He himself has certainly set this limitation to his freedom; nevertheless, apparently no freedom remains for him.

But just think, how many things still remain for you to do in freedom within this house, Indeed, within it you are even free to be stupid or wise, you are free to be horrid or lovable to your fellow men. In the house you are free to get up early or late. Perhaps, you may be under other obligations in this respect; but so far as the house is concerned, you are free to get up early or late. You are free to be an anthroposophist or a materialist within this house. In short, there are innumerable things still at your free disposal.

Likewise, in an individual human life, in spite of the presence of karmic necessity, there are countless things at your free disposal, far more than in a house, countless things fully and really in the domain of freedom.

Here you may, perhaps, be able to rejoin: “Very well, we do then have a certain domain of freedom in our life.” Indeed, that is so: a certain enclosed domain of freedom surrounded by the karmic necessity (see Figure III). Now, looking at this, you may assert the following. You may say: “Well, I am free in a certain domain; but I now reach the limits of my freedom. I then feel the karmic necessity everywhere. I walk around in my room of freedom, but everywhere at the boundaries I come up against my karmic necessity and sense this necessity.”

Indeed, my dear friends, if a fish thought likewise, it would be extremely unhappy in the water, for as it swims in the water it reaches the water's boundary. Outside of the water it can no longer live. Hence it refrains from going outside of the water. It does not go at all outside of the water; it remains in the water, it swims around in the water, and it just lets alone the other element which lies beyond, be it air or something else. And because the fish does this, I can in assure you that it is not at all unhappy over the fact that it cannot breathe with lung«. It does not occur to it to be unhappy. But, if ever it did occur to the fish to be unhappy because it breathes only with gills and not with lungs, then it would have to have lungs in reserve, then it would have to compare the difference between living down below in it lie water, and up in the air. Then the fish's whole way of feeling itself inwardly would be different. It would all be quite different.

If we apply this comparison to human life with respect to freedom and karmic necessity, then it is a fact, in the first place, that the human being in the present earth period has the ordinary consciousness. With this ordinary consciousness he lives in the sphere of freedom, just as the fish lives in the water, and with this consciousness he does not enter at all the realm of karmic necessity. Only when he begins really to perceive the spiritual world—this would be similar to the fish having lungs in reserve—only when he really finds his way into the spiritual world, does he acquire a perception of the impulses living in him as karmic necessity.

He then looks back into his former lives on earth and does not feel, does not say, on finding the causes of his present experiences in a previous earth life: “I am now under the compulsion of an iron necessity, and my freedom is impaired,” but he looks back and sees how he himself has fashioned what now confronts him, just as someone who has built himself a house looks back on the resolve which led him to build it. And we generally find it more reasonable to ask: “Was it, at that time, a sensible or foolish resolve to build this house?” Well, naturally, we can come later on to all sorts of opinions on the matter, if the things turn out in a certain way; but, if we find that it was an enormous stupidity to build the house, we can, at best, say that we were foolish.

Now, in earth life it is an awkward matter in regard to anything which one has inaugurated to have to say that it was stupid. We do not like this. We do not like to suffer from our own follies. We wish we had not made the foolish decision. But this really applies only to the one earth life, because between the foolishness of the resolve and the punishment we suffer in having to experience its consequences there lies the same earth life. It always remains thus.

But this is not so between the individual earth lives. For between them always lie the lives between death and a new birth; and these lives between death and a new birth change many things which would not change if earth life were to continue uniformly. Just suppose that you look back into a former earth life. There you did something good or ill to another human being. The life between death and a new birth took place between this previous earth life and the present earth life. In this life, in this spiritual life, you cannot think otherwise than that you have become imperfect by having done something evil to another human being. This takes away from your value as a human being. It cripples you in soul. You must repair the crippling, and you resolve to achieve in a new earth life what will make good the fault. Thus, between death and a new birth you absorb by your own will that which will compensate for the fault. If you have done good to another human being, you then know that the whole of human life is there for the whole of mankind. You see this most clearly in the life between death and a new birth. You then realize that when you have helped another human being, he has thereby achieved certain things which, without you, he would not have achieved in a former earth life; but, as a result, you feel again united with him in the life between death and a new birth, in order now to live and to develop further what you have achieved together with him in regard to human perfection. You seek him out again in a new earth life in order, in this new earth life, to work further with him through the way you have already helped him perfect himself.

The fact is not at all that we might abhor such necessity, when we, through a real insight into the spirit world, now perceive the scope of this karmic necessity all around us, but the fact is that we look back upon this necessity and see how the things were which we ourselves had done, and then behold them in such a way that we say: “What occurs out of inner necessity has to happen—out of complete freedom also it would have, to happen.”

We shall never have the experience of possessing a real insight into karma without being in agreement with it. If things result in the course of karma which do not please us, then we ought to consider them from the point of view of the general laws and principles of the universe. And we shall then realize more and more that, after all, what is karmically conditioned is better than our having to begin anew, better than our being a book of blank pages with every new earth life. For, as a matter of fact, we are ourselves our karma. We are ourselves that which comes over from previous earth lives. And it has no sense at all to say that something in our karma—alongside of which there exists definitely the realm of freedom—that something in our karma ought to be different from what it is, because it is not at all possible to criticize the single detail in an organically connected totality. Someone may not like his nose; but it is senseless to criticize merely the nose, as such, for the nose a man has must actually be as it is, if the whole man is as he is. The one who says: “I should like to have a different nose,” actually says that he would like to be an utterly different man. But in so doing he really eliminates himself in thought. This we cannot do. Thus, we cannot wipe out our karma, for we are ourselves our karma. Nor does it at all confound us, for it runs its course alongside the deeds of our freedom, and in no wise interferes with the deeds of our freedom.

I should like to use still another comparison to make the point clear. As human beings, we walk; but the ground on which we walk is also there. No one feels interfered with in walking by having the ground underneath his feet. Indeed, he ought even to know that, were the ground not there, he could not walk at all; he would fall through everywhere. It is thus with our freedom; it needs the “ground” of necessity. It must rise out of a foundation. And this foundation—we ourselves are.

As soon as we grasp in the right way the concept of freedom and the concept of karma, we shall be able to find them compatible, and we then need no longer shrink from a detailed study of the karmic laws. Indeed, in some instances we may even come to the following conclusion:

I now assume that someone, by means of the insight of initiation, is able to look back into former earth lives. He knows quite well, when he looks back into former earth lives that this and that has happened to him which has come with him into his present earth life. Had he not attained to initiation science, objective necessity would impel him to do certain things. He would do them quite inevitably. He would not feel his freedom hampered by it; for his freedom lies in his ordinary consciousness with which he never penetrates into the realm where this necessity acts, just as the fish never penetrates into the outer air. But when he has initiation science within him, he then looks back and he sees how things were in a former earth life, and he regards what now confronts him as a task which is consciously allotted to him for this present earth life. This is, indeed, a fact.

What I shall now say may sound paradoxical to you, yet it is true. In reality, a man who possesses no initiation science practically always knows through a kind of inner urge, through an instinct, what he is to do. O, indeed, people always know what they ought to do, feel themselves always impelled to this thing or that. For the one who begins with initiation science, matters become somewhat different in the world. As he faces life, quite strange questions arise in regard to the individual experiences. If he feels impelled to do something, he immediately feels also impelled not to do it. The obscure urge which drives most human beings to this or that is eliminated. And, actually, at a certain stage of initiate-insight, if nothing else were to intervene, a man could really come to the point of saying to himself: “After having reached this insight, I now prefer to spend the entire remainder of my life—I am now 40 years old, which is a matter of indifference to me—sitting on a chair doing nothing. For such pronounced urges to do this or that are no longer present.”

Do not believe, my dear friends, that initiation does not have a reality. It is strange, in this connection, how people sometimes think. In regard to a roast chicken, everyone who eats it believes that it has reality. In regard to initiate science, most people believe that it has only theoretical effects. No, it has effects on life. And such a life effect is the one I have just indicated. Before a man has attained to initiation, under the influence of an obscure urge, one thing is always important to him and another unimportant. The initiate would prefer to sit in a chair and let the world run its course, for it really does not matter—so it might appear to him whether this is done and that is left undone, and so forth. It will, however, not remain so, for initiation science also offers something else besides. The only corrective for the initiate's sitting on a chair, letting the world run its course, and saying: “everything is a matter of indifference to me,” is to look back into former earth lives. He then reads there from his karma the tasks for his present earth life, and he does consciously what his former earth lives impose upon him. He does not abstain from doing it because he believes that thereby his freedom is encroached on, but he does it. He does it, because by his discovery of what he had experienced in previous earth lives he becomes aware, at the same time, of what his life between death and a new birth has been, how he then realized the performance of the corresponding consequential actions as something reasonable. He would feel himself unfree if he could not come into the position of fulfilling the task which is allotted to him by his former earth life.

Thus, neither before nor after the entry into initiation science is there a contradiction between karmic necessity and freedom. Before the entry into initiation science, there is none, because with every-day consciousness the human being remains within the realm of freedom, while karmic necessity takes place outside, like a process of nature. He has nothing that feels different from what his own nature inspires in him. Nor is there any contradiction after the entry into initiation science, because he is then quite in agreement with his karma and simply considers it reasonable to act in harmony with karma. Just as you do not say, if you have built yourself a house: “the fact that I must now move in is hampering my freedom,” but just as you will probably say: “well, on the whole it was quite sensible to build myself a house in this neighborhood and on this site; now, let me be free in this house!” so likewise the one who looks back with initiate knowledge into former earth lives knows that he becomes free by fulfilling his karmic task, by moving into the house which he built for himself in former earth lives.

Thus, my dear friends, I wanted to explain to you the true compatibility of freedom and karmic necessity in human life. Tomorrow we shall continue, going more into the details of karma.

Karma is best understood by contrasting it with the other impulse in man—that impulse which we describe with the word Freedom. Let us first place the question of karma before us, quite crudely, if I may say so. What does it signify? In human life we have to record the fact of reincarnation, successive earthly lives. Feeling ourselves within a given earthly life, we can look back—in thought, at least, to begin with—and see how this present life is a repetition of a number of former earthly lives. It was preceded by another, and that in turn by yet another life on earth, and so on until we get back into the ages where it is impossible to speak of repeated earthly lives as we do in the present epoch of the earth. For as we go farther backward, there begins a time when the life between birth and death and the life between death and a new birth become so similar to one another that the immense difference which exists today between them is no longer there at all. Today we live in our earthly body between birth and death in such a way that in everyday consciousness we feel ourselves quite cut off from the spiritual world. Out of this everyday consciousness men speak of the spiritual world as a “beyond.” They will even speak of it as though they could doubt its existence or deny it altogether.

This is because man's life in earthly existence restricts him to the outer world of the senses, and to the intellect; and intellect does not look far enough to perceive what is, after all, connected with this earthly existence. Hence there arise countless disputations, all of which ultimately have their source in the “unknown.” No doubt you will often have stood between, when people were arguing about Monism, Dualism and the rest ... It is, of course, absurd to argue around these catch-words. When people wrangle in this way, it often seems as though there were some primitive man who had never heard that there is such substance as “air.” To one who knows that air exists, and what its functions are, it will not occur to speak of it as something that is “beyond.” Nor will he think of declaiming: “I am a Monist; I declare that air, water and earth are one. You are a Dualist, because you persist in regarding air as something that goes beyond the earthly and watery elements.”

These things, in fact, are pure nonsense, as indeed all disputes about concepts generally are. Therefore there can be no question of our entering into these arguments. I only wish to point out the significance. For a primitive man who does not yet know of its existence, the air as such is simply absent; it is “beyond,” beyond his ken. Likewise for those who do not yet know it, the spiritual world is a “beyond,” in spite of the fact that it is everywhere present just as the air is. For a man who enters into these things, it is no longer “beyond” or “on the other side,” but “here,” “on this side.”

Thus it is simply a question of our recognising the fact: In the present earthly era, man between birth and death lives in his physical body, in his whole organisation, so that this very organisation gives him a consciousness through which he is cut off from a certain world of causes. But the world of causes, none the less, is working as such into this physical and earthly life. Then, between death and a new birth he lives in another world, which we may call a spiritual world by contrast with this physical. There he has not a physical body, such as could be made visible to human senses; he lives in a spiritual form of being. Moreover, in that life between death and a new birth the world through which he lives between birth and death is in its turn as remote as the spiritual world is remote and foreign for everyday consciousness on earth.

The dead look down on to the physical world just as the living (that is, the physically living) look upward into the spiritual world. But their feelings are reversed, so to speak. In the physical world between birth and death, man has a way of gazing upward, as to another world which grants him fulfilment for very many things which are either deficient or altogether lacking in contentment in this world. It is quite different between death and a new birth. There, there is an untold abundance, a fulness of events. There is always far too much happening compared with what man can bear; therefore he feels a constant longing to return again into the earthly life, which is a “life in the beyond” for him there. In the second half of the life between death and a new birth, he awaits with great longing the passage through birth into a new earth-existence. In earthly existence man is afraid of death because he lives in uncertainty about it, for in the life on earth a great uncertainty prevails for the ordinary consciousness about the after-death. In the life between death and a new birth, on the other hand, man is excessively certain about the earthly life. It is a certainty that stuns him, that makes him actually weak and faint—so that he passes through conditions, like a fainting dream, conditions which imbue him with the longing to come down again to earth.

These are but scant indications of the great difference now prevailing between the earthly life and the life between death and a new birth. Suppose, however, that we now go back, say, no farther back than the Egyptian time—the third to the first millennium before the founding of Christianity. (After all, the men to whom we there go back are but ourselves, in former lives on earth.) In yonder time, the consciousness of man during his earthly life was quite different from ours today, which is so brutally clear, if you will allow me to say so. Truly, the consciousness of the men of today is brutally clear-cut, they are all so clever—I am not speaking ironically—the people of today are clever, all of them. Compared to this terribly clear-cut consciousness, the consciousness of the men of the ancient Egyptian time was far more dream-like. It did not impinge, like ours does, upon outer objects. It rather went its way through the world without “knocking up against” objects. On the other hand, it was filled with pictures which conveyed something of the Spiritual that is there in our environment. The Spiritual, then, still penetrated into man's physical life on earth.

Do not object: “How could a man with this more dream like, and not the clear-cut consciousness of today, have achieved the tremendous tasks which were actually achieved, for instance, in ancient Egypt?” You need not make this objection. You may remember how mad people sometimes reveal, in states of mania, an immense increase of physical strength; they will begin to carry objects which they could never lift when in their full, clear consciousness. Indeed, the physical strength of the men of that time was correspondingly greater; though outwardly they were perhaps slighter in build than the people of today—for, as you know, it does not always follow that a fat man is strong and a thin man physically weak. But they did not spend their earthly life in observing every detail of their physical actions; their physical deeds went parallel with experiences in consciousness into which the spiritual world still entered.

And when the people of that time were in the life between death and a new birth, far more of this earthly life reached upward into yonder life—if I may use the term “upward.” Nowadays it is exceedingly difficult to communicate with those who are in the life between death and a new birth, for the languages themselves have gradually assumed a form such as the dead no longer understand. Our nouns, for instance, soon after death, are absolute gaps in the dead man's perception of the earthly world. He only understands the verbs, the “words of time” as they are called in German—the acting, moving principle. Whereas on earth, materialistically minded people are constantly pulling us up, saying that everything should be defined and every concept well outlined and fixed by clear-cut definition, the dead no longer know of definitions; they only know of what is in movement, they do not know that which has contours and boundaries.

Here again, it was different in ancient times. What lives on earth as speech, and as custom and habit of thought, was of such a kind that it reached up into the life between death and a new birth, and the dead had it echoing in him still, long after his death. Moreover, he also received an echo of what he had experienced on earth and also of the things that were taking place on earth after his death.

And if we go still farther back, into the time following the catastrophe of Atlantis—the 8th or 9th millennium B.C.—the difference becomes even smaller between the life on earth and life in the Beyond, if we may still describe it so. And thence, as we go backward, we gradually get into the times when the two lives were similar. Thereafter, we can no longer speak of repeated earthly lives.

Thus, our repeated lives on earth have their limit when we go backward, just as they have their limit when we look into the future. What we are beginning quite consciously with Anthroposophy today—the penetration of the spiritual world into the normal consciousness of man—will indeed entail this consequence. Into the world which man lives through between death and a new birth, the earthly world will also penetrate increasingly; and yet man's consciousness will not grow dream-like, but clearer and ever clearer. The difference will again grow less. Thus, in effect, our life in repeated incarnations is contained between two outermost limits, past and future. Across these limits we come into quite another kind of human existence, where it is meaningless to speak of repeated earthly lives, because there is not the great difference between the earthly and the spiritual life, which there is today. Now let us concentrate on present earthly time—in the wide sense of the word. Behind our present earthly life, we may assume that there are many others—we must not say countless others, for they can even be counted by exact spiritual scientific investigation. Behind our present earthly life there are, therefore, many others. When we say this, we shall recognise that in those earthly lives we had certain experiences—relationships as between man and man. These relationships as between man and man worked themselves out in the experiences we then underwent; and their effects are with us in our present earthly life, just as the effects of what we do in this life will extend into our coming lives on earth. So then we have to seek in former earthly lives the causes of many things that enter into our life today.

At this point, many people are prone to retort: “If then the things I experience are caused, how can I be free?” It is a really significant question when we consider it in this way. For spiritual observation always shows that our succeeding earthly life is thus conditioned by our former lives. Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of freedom is absolutely there. Read my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and you will see: the human being cannot be understood at all unless we realise that the whole life of his soul is oriented towards freedom—filled with the tendency to freedom.

Only, this freedom must be rightly understood. Precisely in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity you will find a concept of freedom which it is very important to grasp in its true meaning. The point is that we have freedom developed, to begin with, in thought. The fountain-head of freedom is in thought. Man has an immediate consciousness of the fact that he is a free being in his thought. You may rejoin: “Surely there are many people nowadays who doubt the fact of freedom?” Yes, but it only proves that the theoretical fanaticism of people nowadays is often stronger than their direct and real experience. Man is so crammed with theoretical ideas, that he no longer believes in his own experiences. Out of his observations of Nature, he arrives at the idea that everything is conditioned by necessity, every effect has a cause, all that exists has a cause. He does not think of repeated earthly lives in this connection. He imagines that what wells forth in human Thinking is causally determined in the same way as that which proceeds from any machine.

Man makes himself blind by this theory of universal causality, as it is called. He blinds himself to the fact that he has very clearly within him a consciousness of freedom. Freedom is simply a fact which we experience, the moment we reflect upon ourselves at all.

There are those who believe that it is simply the nervous system; the nervous system is there, once and for all, with its property of conjuring thoughts out of itself. According to this, the thoughts would be like the flame whose burning is conditioned by the materials of the fuel. Our thoughts would be necessary results, and there could be no question of freedom.

These people, however, contradict themselves. As I have often related, I had a friend in my youth, who, at a certain period had quite a fanatical tendency to think in a “sound,” materialistic way. “When I walk,” he said, “it is the nerves of' the brain; they contain certain causes to which the effect of my walking is due.” Now and then it led to quite a long debate between us, till at last I said to him on one occasion: “Look now. You also say: ‘I walk.’ Why do you not say, ‘My brain walks?’ If you believe in your theory, you ought never to say: ‘I walk; I take hold of things,’ and so on, but ‘My brain walks; my brain takes hold of them,’ and so on. Why do you go on lying?”

These are the theorists, but there also those who put it into practice. If they observe some failing in themselves which they are not very anxious to throw off, they say, “I cannot throw it off; it is my nature. It is there of its own accord, and I am powerless against it.” There are many like that; they appeal to the inevitable causality of their own nature. But its a rule, they do not remain consistent. If they happen to be showing off something that they rather like about themselves, for which they need no excuse, but on the contrary are glad to receive a little flattery, then they depart from their theory.

The free being of man is a fundamental fact—one of those facts which can be directly experienced. In this respect, however, even in ordinary earthly life it is so: there are many things we do in complete freedom which are nevertheless of such a kind that we cannot easily leave them undone. And yet we do not feel our freedom in the least impaired.

Suppose, for a moment, that you now resolve to build yourself a house. It will take a year to build, let us say. After a year you will begin to live in it. Will you feel it as an encroachment on your freedom that you then have to say to yourself: The house is ready now, and I must move in ... I must live in it; it is a case of compulsion. No. You will surely not feel your freedom impaired by the mere fact that you have built yourself a house. You see, therefore, even in ordinary life the two things stand side by side. You have committed yourself to something. It has thereby become a fact in life—a fact with which you have to reckon.

Now think of all that has originated in former lives on earth, with which you have to reckon because it is due to yourself—just as the building of the house is due to you. Seen in this light, you will not feel your freedom impaired because your present life on earth is determined by former ones.

Perhaps you will say: “Very well. I will build myself a house, but I still wish to remain a free man. I shall not let myself be compelled. If I do not choose to move into the new house after a year, I shall sell it.” Certainly—though I must say, one might also have one's views about such a way of behaving. One might perhaps conclude that you are a person who does not know his own mind. Undoubtedly, one might well take this view of the matter; but let us leave it. Let us not suppose a man is such a fanatical upholder of freedom that he constantly makes up his mind to do things, and afterwards out of sheer “freedom” leaves them undone. Then one might well say: “This man has not even the freedom to go in for the things which he himself resolves upon. He constantly feels the sting of his would-be freedom; he is positively harassed, thrown hither and thither by his fanatical idea of freedom.”

Observe how important it is, not to take these questions in a rigid, theoretic way, but livingly. Now let us pass to a rather more intricate concept. If we ascribe freedom to man, surely we must also ascribe it to the other Beings, whose freedom is unimpaired by human limitations. For, as we rise to the Beings of the Hierarchies, they certainly are not impaired by limitations of human nature. For them indeed we must expect a higher degree of freedom. Now someone might propound a rather strange theological theory—to this effect: God must surely be free. He has arranged the world in a certain way; yet he has thereby committed Himself, He cannot change the World-Order every day. Thus, after all, He is un-free.

You see, you will never escape from a vicious circle if you thus contrast the inner necessity of karma and the freedom which is still an absolute fact of our consciousness, a simple outcome of self-observation. Take once more the illustration of the building of the house. I do not wish to run it to death, but at this point it can still help us along the way. Suppose some person builds himself a house. I will not say suppose I build myself a house, for I shall probably never do so!—But, let us say, some one builds himself a house. By this resolve, he does, in a certain respect, determine his future. Now that the house is finished, and if he takes his former resolve into account, no freedom apparently remains to him, as far as the living in the house is concerned. And though he himself has set this limitation on his freedom, nevertheless, apparently, no freedom is left to him ... But now, I beg you, think how many things there are that you would still be free to do in the house that you had built yourself. Why, you are even free to be stupid or wise in the house, and to be disagreeable or nice to your fellow-men. You are free to get up in the house early or late. There may be other necessities in this respect; but as far as the house is concerned, you are free to get up early or late. You are free to be an anthroposophist or a materialist in the house. In short, there are untold things still at your free disposal.

Likewise in a single human life, in spite of karmic necessity, there are countless things at your free disposal, far more than in a house—countless things fully and really in the domain of your freedom.

Even here you may still feel able to rejoin: Well and good. We have a certain domain of freedom in our life. Yes, there is a certain enclosed domain of freedom, and all around it, karmic necessity. Looking at this, you might argue: Well, I am free in a certain domain, but I soon get to the limits of my freedom. I feel the karmic necessity on every hand. I go round and round in the room of my freedom, but at the boundaries on every hand I come up against limitations.

Well, my dear friends, if the fish thought likewise, it would be highly unhappy in the water, for as it swims it comes up against the limits of the water. Outside the water, it can no longer live. Hence it refrains from going outside the water. It does not go outside; it stays in the water. It swims around in the water, and whatever is outside the water, it lets it alone; it just lets it be what it is—air, or whatever else. And inasmuch as it does so, I can assure you the fish is not at all unhappy to think that it cannot breathe with lungs. It does not occur to it to be unhappy. But if ever it did occur to the fish to be unhappy because it only breathes with gills and not with lungs, then it would have to have lungs in reserve, so as to compare what it is like to live down in the water, or in the air. Then the whole way the fish feels itself inside, would be quite different. It would all be different.

Let us apply this comparison to human life with respect to freedom and karmic necessity. To begin with, man in the present earthly time has what we call the ordinary consciousness. With this consciousness he lives in the province of his freedom, just as the fish lives in the water. He does not come into the realm of karmic necessity at all, with everyday consciousness. Only when he begins to see the spiritual world (which is as though the fish were to have lungs in reserve)—only when he really lives into the spiritual world—then he begins to perceive the impulses living in him as karmic necessity. Then he looks back into his former lives on earth, and, finding in them the causes of his present experiences, he does not feel: “I am now under compulsion of an iron necessity: my freedom is impaired,” but he looks back and sees how he himself built up what now confronts him. Just as a man who has built himself a house looks back on the resolve which led him to build it ... He generally finds it wiser to ask, was it a sensible or a foolish resolve, to build this house? No doubt, in the event, you may arrive at many different conclusions on this question; but if you conclude that it was a dreadful mistake, you can say at most that you were foolish.

In earthly life this is not a pleasant experience, for when we stand face to face with a thing we have inaugurated, we do not like having to admit that it was foolish. We do not like to suffer from our own foolish mistakes. We wish we had not made the foolish decision. But this really only applies to the one earthly life; because in effect, between the foolishness of the resolve and the punishment we suffer in experiencing its consequences, only the self-same earthly life is intervening. It all remains continuous.

But between one earthly life and another it is not so. For the lives between death and a new birth are always intervening, and they change many things which would not change if earthly life continued uniformly. Suppose that you look back into a former life on earth. You did something good or ill to another man. Between that earthly life and this one, there was the life between death and new birth. In that life, you cannot help realising that you have become imperfect by doing wrong to another human being. It takes away from your own human value. It cripples you in soul. You must make good again this maiming of your soul and you resolve to achieve in a new earthly life what will make good the fault. Thus between death and new birth you take up, by your own will, that which will balance and make good the fault. Or if you did good to another man, you know now that all of man's earthly life is there for mankind as a whole. You see it clearly in the life between death and new birth. If therefore you have helped another man, you realise that he has thereby attained certain things which, without you, he could not have attained in a former life on earth. And you then feel all the more united with him in the life between death and new birth—united with him, to live and develop further what you and he together have attained in human perfection. You seek him again in a new life on earth, to work on thus in a new life precisely by virtue of the way you helped in his perfection.

When therefore, with real spiritual insight, you begin to perceive this encompassing domain, there is no question of your despising or seeking to avoid its necessity. Quite the contrary; for as you now look back on it, you see the nature of the things which you yourself did in the past, so much so that you say to yourself: That which takes place, must take place, out of an inner necessity; and out of the fullest freedom it would have to take place just the same.

In fact it will never happen, under any circumstances, that a real insight into your karma will lead you to be dissatisfied with it. When things arise in the karmic course which you do not like, you need but consider them in relation to the laws and principles of the universe; you will perceive increasingly that after all, what is karmically conditioned is far better—better than if we had to begin anew, like unwritten pages, with every new life on earth. For, in the last resort, we ourselves are our karma. What is it that comes over, karmically, from our former lives on earth? It is actually we ourselves. And it is meaningless to suggest that anything in our karma (adjoining which, remember, the realm of freedom is always there), ought to be different from what it is. In an organic totality you cannot criticise the single details. A person may not like his nose, but it is senseless to criticise the nose as such, for the nose a man has, must be as it is, if the whole man is as he is. A man who says: “I should like to have a different nose,” implies that he would like to be an utterly different man; and in so doing he really wipes himself out in thought—which is surely impossible. Likewise we cannot wipe out our karma, for we are ourselves what our karma is. Nor does it really embarrass us, for it runs alongside the deeds of our freedom it nowhere impairs the deeds of our freedom.

I may here use another comparison to make the point clear. As human beings, we walk. But the ground on which we walk is also there. No man feels embarrassed in walking because the ground is there beneath him. He must know that if the ground were not there, he could not walk at all; he would fall through at every step. So it is with our freedom; it needs the ground of necessity. It must rise out of a given foundation. And this foundation—it is really we ourselves!

Therefore, if you grasp the true concept of freedom and the true concept of karma, you will find them thoroughly compatible, and you need no longer shrink from a detailed study of the karmic laws. In fact, in some instances you will even come to the following conclusion:

Suppose that some one is really able to look back with the insight of Initiation, into former lives on earth. He knows quite well, when he looks back into his former lives, that this and that has happened to him as a consequence. It has come with him into his present life on earth. If he had not attained Initiation Science, objective necessity would impel him to do certain things. He would do them quite inevitably. He would not feel his freedom impaired, for his freedom is in the ordinary consciousness, with which he never penetrates into the realm where the necessity is working—just as the fish never penetrates into the outer air. But when he has attained to Initiation Science, then he looks back; he sees how things were in a former life on earth, and he regards what now confronts him as a task quite consciously allotted for his present life. And so indeed it is.

What I shall now say may sound paradoxical to you, yet it is true. In reality, a man who has no Initiation Science practically always knows, by a kind of inner urge or impulse, what he is to do. Yes, people always know what they must do; they are always feeling impelled to this thing or that. For one who really begins to tread the path of Initiation Science it becomes very different. With regard to the various experiences of life as they confront him, strange questions will arise in him. When he feels impelled to do this or that, immediately again he feels impelled not to do it. There is no more of that dim urge which drives most human beings to this or that line of action. Indeed, at a certain stage of Initiate-insight, if nothing else came instead, a man might easily say to himself: Now that I have reached this insight—being 40 years old, let us say, I had best spend the rest of my life quite indifferently. What do I care? I'll sit down and do nothing, for I have no definite impulses to do anything particular.

You must not suppose, my dear friends, that Initiation is not a reality. It is remarkable how people sometimes think of these things. Of a roast chicken, every one who eats it, well believes that it is a reality. Of Initiation Science, most people believe that its effects are merely theoretical. No, its effects are realities in life, and among them is the one I have just indicated. Before a man has acquired Initiation Science, out of a dark urge within him one thing is always important to him and another unimportant. But now he would prefer to sit down in a chair and let the world run its course, for it really does not matter whether this is done or that is left undone ...

This attitude might easily occur, and there is only one corrective. (For it will not remain so; Initiation Science, needless to say, brings about other effects as well.) The only corrective which will prevent our Initiate from sitting down quiescently, letting the world run its course, and saying: “It is all indifferent to me,” is to look back into his former lives on earth. For he then reads in his karma the tasks for his present earthly life, and does what is consciously imposed upon him by his former lives. He does not leave it undone, with the idea that it encroaches on his freedom, but he does it. Quite on the contrary, he would feel himself unfree if he could not fulfil the task which is allotted to him by his former lives. For in beholding what he experienced in former lives on earth, at the same time he becomes aware of his life between death and a new birth, where he perceived that it was right and reasonable to do the corresponding, consequential actions. (At this point let me say briefly, in parenthesis, that the word “Karma” has come to Europe by way of the English language, and because of its spelling people very often say “Karma” (with broad “ah” sound.) This is incorrect. It should be pronounced “Kärma” (with modified vowel sound.) I have always pronounced the word in this way and I regret that as a result many people have become accustomed to using the dreadful word “Kirma”. For some time now you will have heard even very sincere students saying “Kirma.” It is dreadful).

Thus, neither before nor after Initiation Science is there a contradiction between karmic necessity and freedom.

Once more, then: neither before nor after the entry of Initiation Science is there a contradiction between necessity—karmic necessity—and freedom. Before it there is none, because with everyday consciousness man remains within the realm of freedom, while karmic necessity goes on outside this realm, like any process of Nature. There is nothing in him to feel differently from what his own nature impels. Nor is there any contradiction after the entry of Initiation Science, for he is then quite in agreement with his karma, he thinks it only sensible to act according to it. Just as when you have built yourself a house and it is ready after a year, you do not say: the fact that you must now move in is an encroachment on your freedom. You will more probably say: Yes, on the whole it was quite sensible to build yourself a house in this neighbourhood and on this site. Now see to it that you are free in the house! Likewise he who looks back with Initiate-knowledge into his former lives on, earth: he knows that he will become free precisely by the fulfilling of his karmic task-moving into the house which he built for himself in former lives on earth.

Thus, my dear friends, I wanted to explain to you the true compatibility of freedom and karmic necessity in human life. Tomorrow we shall continue, entering more into the details of karma.

We only learn to know the beings of the sense-world when we observe them in the way they live and act, and it is the same with those beings about which I have been speaking and shall continue to speak in these lectures, the elemental beings of nature. Invisibly and super-sensibly present behind what is physical and sense-perceptible, they participate in all the happenings of the world just as, or rather in a higher sense than do the physical, sense-perceptible beings.

Now you will readily be able to imagine that to these beings the world appears somewhat other than to the beings of the sense-world, for they do not possess a physical body such as is possessed by these latter. Everything which they grasp or perceive in the world must be different from what enters the human eye. This is indeed the case. The human being experiences the earth, for instance, as the cosmic body upon which he moves about. He even finds it slightly unpleasant when through some atmospheric condition or other, as occasionally occurs, this cosmic body becomes softened and he sinks into it even in a slight degree. He likes to feel the earth as something hard, as something into which he does not sink.

This whole way of experiencing things, this whole attitude towards the earth, is, however, completely alien to the gnomes; they sink down everywhere, because for them the whole earth-body is primarily a hollow space through which they can pass. They can penetrate everywhere; the rocks, the metals, present no hindrance to their—shall I say swimming around. There are no words in our language which really express this wandering about of the gnomes inside the body of the earth. It is just that they have an inner experience, an inner perception, of the different ingredients of the earth; when they wander along a vein of metal they have a different experience from when they take their way along a layer of chalk. All this, however, the gnomes feel inwardly, for through all such things they penetrate unhindered. They have not the least idea that the earth exists. Their idea is that there is a space within which they perceive certain experiences; the experience of gold, the experience of mercury, of tin, of silica, and so on. This is to express it in human language, not in the language of the gnomes. Their language is far more perceptive; and it is just because their whole life is spent in journeying along all the veins and seams—ever and again journeying along them—that they acquire the very pronounced intellectuality about which I have spoken to you. Through this they acquire their all-comprehensive knowledge, for in the metals and in the earth everything outside in the universe is revealed to them; as though in a mirror they experience everything which is outside in the universe. But for the earth itself the gnomes have no perception, only for its different constituents, and for the different kinds of inner experience which they offer.

Because of this the gnomes have a quite particular gift for receiving the impressions which come from the moon. It is towards the moon that they continually direct their attentive listening, and in this respect they are—I cannot say the born—it is so difficult to find the appropriate words—but the inherent neurasthenics. Of course, what for us is an illness is for these gnome-beings their actual life-element. For them this is no illness; it is simply a matter of course. It is what gives them that inner sensibility towards all those things of which I have spoken. But it also gives them their inner sensitivity towards the phenomena connected with the phases of the moon.

They follow the changes in the moon-phenomena with such close attention—I have already described their power of attention to you—that it actually alters their form. When, therefore, one follows the existence of a gnome, one receives quite a different impression at full moon from that one receives at new moon, and again at the intermediate phases.

At full moon the gnomes are ill at ease. Physical moonlight does not suit them, and at that time they thrust the whole feeling of their being outwards. They circumscribe themselves, as it were, with a spiritual skin. At full moon they press the feeling of their existence towards the boundary of their body. And in full moonlight, if one has imaginative perception for such things, they really appear like little shining, mail-clad knights. They are clad in a kind of spiritual armour and this it is which presses outwards in their skin to arm them against the moonlight which so displeases them. But when the time of new moon approaches the gnome becomes transparent, wonderful to see, inwardly irradiated with a glittering play of colours. One sees within him, as it were, the processes of a whole world. It is as though one were to look into the human brain, not as an anatomist investigating the fabric of the cells, but as one who perceives inside the brain the shimmering and sparkling of the thoughts. That is how these transparent little folk, the gnomes, appear to one, its though the play of thoughts is revealed within them. It is just at new moon that the gnomes are so particularly interesting, for each of them bears a whole world within himself; and one can say that within this world there actually lies the mystery of the moon.

If one unveils it, this moon-mystery, one comes upon truly remarkable discoveries, for one reaches the conclusion that at the present time the moon is continually approaching nearer—naturally you must not take this in a crude way, as though the moon would collide with the earth—but each year it does in fact come somewhat nearer. Each year the moon is actually nearer the earth. One recognises this from the ever more vigorous play of the moon-forces in the gnome-world during the time of the new moon. And to this coming nearer of the moon the attentiveness of these goblins is quite specially directed; for it is in producing results from the way in which the moon affects them that they see their chief mission in the universe. They await with intense expectation the epoch when the moon will again unite with the earth; and they assemble all their forces in order to be armed in readiness for the epoch when the moon will have united with the earth, for they will then use the moon substance gradually to disperse the earth, as far as its outer substance is concerned, into the universe. Its substance must pass away.

Because they hold this task in view these kobolds or gnomes feel themselves to be of quite special importance, for they gather together the most varied experiences from the whole of earth-existence, and they hold themselves in readiness, when all earthly substance will have been dispersed into the universe,—after the transition to the Jupiter-evolution—to preserve what is good in the structure of the earth in order to incorporate this in Jupiter as a kind of bony support.

You see, when one looks at this process from the aspect of the gnomes, one gains a first stimulus, a first capacity, to picture how our earth would appear if all the water were taken away from it. Just consider how, in the western hemisphere, everything is orientated from north to south, and how, in the eastern hemisphere, everything is orientated from east to west. Thus, if you were to do away with all the water, you would get in America, with its mountains and what lies under the sea, something which proceeds from north to south; and looking at Europe you would correspondingly find that, in the eastern hemisphere, the chain of the Alps, the Carpathians and so on, runs in the east-west direction. You would get something like the structure of the cross in the earth.

When one gains insight into this, one receives the impression that this is really the united gnome-world of the old Moon. The predecessors of our Earth-gnomes, the Moon-gnomes, gathered together their Moon-experiences and from them fashioned this structure, this firm structure of the solid fabric of the Earth, so that our solid Earth-structure actually arose from the experiences of the gnomes of the old Moon.

These are the things which reveal themselves in regard to the gnome-world. Through them the gnomes acquire an interesting, an extraordinarily interesting relationship to the whole evolution of the universe. They always carry over the firm element of a preceding stage into the stage which follows. They are the preservers in evolution of the continuity of the firm structure, and thus they preserve the firm structure from one world-body to another. It belongs to the most interesting of studies to approach the super-sensible world from the aspect of these spiritual beings and to observe their special task, for it is through this that one first gains an impression of how every kind of being existing in the world shares in the task of working upon the whole formation of the world.

Now let us pass over from the gnomes to the undines, the water-beings. Here a very remarkable picture presents itself. These beings have not the need for life that human beings have, neither have they the need for life that the animals have even though instinctively, but one could almost say that the undines, as also the sylphs, have rather a need for death. In a cosmic way they are really like the flying creature which casts itself into the flame. They only feel their life to be truly theirs when they die. This is extraordinarily interesting. Here on the physical earth everything desires to live, for all that has life-force in it is prized. It is the living, sprouting life that is valued. But once we have crossed the threshold, all these beings say to us that it is death which is really the true beginning of life. This can be felt by these beings. Let us take the undines. You know, perhaps, that sailors who travel a great deal on the sea find that in July, August and September—further to the west this is already the case in June—the Baltic Sea makes a peculiar impression, and they say that the sea is beginning to blossom. It becomes, as it were, productive; but it produces just those things which decay in the sea. The process of decay in the sea makes itself felt; it imparts to the sea a peculiar putrefactive smell.

All this, however, is different for the undines. It causes them no unpleasant sensations; but when the millions and millions of water-creatures which perish in the sea enter into the state of decomposition the sea becomes for the undines the most wonderful phosphorescent play of colours. It shines and glitters with every possible colour. Especially does the sea glitter for them, inwardly and outwardly, in every shade of blue, violet and green. The whole process of decomposition in the sea becomes a glimmering and gleaming of the darker colours up to the green. But these colours are realities for the undines, and one can see how, in this play of colours in the sea, they absorb the colours into themselves. They draw these colours into their own bodily nature. They become like them, they themselves become phosphorescent. And as they absorb the play of colours, as they themselves become phosphorescent, there arises in the undines something like a longing, an immense longing to rise upwards, to soar upwards. Upwards they soar, led by this longing, and with this longing they offer themselves to the beings of the higher hierarchies—to the angels, archangels and so on—as earthly sustenance; and in this sacrifice they find their bliss. Then within the higher hierarchies they live on further.

And thus we see the remarkable fact that each year with the return of early spring these beings evolve upwards from unfathomable depths. There they take part in the life of the earth by working on the plant-kingdom in the way I have described. Then, however, they pour themselves, as it were, into the water, and take up by means of their own bodily nature the phosphorescence of the water, the element of decomposition, and bear it upwards with an intensity of longing. Then in a vast, in a magnificent cosmic picture, one sees how, emanating from earthly water, the colours which are carried upwards by the undines and which have spiritual substantiality, provide the higher hierarchies with their sustenance, how the earth becomes the source of nourishment in that the very essence of the undines' longing is to let themselves be consumed by the higher beings. There they live on further; there they enter into their eternity. Thus every year there is a continual upstreaming of these undines, whose inner nature is formed out of the earthly sphere, and who radiate upwards, filled with the longing to offer themselves as nourishment to the higher beings.

And now let us proceed to the sylphs. In the course of the year we find the dying birds. I described to you how these dying birds possess spiritualized substance, and how they desire to give this spiritualized substance over to the higher worlds in order to release it from the earth. But here an intermediary is needed. And these intermediaries are the sylphs. It is a fact that through the dying bird-world the air is continually being filled with astrality. This astrality is of a lower order, but it is nevertheless astrality; it is astral substance. In this astrality flutter—or hover might be a better word—in this astrality hover the sylphs. They take up what comes from the dying bird-world, and carry it, again with a feeling of longing, up into the heights, only desiring to be inhaled by the beings of the higher hierarchies. They offer themselves as that which supplies breathing-existence to the higher hierarchies. Again a magnificent spectacle. With the dying bird-world, this astral, inwardly radiant substance is seen to pass over into the air. The sylphs flash like blue lightning through the air, and into their blue lightning, which assumes first greener, then redder tones, they absorb this astrality which comes from the bird-world, and dart upwards like upward-flashing lightning. And if one follows this beyond the boundaries of space, it becomes what is inhaled by the beings of the higher hierarchies.

Thus one can say: The gnomes carry one world over into another in regard to its structure. They progress, as it were in a direction—the expression is only used as a comparison—which is horizontal with evolution. The other beings—the undines, the sylphs—carry upwards what they experience as bliss in yielding themselves up to death, in being consumed, in being inhaled. There they continue to live within the higher hierarchies; within them they experience their eternity.

And when we pass over to the fire-beings, only think how the dust on the butterfly's wings seems to dissolve into nothing with the death of the butterfly. But it does not really dissolve into nothing. What is shed as dust from the butterfly's wings is the most highly spiritualized matter. And all this passes over like microscopic comets into the warmth-ether which surrounds the earth, each single particle of dust passes like a microscopic comet into the warmth-ether of the earth. When in the course of the year the butterfly-world approaches its end, all this becomes glittering and shimmering, an inner glittering and shimmering. And into this glittering and shimmering the fire-beings pour themselves; they absorb it. There it continues to glitter and shimmer, and they, too, get a feeling of longing. They bear what they have thus absorbed up into the heights. And now one sees—I have already described this to you from another aspect—how what the fire-beings carry outwards from the butterfly's wings shines forth into world-space. But it does not only shine forth; it streams forth. And it is this which provides the particular view of the earth, which is perceived by the higher hierarchies. The beings of the higher hierarchies gaze upon the earth, and what they principally see is this butterfly-and-insect-existence which has been carried outwards by the fire-beings; and the fire-beings find their highest ecstasy in the realization that it is they who present themselves before the spiritual eyes of the higher hierarchies. They find their highest bliss in being beheld by the gaze, by the spiritual eyes, of the higher hierarchies, in being absorbed into them. They strive upwards towards these beings and carry to them the knowledge of the earth.

Thus we see how these elemental beings are the intermediaries between the earth and the spirit-cosmos. We see this drama of the phosphorescent uprising of the undines, which pass away in the sea of light and flame of the higher hierarchies as their sustenance; we see the up-flashing of the greenish-reddish lightning, which is in-breathed there where the earth continually passes over into the eternal, the eternal survival of the fire-beings, whose activity never ceases. For whereas, here on earth, it is particularly at a certain time of the year that butterflies die, the fire-beings see to it that what it is their task to look to is poured out into the universe throughout the entire year. Thus the earth is as though cloaked in a mantle of fire. Seen from outside the earth appears fiery. But everything is brought about by beings who see the things of the earth quite differently from how man sees them. As already mentioned, man's experience of the earth is of a hard substance upon which he walks about and stands. For the gnomes it is a transparent globe, a hollow body. For the undines water is something in which they perceive the phosphorizing process, which they can take into themselves and feel as their life-element. Sylphs see in the astrality of the air, which emanates from dying birds, that which makes their lightning flashes more vivid than they would otherwise be, for in itself the lightning of these sylphs is dull and bluish. And then again the disintegration of butterfly existence is something which continually envelops the earth as though with a sheath of fire. When this is beheld it is as though the earth were surrounded by a wonderful fiery painting; and, on the other side, when one looks upwards from the earth, one beholds these lightning flashes, these phosphorescent and evanescent undines. All this makes us say: Here on earth the elemental nature-spirits live and weave; they strive upwards and pass away in the fire-mantle of the earth. In reality, however, they do not pass away, but there they find their eternal existence by passing over into the beings of the higher hierarchies.

All this, however, which at first appears like a wonderful world-picture is the expression of what happens on earth, for initially it is all played out upon the earth. We human beings are always present in what is there taking place; and the fact is—even if in his ordinary consciousness man is at first incapable of grasping what surrounds him—that every night we are involved in the weaving and working of these beings, that we ourselves take part as ego and as astral body in what these beings are carrying out.

But it is the gnomes especially which really find it quite an entertainment to observe a person who is asleep, not the physical body in bed, but the person who is outside his physical body in his astral body and ego, for what the gnome sees is someone who thinks in the spirit but does not know it. He does not know that his thoughts live in the spiritual. And again for the undines it is inexplicable that man knows himself so little; likewise with the sylphs, and likewise with the fire-beings.

On the physical plane, you see, it is certainly often unpleasant to have gnats and the like buzzing around one at night. But the spiritual man, the ego and astral body—at night these are surrounded and woven about by elemental beings; and this being surrounded and woven about is a constant admonition to man to give an impetus to his consciousness in order to know more about the world.

Now, therefore, I can try to give you an idea of what these beings—gnomes, undines, sylphs and fire-beings—mean with their buzzing about, of what happens when we begin to hear what amuses them in us, and of what they would have us do when they admonish us to give a forward impetus to our consciousness. Yes, you see, here come the gnomes and speak somewhat as follows:

You dream your self,
And shun awakening.

The gnomes know that man possesses his ego as though in a dream, that he must first awaken in order to arrive at his true ego. They see this quite clearly, and call to him in his sleep:

You dream your self

—they mean during the day—

And shun awakening.

Then there sounds forth from the undines:

You think the deeds of angels

Man does not know that his thoughts are really with the angels

You think the deeds of Angels
And know it not.

And from the sylphs there sounds to sleeping man:

Creative Might shines to you,
You divine it not.
You feel its strength

—the strength of Creative Might—

And live it not.

Such approximately are the words of the sylphs, the words of the undines, the words of the gnomes.

The words of the fire-beings:

Divine Will offers you strength,
You accept it not.
With its strength you will,

—with the strength of Divine Will—

Yet thrust it from you.

The aim of all these admonitions is to give man a forward impetus in regard to his consciousness. These beings, which do not enter into physical existence, wish man to make a move onward with his consciousness, so that he, too, may participate in their world.

And when one has thus entered into what these beings have to say to man, one also gradually understands how they give expression to their own nature, somewhat in this way:

The gnomes:

I maintain the life-force in the root,
It creates for me my body's form.

The undines:

I bestir the water's power of growth,
It forms for me substance of life.

The sylphs:

I quaff the airy force of life,
It fills me with the power of being.

And the fire-beings—there it is very difficult to find any kind of earthly words for what they do, because their sphere is far removed from earthly life and earthly activity.

Fire-beings:

I consume¹ the striving power of fire,
Into soul-spirit it releases me.

You see, I have endeavoured to the best of my ability to give you an idea of how these beings of the elemental kingdom characterize themselves; and of the admonitions which they impart to man. But they are not so unfriendly to man as only to suggest to him what is negative in its nature, but pithy and positive sayings also proceed from them. And man experiences these sayings as being of immense, of gigantic import. In such matters as these you must acquire a sense for whether a saying is uttered merely in human words, however beautiful they may be, or whether it sounds forth as though cosmically from the whole mighty chorus of the gnomes. It is the whole manner of its arising which brings about the difference. And when man hearkens to the gnomes after the admonitions which I have written down have been imparted to him, then there sounds towards him from the massed chorus of the gnomes:

Strive to awaken.

Here the significance is the mighty moral impression created by such words when they stream through the universe, arising from the massed chorus of infinitely many single voices.

And from the undine chorus resounds:

Think in the spirit.

With the chorus of sylphs things are not so simple. When the gnomes appear like shining armoured knights in full moonlight there resounds from them as though from earth-depths:

Strive to awaken.

When the undines soar upwards filled with the longing to be consumed, then in this upsoaring there sounds back to the earth:

Think in the Spirit.

But for the sylphs, in that, up above, they allow themselves to be inhaled, disappearing in bluish-reddish-greenish lightning into the world-light, then, as they flash into the light and therein disappear, from the heights there sounds down from them:

Live creatively breathing existence.

And as in fiery anger—but anger which is not felt to be annihilating, but rather as something which man must receive from the cosmos—as in fiery but at the same time enthusiastic anger, the fire-beings carry what is theirs into the fire-mantle of the earth, their words resound. Here the sound is not like that of single voices massed together, but from the whole circumference there resounds as with a mighty voice of thunder:

Receive in love the Will-Force of the Gods.

Naturally, one can turn one's attention away from all this; then one does not perceive it. Whether or no man does perceive such things depends upon his own free decision. But when man does perceive them he knows that they are an integral part of cosmic existence, that something actually occurs in that gnomes, undines, sylphs and fire-beings unfold their evolution in the way described. And the gnomes are not only present for man in the way I have already portrayed, but they are there to let their world-words sound forth from the earth, the undines to let their world-words soar upwards, the sylphs theirs from above, the fire-beings theirs like a chorus, like the massing of a mighty uplifting of voices.

Yes, this is how it could appear when transposed into words. But these words belong to the Word of worlds, and even though we do not hear them with ordinary consciousness, these words are yet not without significance for mankind. For the primeval idea which had its source in instinctive clairvoyance, that the world was born out of the Word, is indeed a profound truth, but the world-word is not some collection of syllables gathered from here or there; the world-word is what sounds forth from countless, countless beings. Countless, countless beings have something to say in the totality of the world, and the world-word sounds forth from the concordance of these countless beings. It is not the general abstract truth that the world is born out of the Word that can bring this to us in its fullness. One thing alone can do this, namely that we gradually arrive at a concrete understanding of how the world-word in all its different nuances is composed of the voices of individual beings, so that these different nuances contribute their sound, their utterance, to the great world-harmony, the mighty world-melody, in the Word's act of creation.

When the gnome-chorus allows its “Strive to awaken” to sound forth, this—only transformed into gnome-language—is the force which is active in bringing about the human bony system, the system of movement in general.

When the undines utter “Think in the spirit”, they utter—transposed into the undine-sphere—what pours itself as world-word into man in order to give form to the organs of digestion.

When the sylphs, as they are breathed in, allow their “Live creatively breathing existence” to stream downwards, there penetrates into man, weaving and pulsating through him, the force which endows him with the organs of the rhythmic system.

And if one attends to what sounds inwardly—in the manner of the fire-beings—from the fire-mantle of the world, then one finds that this sounding manifests as image or reflection. It streams in from the fire-mantle—this sounding force of the word. And every nerve system of every man, every head I would add, is a miniature image of what-translated into the language of the fire-beings—rings out as: “Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods”. This saying, “Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods”, this is what is active in the highest substance of the world. And when man is experiencing his development in the life between death and a new birth, this it is which transforms what he brought with him through the gate of death into what will later become the human organs of the nerves and senses. So we have:

System of movement

Chorus of gnomes: Strive to awaken

Metabolic organization

Undines: Think in the Spirit

Rhythmic system

Sylphs: Live creatively breathing existence.

Nerve-senses system

Fire-beings: Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods.

Thus you see that what lies beyond the threshold is akin to our own nature, you see how it leads us into the creative divine forces, into what lives and works in all forms of existence. And when one calls to mind what an earlier epoch divined, and is expressed in the words:

The power of life, the seeds behold;
Turn thee away from words' cramped mould.²

—one is impelled to say that all this must become actuality in the further course of the development of mankind. We cramp all knowledge into words if we have no insight into the germinating forces which build up the human being in the most varied ways.

We can therefore say that the system of movement, the metabolic system, the rhythmic system, the system of nerves and senses merge into a unity in that they resound in harmony. For there sounds upwards from below: “Strive to awaken”; “Think in the Spirit”—and from above downwards, mingling with the upward-striving words, “Live creatively breathing existence”; “Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods”.

This “Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods” is the calm creative element in the head. Then what strives from below upwards in “Think in the Spirit”, from above downwards in “Live creatively breathing existence”, in their combined activity is what so works and weaves that it creates an image of the way in which human breathing passes over in a rhythmical way into the activity of the blood. And what implants into us the instruments of the senses, this is what streams from above downwards in “Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods”. But what works in our walking, in our standing, in our moving of the arms and hands, everything in fact which brings man into the manifestation of his element of will, this sounds forth in “Strive to awaken”.

Thus you see how man is a symphony of that world-word which can be interpreted on its lowest level in the way I have presented it to you. Then this world-word ascends to the higher hierarchies, whose task it is to unfold other aspects of this world-word in order that the cosmos may arise and develop. But that which has, as it were, been uttered as a call into the world by these elemental beings is the final reverberation of that creative, upbuilding, form-giving world-word which lies at the base of all activity and all existence.

Gnomes:

You dream your Self,
And shun awakening.

I maintain the life-force in the root,
It creates for me my body's form.

Undines:

You think the deeds of Angels
And know it not.

I bestir the water's power of growth,
It forms for me substance of life.

Sylphs:

Creative might shines to you,
You divine it not;
You feel its strength
And live it not.

I quaff the airy force of life,
It fills me with the power of being.

Fire-beings:

Divine Will offers you strength,
You accept it not.
With its strength you will,
Yet thrust it off from you.

I consume the striving power of fire,
Into soul-spirit it releases me.

Chorus of gnomes: Strive to awaken!
Undines: Think in the Spirit!
Sylphs: Live creatively breathing existence!
Fire-beings: Receive in love the Will-Power of the Gods!

GNOMEN

Du träumst dich selbst,
Und meidest das Erwachen.

Ich halte die Wurzelwesenkraft,
Sie schaffet mir den Formenleib.

UNDINEN

Du denkst die Engelwerke
Und weisst es nicht.

Ich bewege die Wasserwachtumskraft,
Sie bildet mir den Lebensstoff.

SYLPHEN

Dir leuchtet die Schöpfermacht,
Du ahnst es nicht;
Du fühlest ihre Kraft
Und lebst sie nicht.

Ich schlürfe die luft'ge Lebekraft,
Sie füllet mich mit Seinsgewalt.

FEUERWESEN

Dir krafter Götterwille,
Du empfangst ihn nicht.
Du willst mit seiner Kraft,
Und stosset ihn von dir.

Ich däue die Feuer strebekraft,
Sie erlöst mich in Seelengeistigkeit.

GNOMENCHOR: Erstrebe zu wachen
UNDINEN: Denke in Geiste
SYLPHEN: Lebe schaffend atmendes Dasein
FEUERWESEN: Empfange liebend Götterwillenskraft.

• 1. Here Rudolf Steiner coins a word from verdauen, to digest: däuen—ich däue, to express, not ordinary digestion, but a fiery consuming process.
• 2. Goethe: Faust, Part I, Scene I.

Well, gentlemen, we still have the last questions left over from the Jewish Sephiroth tree. In this Sephiroth tree, the Jews of antiquity actually enclosed their highest wisdom. And one could say: they enclosed in it the wisdom of the relationship between man and the world. We have often emphasized that the human being does not only consist of the visible parts that can be seen with the eye, but that the human being also consists of invisible, supersensible members. We have called these supersensible members the etheric body, the astral body, the ego or the ego organization. Now, all these things were known in ancient times, not in the way we have today, but people knew about them instinctively. This ancient knowledge has been completely lost. And today we believe that something like this Jewish Tree of Life, the Sephiroth Tree, is actually a fantasy. But it is not.

Now let us try to understand what the ancient Jews actually meant by this Sephiroth tree. They thought of it like this: Man stands there in the world, but the forces of the world act on him from all sides. If you look at man as he stands in the world (it is drawn), we can imagine him schematically drawn. This is how we imagine a material human being standing in the world. The ancient Jews imagined that the forces of the world were acting on him from all sides. Here I draw an arrow that goes into the heart: Thus the forces of the world act on man; here below the power of the earth,

Now the Jews have said: First of all, three forces act on the human head – I have indicated these in the drawing with these arrows: 1, 2, 3 – three forces on the human center, on the chest, on breathing and blood circulation mainly (arrows 4, 5, 6 of the drawing). Then three more forces act on the limbs of the human being (arrows 7, 8, 9), and a tenth force, which acts on the human being from the earth (arrow 10, from below). So ten forces, the ancient Jews imagined, act on the human being from the outside.

Let us first consider the three forces that come, so to speak, from the farthest parts of the universe and act on the human head, actually making the human head round, like an image of the whole round universe. These three forces, 1, 2, 3, are the noblest; they come, so to speak, if you want to use a later expression, with a Greek expression, for example, from the highest heavens. They shape the human head by making it a round image of the whole round universe.

Now, however, we must develop a concept at the same time, which could disturb you if I simply tell you. You see, in these ten concepts that the Jews have placed at the pinnacle of their wisdom, the first one at the top (1) has been terribly misused; for later, those people who succeeded in seizing power dragged the symbols of that power and the words for that power down into the outer realm of power. And so certain people who have appropriated the power of the nations and transferred it to their descendants have appropriated what is called a crown. In ancient times, a crown was a word for the highest spiritual gift that could be bestowed on a person. And the crown could only be worn by someone who, as I have explained to you, had gone through initiation, that is, someone who had attained the highest wisdom. It was a sign of the highest wisdom. I have already explained to you how the orders originally all meant something, but how they were later created out of vanity and no longer meant anything. In particular, however, we must consider this in relation to the term 'crown'. For the ancients, the crown was the epitome of all that superhumanity from the spiritual world has to bestow upon humanity. No wonder that the kings placed the crown on their heads. They were, as you know, not always wise and did not always have the highest gifts of heaven united in them, but they placed the sign on their heads. And when something like this is spoken according to ancient customs, it must not be confused with what has become of it through misuse. So the highest, the highest gifts of the world, the highest gifts of the spirit, which can descend upon man, which he can unite with his head when he knows much, that was called Kether, the crown, in ancient Judaism. Now, you see, that was the highest. That was what spiritually formed the head from the universe.

And then this human head still needed two other forces. These two other forces came to it from the right and from the left. It was thought: the highest comes down from above; from the right and left come the two other forces, the two world forces, which are spread throughout the universe. Now, the one that goes in through the right ear was called Chokmah = wisdom. Today, if we wanted to translate the word, we would say: wisdom. And on the other side, from the world, came in: Binah. Today we would say: intelligence (2 and 3 of the drawing). The ancient Jews distinguished between wisdom and intelligence. Today, every person who is intelligent is also considered to be wise. But that is not the case. One can be intelligent and think the greatest stupidity. The greatest stupidities are thought up very intelligently. In particular, when one looks at much of today's science, one has to say that this science is actually intelligent in all fields, but it is certainly not wise. The ancient Jews distinguished Chokmah and Binah, the ancient wisdom, from the ancient intelligence at an early stage. So the human head, everything that actually belongs to the sensory system in the human being, and also the nerves that are spread out in the sensory system, all this was designated by the three terms Kether, Chokmah, Binah - crown, wisdom, intelligence.

Thus, according to the view of the ancient Jews, the human head is constructed from the universe. There was therefore a strong awareness - otherwise such a doctrine would not have been developed - that man is a member of the whole universe. We can ask, for example, about the human body: What about the liver? Well, the liver gets its veins from the blood circulation; it gets its strength from the human environment. The ancient Jews said: Man receives the forces from the environment, which then, first in the mother's womb and later, cause his head to develop.

Now, there are three other forces (4, 5, 6 in the drawing); these have more of an effect on the middle person, on the person in whom the heart is, in whom the lungs are. So they have an effect on the middle person; they come down less from above, they live more in the environment. They live in the sunshine that moves around on the earth, they live in wind and weather. The three forces that the ancient Jews mentioned come into consideration here: chesed, geburah, tiphereth. If we want to express this in today's terms, we could say: chesed = freedom; geburah = strength; tiphereth = beauty.

Let us start here with the middle power, with Geburah. I have told you that I want to draw the arrow in such a way that it goes into the heart! The power that man has, this heartiness, soul power and physical power at the same time, is indicated by the human heart. This is how the Jews imagined it: When the breath enters a person, when the breath enters the heart, not only the physical breathing forces enter from the outside, but also the spiritual power, Geburah, which is connected with the breath. We would therefore say, if we wanted to express it more precisely: the life force, the force through which he can also do something = Geburah. But on the one side of Geburah is what was called Chesed, human freedom. And on the other side is Tiphereth, beauty. Man is indeed the most beautiful thing on earth in his form! The old Jew imagined: “When I hear the heartbeat, I hear the life force that comes into man. When I stretch out my right hand, I feel that I am a free man; when the muscles stretch, the power of freedom comes. The left hand, which moves more gently and can grasp more gently, brings what a person does in beauty.

So these three forces: Chesed = freedom, Geburah = vitality, Tiphereth = beauty, correspond to that in man which is connected with breathing and blood circulation, with everything that is in motion and always repeats itself. The movement of sleeping, the change between day and night, also belongs to this. This also belongs to the movement; man also belongs to this.

But then, humans are also beings that can change their position in space, that can walk around, that do not have to stay in one place like plants. The animal can also walk around. Man has this in common with the animal. The animal has no Chokmah, no Tiphereth, nor Chesed, but it does have Geburah = life force. And the three that I have described, man has in common with the animal only in that he has the others.

This, that one can go around, that one is not bound to one place, the Jews called: Netsah, and that means that one overcomes the firmness of the earth, that one moves (arrow 7 of the drawing). Netsah is overcoming. Now, the one that has more effect on the center of the human being, where his center of gravity is - it is interesting, you know: that is the point, which is located here; it is slightly higher in the waking state and lowers in the sleeping state, which also testifies that there is something outside when we are sleeping - that which works in the center of the body, which also brings about reproduction in humans, which is therefore connected with sexuality, the ancient Jews called Hod. Today we would describe it with a word that would express something like compassion. You see, the expressions are already becoming more human. So Netsah refers to the outer movement - we go out into space - and Hod refers to the inner feeling, the inner movement, the inner compassion with the outer world, that is all Hod (arrow 8). Then under 9: Jesod; this is now the one on which the human being actually stands, the foundation. The human being thus feels bound to the earth; the fact that he can stand on the earth is the foundation, is Jesod. That he has such a foundation also comes from the forces that approach him from outside.

And then the forces of the earth itself work on him (Arrow 10), not only the surrounding forces, but the forces of the earth itself work on him. This was then called Malkuth. We would translate it today as: the field in which the human being works, the earthly outside world; Malkuth - the field. It is difficult to find the right expression for this Malkuth. One could say: realm, field; but all things have actually been misused, and today's names no longer describe what the old Jew felt: that the earth actually has an effect on him.

We need only imagine that we have the center of the human being here; a thigh bone begins on each side of the human being – this goes up to the knee, where the kneecaps would be. All these forces also act on these bones; but the fact that it is actually pierced like this, that it is actually a tube, is due to the penetration of the earthly forces. So everything where the earthly forces penetrate, that is what the old Jew called Malkuth, the field.

So you see, you have to get close to people if you want to talk about this Sephiroth tree! The Jews called the ten Sephiroth together: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth, Netsah, Hod, Jesod, Malkuth. These ten forces are what actually connects man with the higher, with the spiritual world. Only the tenth power, Malkuth, is sunk into the earth. So basically, this is the physical human being (pointing to the drawing), and the spiritual human being surrounds this physical human being, first as the earth forces below, but then as the forces that are already closer to the earth, but still work in from the surroundings: Netsah, Hod, Jesod. So all of this belongs spiritually to man, as these forces take effect. Then there are the forces that affect his blood circulation and breathing: Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth. And then the noblest forces that affect man, that affect his brain system: Kether, Chokmah, Binah. So that the Jews actually thought of man as connected with the world on all sides, as I have colorfully depicted for you here. Man is indeed such that he also contains a supersensible element within him. And they imagined this supersensible element in this way.

But now we can raise the question: What else did the Jews actually want to achieve with the ten sephirot, that they used to explain man's relationship to the world? Every Jewish pupil had to learn the ten sephirot, but not just so that he could list them; you would have a completely false idea if you thought that the teaching in the old Jewish schools was such that the main thing I have drawn on the board was the most striking thing. If one only wants to answer the question, “What is the Sephiroth tree?” one could quickly have finished it; you would have known it in a flash. People today are satisfied with asking, “What is the Sephiroth tree?” This and that is in it, what I have told you now. But that is not in relation to man! Instead, they just give you ten words and all kinds of fanciful explanations for them! But in relation to the human being, what I have told you is the right thing. But that was not the end of it in schools; rather, the Jewish pupil who was to learn science in the sense of the time had to learn much more about it.

Just imagine, gentlemen, you had only learned what the alphabet is and you would know if someone asked you: What is A, B, C, D and so on? - so the letters A, B, C, D and so on. You would have been able to list the twenty-two or twenty-three letters in a row. You wouldn't be able to do much with that! If any man could only enumerate the twenty-three letters, he could not do much with them, could he? But an ancient Jew who could only say: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth, Netsah, Hod, Jesod, Malkuth, so these ten Sephiroth could have enumerated, would have been regarded just the same. Anyone who had only answered in this way would have seemed to the Jews like someone who could say: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and so on. You have to learn more than just the alphabet, don't you; you have to learn to use the alphabet to read, you have to learn how to use the letters to read. Now, gentlemen, just think about how few letters there are and how much you have already read in your life! You just have to consider that. Take any book, take, I mean, for example, Karl Marx's “Capital” and look at it when you have the book in front of you: there is nothing on the pages but the twenty-two letters, nothing else! There are only the letters in it in the book. But what is inside is a lot, and it is all produced by the fact that the twenty-two letters are jumbled up: sometimes the A is before the B, sometimes before the M, sometimes the M before the A, the L before the I and so on, and that's how the whole complicated thing in the book comes about. If someone only knows the alphabet, he picks up the book and perhaps says: I understand everything in the book: there is A, B, C, only arranged differently; I know everything in the book. But he cannot read everything that is really written there inwardly, according to the meaning. You see, one must learn to read with what the letters are; one must really be able to jumble the letters in one's head and mind in such a way that meaning arises from them. And so the ancient Jews had to learn the ten sephiroth; for them, they were letters. You will say: Yes, they are words. But in the beginning, letters were also designated by words! This was only lost by the people when the letters came to Europe, in Greece.

It was not until the transition from Greek to Roman culture that something very significant happened. The Greeks called their A not A, but Alpha, and Alpha actually means: the spiritual man; and they called their B not B, but Beta, that is something like a house. And so every letter had a name. And the Greek could not have imagined that the letter is something else than what is called by a name. It was only when the transition from Greek culture to Roman culture took place that people no longer said Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on. They no longer referred to the letters by their names, where each name indicated what such a letter meant. Instead, they said: A, B, C, D and so on, and the whole thing became abstract. Just as Greek culture was dying out and merging with Roman culture, the great cultural diarrhea began in Europe. In the midst of this huge diarrhea, the spiritual aspect of the path from Greek to Roman culture was lost.

And you see, Judaism was particularly great then. When they wrote down their Aleph, their first letter, they meant the human being. Aleph is that. They knew: wherever they placed this letter for the sensual world, what they expressed with this letter must apply to the human being. And so each letter that represented the expressions of the material world also had a name. And the names: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth, Netsah, Hod, Jesod, Malkuth, were the names for the spiritual letters, for that which one had to learn in order to read in the spiritual world. And so the Jews had one alphabet: Aleph, Beth, Gimel and so on - an alphabet with which they grasped the outer world, the physical world. But they also had the other alphabet, where they had only ten letters, ten Sephiroth, and with that they grasped the spiritual world.

You see, gentlemen, when I list the names for you, Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed and so on, well, that's like A, B, C, D and so on. But then such an old Jew would have known how to say, as we jumble the letters, Kether, Chesed, Binah. And if he had said: Kether, Chesed, Binah, if he had rolled the dice like that, he would have said: In the spiritual world, the highest spiritual power brings about intelligence through freedom. - And with that he would have designated the higher beings who do not have a physical body, in whom the highest power of heaven brings about intelligence through freedom.

Or he would have said: Chokmah, Geburah, Malkuth - that would have meant: Through wisdom, the spirits bring forth the life force through which they work on earth. - He knew how to jumble all these things together like we jumble letters. So these disciples of the ancient Jews understood spiritual science in their own way through these ten spiritual letters. This tree, the Sephiroth tree, was therefore the same for them as the tree of the alphabet with its twenty-three letters is for us. These things have developed in a very strange way, you see: in the first two centuries after the emergence of Christianity, people knew about all these things. But when the Jews were scattered throughout the world, this way of knowing through the ten Sephiroth was also scattered. Individual Jewish students, who, as you may know, were then called Chachamim when they became students of the rabbi, these Chachamim still learned these things; but even there it was no longer really known how to read through these ten Sephiroth. For example, in the 12th century, a great dispute arose over two sentences; the first sentence was called: Hod, Chesed, Binah. Maimonides held on to this sentence. His opponent, on the other hand, claimed: Chesed, Kether, Binah. So people were already arguing about these sentences. You have to know: These sentences are derived from the Sephiroth tree; one person read it this way, another that, and put the elements together in different ways. But this art of reading had actually been forgotten since the Middle Ages. And the interesting thing is that later, in the middle of the Middle Ages, a man appeared, Raimundus Lullus – a very interesting person, this Raimundus Lullus!

You see, gentlemen, getting to know a person like that is actually extremely interesting. Imagine there was someone among you who was quite curious. He would say to himself: Now that I've heard about Raimund Lullus, I want to read up on him! First, take the encyclopedia, but then take any books that mention Raimund Lullus: Yes, if you read what is written about Raimund Lullus in today's books, you will split your sides laughing, because he would have been the most ridiculous person you could ever imagine! People say: This Raimundus Lullus, he wrote ten words on pieces of paper, and then he took something like you have in a game of hazard, a kind of roulette, where you spin, where you jumble up the story, and he would have always jumbled up these ten pieces of paper, and what would have come out, he would have written down, and that would have been his world wisdom. Well, when you read something like that, that words were simply written on ten pieces of paper and mixed up, and the man wanted to find something special by doing that, you have to hold your sides laughing, because it's a ridiculous person who would do something like that.

But that was not the case with Raimundus Lullus. He actually said the following: You can still go as far as you like with all that your earthly alphabet gives you, but you still cannot find the truth. And now he said: Your ordinary head is not good enough to find the truth. This ordinary head is like a roulette wheel that you spin, but there is nothing in it, so nothing can be found to win. Lullus told his fellow human beings: You have actually all become empty-headed, your head is nothing more, there is nothing more in it. And you must put such concepts as these ten sephiroth into your heads one day; you must learn to turn your heads from one of the sephiroth to the other until you learn to use the letters. That is what Raimundus Lullus told them. It is also written in his writings. He only used a picture for it, and the philosophers took the picture seriously and believed that he really meant a kind of roulette where you turn around to mix the tickets, while this roulette that he meant is supposed to be the supersensible recognition in the mind!

This Tree of Life, this Sephiroth Tree, is therefore the spiritual alphabet. People who lived in the West, in Greece, had a spiritual alphabet even in ancient times. And in the time of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, ten concepts were also given there in the Greek way. You can still find them today in all school logics: Being, property, relationship, and so on, and also ten such names, only that they are different because they are suitable for the West. But in the West these ten Greek letters of the spiritual alphabet have been understood just as little as the ones mentioned before.

But you see, it is actually quite an interesting story that is taking place in humanity. Over in Asia, those who still knew something learned to read in the spiritual world through this Sephiroth tree. And in the first centuries of Christianity, people who still knew something about the spiritual world learned to read according to the Aristotelian Tree of Life - over in Greece, in Rome and so on. But gradually everyone – those of the Sephiroth Tree and those of the Aristotle Tree – forgot what these things actually are, and could only list the ten terms. And now we simply have to use these things in such a way that we learn to read in the spiritual world, otherwise little by little people will be forgotten. You see, the following is a very interesting sentence. When a Jewish sage wrote or said: Geburah, Netsah, Hod, one would have to translate today as follows in German: the life-force hatches the dreams in the kidneys. But when one says today: the life-force hatches the dreams in the kidneys, one means physical forces, physical effects. But when the ancient Jew said Geburah, Netsah, Hod, he meant that what is in man as a spiritual being brings about what appears in dreams. Everywhere it was a spiritual assertion that was expressed by what arose from the random throwing together of the letters.

It is indeed only through spiritual science that it is possible today to get any information about these things. Because no one will tell you today that these ten sephiroth were such letters for the spiritual world. You won't hear it anywhere else, no one really knows it today! So you can say that the situation is such that today's science no longer knows most of the things that were once known in humanity, and they must first be regained.

Take this letter that I have drawn for you here: Aleph 8. What does this Aleph mean for the sensory world? Well, it represents a person. This is how he stands, sending out his power. That is this line (drawing). He raises his right hand: that is this line; he stretches out the other hand: that is this line. So this first letter Aleph expresses man. And every letter expressed something – even in Greek – just as the first letter expresses “man”.

You see, gentlemen, today people no longer have any sense of how things are connected. The first letter for man was called Aleph by the Hebrews, Alpha by the Greeks, and by this they meant what moves spiritually in man, what is spiritual behind the physical man. But now you also have an old German word. First of all, it is used when a person has special dreams. When a spiritual person presses him, then this is called the nightmare, the nightmare. One says that something comes over the person that possesses him. But then, from nightmare, emerged elf, and then elf, the elf - these spiritual beings, the elves; the human being is only a condensed elf. The word Elf, which goes back to Alp, may still remind you of Alpha in Greek. You only have to omit the A to get Alph – ph is the same as our F – a spiritual being. Because the F has been added, we say: the Aleph in man, the Alp in man. If you omit the vowels everywhere, as is customary in Jewish, you get directly Alph = EIf for the first letter. People pronounce: Elf for this spiritual being. One speaks of elves. Of course, today one says: These are beings that the ancients invented out of their imagination. We no longer believe in it. But the ancients said: You only need to look at the human being itself to see the alph. The alph is just inside the body, and it is not a fine, ethereal being, but a dense physical being inside the human being. But people have long since forgotten how to understand the human being.

And so you experience the most droll thing, gentlemen. Just imagine that in the second half of the 19th century the following came about - I don't want to say anything against it, such things can happen -: a table was taken, people sat around it, let's say eight people; they place their hands, which then touch at the outermost ends, on the table top, and then the table starts to dance! Then they count the dance steps of the table, and form words out of them, also out of letters. These are spiritualistic sessions. What do people believe? They believe: Well, when we think, then nothing comes out of real knowledge; real knowledge must fall to us from somewhere. Now, in truth, it is so that the people who say that could certainly say it about themselves, because they are mostly those who are thoughtless and do not want to reflect, who would like the truth to come to them from somewhere without their own work. So eight of them sit around a table, then they have the table turned over, the first time A, the second time B, then C and so on, and from that they then form words – and those are then spiritualist revelations. Isn't that so, the wisdom came to them; they did not achieve it themselves!

But look, what should one actually say to such people? Such people want to recognize the spiritual world; that is their honest intention, to recognize the spiritual world. You cannot see the spirits; you cannot see or hear them because they have no body. So people think: they can use the table as a body, and in this way they can make themselves a little understood. Incidentally, it usually comes out as very general things that can be interpreted in different ways! But in any case, you have to say to these people: There you are, eight people sitting around the table; you want a spirit to come that makes itself heard. But aren't you spirits yourselves? You are spirits yourselves, sitting around there! Look at yourselves and seek the spirit within yourselves. There you will be able to find a much greater spirit. You will not assume that you will only be seen when you strike through a table, but when you use your limbs, your voices, and above all your powers of thought in a human way! Therefore it is indeed the case, and there is no need to doubt it, that when eight people sit around a table the table will begin to dance because the subconscious forces are acting on it. That is how it is, but it does not come out as something that would not come out in a much higher sense if a person were to exert his own Alpha or Aleph within himself.

But in the transition from Greek to Roman culture, people have forgotten Aleph. The first letter means A yes, only believe, the first letter means only A, that is, keep your mouth shut! But nothing comes of it. Once a wife got so fed up with her husband constantly lecturing from science. He had learned a lot and always lectured. She found it terribly annoying. And so one day she said to him: “You always want to lecture!” - “If you want to lecture, then shut up!” - Yes, actually the content has been completely lost. The Greeks did not think of one A, one Alpha, without thinking of the human being. They were immediately reminded of the human being. And they did not have a beta without remembering a house in which man lives. The alpha is always man. They imagined something similar to man. And at beta, they imagined something that is around man. Then the Jewish Beth and the Greek beta became the envelope around the alpha, which is still inside as a spiritual being. In the same way, the body would be the Beth, the Beta, and the Alpha would be the spirit within. And now we speak of the “alphabet” - but for the Greeks this means: “man in his house”, or also: “man in his body”, in his covering.

Well, gentlemen, it is actually terribly funny. Take a dictionary in your hand today, then look up all the wisdom that mankind has in the alphabet. If someone - you won't do it - starts at A and stops at Z, then he would have all the wisdom in himself. Yes, but according to what can this wisdom be arranged in man? According to the alphabet, according to what can be known about the human being. It is very interesting: people have spread all wisdom because they no longer knew that it actually points to what comes from the alphabet. If you translate alphabet, it comes out, if you put it a little differently: human wisdom, human knowledge - again expressed with a Greek word: anthroposophy, human wisdom. And that is what every encyclopedia says. Actually, every encyclopedia should include anthroposophy, because it is only arranged according to the alphabet, according to human wisdom, “the human being in his body.” It is terribly funny: actually every encyclopedia represents a skeleton, where in the alphabetically arranged science the old wisdom has disappeared. All flesh and blood has gone, all the muscles and nerves have fallen away. Now go to the encyclopedia; it contains only the dead skeleton of the old science. Now a new science must arise that does not just have the dead skeleton, like the encyclopedia, but really has everything about the human being again, flesh and blood and so on: that is anthroposophy! Therefore, one would like to throw all these encyclopedias to the devil, although they are needed today, because they are the dead skeleton of an old science. A new science must be founded!

You see, gentlemen, that is what you can learn from the Sephiroth tree if you understand it in the right way. It was very useful of Mr. Dollinger to ask this question, because it has taken us a little deeper into anthroposophy.

Next time on Wednesday at nine o'clock.

I have spoken in the previous lecture of the error which has entered our modern spiritual life and which is very little noticed today. You will have realized from our discussions that by pointing to this error we have arrived at a very important point in our spiritual-scientific considerations. It is imperative for a sound development of the spiritual life of mankind that there be clarity in this matter. I have drawn your attention to such products of culture as Milton's Paradise Lost or Klopstock's Messiah, which have sprung from the general popular thinking of the last few centuries. But I have also drawn your attention to the fact that just through such artistically as well as spiritually outstanding products of culture we can see the dangers that are facing man's soul life if he fails to realize that it is impossible to arrive at a true and adequate concept of spirit, a true concept of Christ, as long as he imagines that the structure of the world and the spirit can be grasped through the symbol of the duad. By differentiating only according to the duad—on the one hand the good, on the other the evil—people committed the error of including on the side of evil all that we designate as the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic element. But they did not realize that they had jumbled up two cosmic elements. Thus it has come about that the Luciferic element was shifted to the side of the Good; in other words, people were of the opinion that they revered the Divine, recognized the Divine, spoke by name of the Divine, whereas, in reality, they intermixed the Luciferic with the Divine element. Hence the difficulty in our time of arriving at a pure concept of the Divine and a pure concept of the Christ impulse in human and world evolution. Through the culture of the centuries we have become accustomed, because of the acknowledgment of this duad, to speak, on the one hand, of the soul element, on the other, of the bodily or corporeal element, and we have lost the connection between the thoughts which relate us to the soul-spiritual element and the thoughts which relate us to the bodily element. Thinking, willing, feeling are little more than sounding words to people of the present day; and this is particularly true of modern psychology that is taught in our universities. It does not arrive at real inner conceptions of the soul element, filled with content. On the other hand, people speak of the de-spiritualized material element, devoid of soul, and they hammer, as it were, at this external, rigid, stony-hard, soulless material element and are unable to build a bridge from it to the soul.

The all-pervading spiritual and the corporeal which is at the same time spiritual have fallen apart into two elements. Mere theories will not build a bridge between the bodily and the spiritual. And since this is not possible, all scientific thinking has taken on the character of a schism between the bodily and the spirit or soul element. We might express it thus: on the one hand, the various creeds have resorted to pointing to the spiritual element without being in a position to show how this spiritual element takes hold of the bodily-corporeal element; on the other hand, a soulless knowledge, a soulless observation of the body is unable to look through the bodily processes and perceive the spirit-soul element governing them. Anyone who surveys from this point of view the natural-scientific world conception as it developed in the course of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century will have to say to himself: all that pertains to this world conception is a result of that which has just been characterized. In order to understand fully the illusion which today covers up reality, we must first establish this reality. This we shall be able to do as a result of much that has been discussed here at length. Today the human being is considered a single undivided being, regardless whether we are speaking of soul or of body. From the soul aspect he is considered a uniform being; from the bodily aspect he is considered a uniform being. Yet you will have gathered from our discussions that in man there exists, above everything else, the great contrast between the head formation and the rest of the human organism. This latter part of the human body could be further divided, but for the moment let us consider it as a unity. If we make inquiry into the evolution of man, the inquiry in regard to the head formation must be different from that in regard to the rest of the body.

If we focus our attention upon the head formation, from a purely bodily aspect, in as far as this head formation contains the organism for sense perception or for thinking, we have to look far back into the cosmic evolution of man. What finds its expression today in the human head formation has been gradually developed and transformed. Its development has gone on through ancient Saturn, Sun and Moon and has continued during the Earth evolution. But this is not the case with the rest of the human body. It would be entirely wrong to look for a uniform evolutionary history of the whole human being. We may say (Dr. Steiner draws a diagram): The head formation points back to the previous planetary stages of our Earth: Moon, Sun, Saturn evolution; the development which has found its conclusion in the human head reaches far back. But if we add to this all that belongs to the rest of man, we need not go back as far as the Saturn evolution. The chest formation may be traced back as far the Moon evolution; the limbs have been added to the human being only during the Earth evolution.

We consider the human being in the right way only if we make the following comparative observation. But please, take it only as a comparison.

You can easily imagine, hypothetically, that through some sort of organic conditions in the cosmos, through some conditions of adaptation connected with conditions of inner growth, the human being might put forth new limbs. You would not then trace back the entire human form to a previous evolution, but you would say: Man, as an evolving being, has to be traced back; but this or that limb has only been added at a certain point of time. The reason for our being tempted not to think in this way in regard to the head and the rest of the human organism is that with respect to the outer spatial size of man the rest of the human organism is larger than the head. The truth, however, is that the head formation reaches furthest back in evolution, while the rest of the human form was added later. If we wish to speak of a connection of man with the animal world in regard to evolution, we can only say: The human head can be traced back to an earlier animal formation. The human head is a transformed animal shape, a greatly transformed animal shape.

At a time when animals did not yet exist, the human being, under completely different physical conditions, had an animal form. Animals have developed only later. That part of the human being, however, that had an animal form has become what is today the human head, and that which has been added to the head as the rest of the human organism has been added at a time when the simultaneous development of the animals occurred. Thus it has nothing to do with an actual descent from the animal. We must really state the following: The seemingly most noble part of the human being, his head, points us back to the animal; in regard to the head the human being himself had formerly a kind of animal form. But the rest of our organism we received as an organic addition to the head at a time of cosmic evolution in which the parallel development of the animals took place.

In a certain respect our head has become our organ of thinking. Our organ of thinking is that part of us which, if we may use the expression, has animal descent; a strange animal descent, to be sure. If you look at a human head today, you will not at once discover anatomically the traits that point back to the animal form. Yet upon closer investigation and with the proper interpretation of the forms of the head organs you will recognize them as transformed animal organs.

In considering all this, we must at the same time mention that the transformation of the head from the animal form to the human form came about through the fact that the human head had already entered a retrogressive evolution. That which in earlier states of evolution was full of vitality and life is, in the human head, already in the process of dying. I once stated the following: If we human beings were only head, we could never live, we would be continuously dying, for the organic processes that take place in the head through the forces of the head itself are not life processes but death processes. The human head is continually quickened to life by the rest of the organism. The head owes to the rest of the organism its participation in the general life of the organism. If the head were simply to rely upon those forces for which it is organized, namely the forces of sense perception and thinking, it would be continually dying. Its continuous tendency is to die; it has to be constantly revitalized. If we think, if we perceive with our senses, there takes place in our head, in our nervous system and its connection with the sense organs, a process that is the opposite of an ascending process of life and growth. For if such a life process took place there, we would fall into deep sleep, we would never be able to think clearly. Only through the fact that death constantly pervades our head, that a continuous retrogressive evolution is going on there and the organic processes are constantly cancelled, do thinking and sense perception take place in our head.

Whoever in a materialistic fashion attempts to explain thinking and sense perception by means of the brain processes does not know at all what processes occur in the head; he believes the processes occurring there may be compared with the processes of organic growth. This is not the case. The processes that run parallel to sense perception and thinking are breaking down processes, processes of destruction. The organic, the material, must first be broken down, must first be destroyed; then above the organic process of destruction the thinking process arises.

You see, these matters are conceived of by humanity today in such a way that the attempt is made to explain their nature externally. The human being thinks, he perceives with his senses; but he knows nothing about that which takes place simultaneously in his organism; this remains completely in the unconscious. Only through the processes which I have described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment {Anthroposophic Press, New York,) is it possible gradually to rise to a knowledge which does not merely live in what today is called, in a mere word-sense, the soul element, namely sense perception and thinking. If a soul undergoes the development described in my book, it can yield on the one hand to thinking, to sense perception, and simultaneously perceive what happens in the brain; it then does not perceive a growth process but a breaking down process which has continually to be compensated by the rest of the organism.

You see, this is the tragic phenomenon accompanying a real knowledge of the activity of the head: there is no unfolding of organic processes in the head to be enjoyed by the clairvoyant when he thinks, when he perceives with his senses; on the contrary, he has to familiarize himself with a process of destruction. He must also familiarize himself with the fact that the materialistically inclined person supposes such processes to take place in the human head which cannot possibly take place when man thinks or perceives with his senses. Materialism must suppose just the opposite of the truth.

Thus, in the human head we are concerned with an evolution out of the animal, but with an evolution already retrogressive; with a breaking down process. The rest of our human organism is in a progressive evolution, and we must not believe that it has no part in the soul-spiritual element and its experience in man. Not only is our blood constantly sent up from the rest of the organism into the head, but also there continually rise into the head those soul-spiritual thought forms from which the world and our organism are woven. These soul-spiritual thought forms are not yet perceived by the human being in his normal state, but the time has come when man has to begin to perceive what arises out of his own being as thought forms. As you know, we do not sleep only from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up; with a part of our being we sleep the whole day through. We are awake only in regard to our thinking and sense perceiving, we dream in regard to our life of feeling; we are sound asleep in regard to our life of willing. For we know only of the thoughts and ideas of our volition; we know nothing of the process of willing. The activity of our will takes place just as unconsciously as our sleep life from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. But if we ask: By what path alone can knowledge of the Divine reach the human being? we cannot point to the path through the head, through sense perception and thinking, but only to the path that leads through the rest of our organism. We have to deal here with the great and mighty mystery that man's head has developed through long stages of evolution and that gradually the rest of his organism was added; that the head has already started on a retrogressive evolution and that man can only experience the Divine through the rest of his organism, not through the head. For you see, it is important to realize that through the head only the Luciferic beings spoke to man.

We may say that man received the rest of his organism in addition to the head in order that the Gods might speak to him. At the beginning of the Bible we do not read: God sent a ray of light to man and he became a living soul, but we read: God breathed the living breath into man and he became a living soul. Here it is recognized that the divine impulse reached the human being through an activity that is not of the head.

From this it will become clear to you that this divine impulse could at first come to man only in a kind of unconscious clairvoyance or, rather, through the comprehension of what was given through unconscious clairvoyance. If you consider the Old Testament you will find that it is the result of unconscious clairvoyance (we know this from former discussion). Those who helped in bringing about the Old Testament were conscious of this fact. I cannot describe to you today how the Old Testament came into existence, but I should like to point out to you that we have repeatedly dealt with these matters, and that the teachers of the ancient Hebrew people were conscious of the fact that their God had spoken to them not through direct sense perceptions, not through ordinary thinking, not through that of which the head is the mediator, but that their God had spoken to them through dreams, not ordinary dreams, but dreams permeated by reality. God spoke to them in moments of clairvoyance, as when he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. And when the initiates of this ancient time were asked about the way in which they received the divine calls they answered: the Lord whose name is ineffable speaks to us; but he speaks to us through his countenance. And the countenance of their God they called Michael, that spiritual power who belongs to the hierarchy of the Archangeloi. They felt their God as remaining unknown even behind the experiences of the clairvoyant; but when the clairvoyant, through the inner strength of his soul, raised himself to his God, then Michael spoke to him. But this Michael spoke only to men if they were able to transport themselves into a state of consciousness different from the ordinary, if they were able to transport themselves into the state of a certain clairvoyance in which they became conscious of that which works and lives in the human being during the period between going to sleep and awaking, or through the will which remains subconscious and is in the sleep state even during waking day consciousness.

Thus in ancient Hebrew occultism, the Yahve-revelation was called the revelation of the night; the Yahve-revelation, through the Michael-revelation, was felt as the revelation of the night. Thus, on the one hand, man looked into the world and saw what he could receive through sense perception and through human intelligent thinking, and he said to himself: the knowledge that comes to the human being on this path does not contain the Divine. If man, however, develops another state of consciousness, then the countenance of God, Michael, speaks to him and reveals the secrets that relate to the human being; his revelation builds a bridge between the human being and those powers which cannot be perceived in the external sense world, which cannot be thought out by the brain-bound intellect.

Thus we must say: The human beings of the pre-Christian age directed their gaze, on the one hand, toward sense knowledge which was their guide in their earthly undertakings and, on the other hand, toward that knowledge which the human being would only possess in ordinary consciousness—he did not possess it—if this consciousness were to remain awake also during the period of sleep. During these ancient times of the Old Testament people knew that the human being is in the environment of spiritual beings during his waking hours, but that these spiritual beings are not his creator beings, but the Luciferic beings. The beings which mankind felt to be the divine creator beings were active in man from the moment of falling asleep to awakening and also in that part of his nature which sleeps during the day. In the time in which the Old Testament originated Yahve was called the Ruler of the Night, and Michael, the countenance of Yahve, was called the Servant of the Ruler of the Night. And the people of that time referred to Michael when they referred to the prophetic inspirations through which they received knowledge which was greater than that of the sense world.

Which consciousness is concealed behind all this? That consciousness which has grown out of the sphere of existence in which those powers which include Yahve have their being, whereas the human head formation is surrounded by Luciferic beings. The fact that the human being through his head, as it reaches above the organism, has turned to the Luciferic beings was a secret known in all ancient temples and it was a secret with which man came very close to the truth. It was known that, as the head rises above the human organism, Lucifer also rises above it. The power which brought the human head out of the animal form into its present shape is a Luciferic power; and the power which man must feel as Divine must stream up into his head from the night condition of the rest of his organism. This was the situation in regard to man's knowledge in pre-Christian times.

Then the Mystery of Golgotha entered Earth evolution, and we know that it signifies the union of a super-earthly Being with the Earth evolution of man through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the Death on Golgotha the Being Whom we call the Christ has united Himself with the human earth being. What did this signify for Earth evolution? Through this event, Earth evolution first received its real meaning. The earth would not have its meaning if man were to develop on this earth with his senses and the intellect bound to the head which are of Luciferic origin, if he were to perceive the world of light streaming down from sun and stars upon the earth, but if he were obliged to remain in the sleep state in order to perceive the Divine. Under these conditions the earth would never have attained its meaning, for the waking human being and the earth belong together. The sleeping human being is not conscious of his connection with earthly existence. Through the fact that the Christ Being has lived in a human body which has passed through death, Earth evolution has taken a forward bound. The whole Earth evolution has acquired a new meaning. The possibility has arisen for the human being gradually to be able to know his divine creator powers also during the day, during ordinary waking life, that is, in his ordinary state of consciousness. That people are still in error today concerning this matter is caused by the fact that the time that has elapsed since the Mystery of Golgotha has not yet sufficed to lead man to a perception, during waking life, of that world which the prophets of the Old Testament were able to behold in those times which they experienced as permeated by revelations of Yahve, their Ruler of the Night, and of his countenance, Michael. A period of transition was needed. But with the close of the nineteenth century—all oriental wisdom points to the importance of this close of the nineteenth century, although from a completely different point of view—with the end of the nineteenth century the time has come when human beings must recognize that within them the latent faculty is ready to be awakened which is able to behold, through day-revelation, that which in earlier times was transmitted in night-revelation through Michael.

A time of great error, however, had to precede this, a night of cognition, as it were. I have often said that I do not agree with those who constantly maintain that our time is a period of transition. I know quite well that every time is a period of transition, but I do not want to stop short at such formal, abstract definitions, for the point is that one should indicate clearly of what the transition of a particular time consists. The transition in our time lies in man's need to recognize that what formerly was obtained in night-knowledge we must now obtain through day-knowledge. In other words: Michael was the revealer through the night and in our age he must become the revealer during the day. From being a spirit of night Michael must become a spirit of day. For him the Mystery of Golgotha signifies the transformation from a spirit of night into a spirit of day.

This knowledge which should make its way among human beings much faster than we believe today had to be preceded by a great error, in fact, by the greatest error imaginable in mankind's evolution, in spite of its being still considered an important and essential truth by many people today. The origin of the human head has become completely hidden from modern mankind; the Luciferic spirituality connected with the human head has become completely veiled. The human being, as I said, was considered a unity, also in a bodily respect. The question of his descent was raised, and the reply was given that man descended from the animal; while, in truth, only that which is Luciferic in man stems from the animal. That part of man, however, through which his divine creators spoke to him in earlier ages during his sleep state only came into existence as an appendage to the human head, while the animal came into existence side by side with it.

Everything was mixed together, as it were, and man was said to have descended from the animal. This is something like a “penalty” of knowledge which arose for mankind. One must give the word “penalty” a somewhat changed interpretation, to be sure.

Whence comes the notion of man's descent from the animals, whereas the truth consists of the facts we have stated in regard to the descent of the head and the rest of the human organism? Who inspired the human being with the fictitious belief that the whole of man descended from the animal?

The theory of man's descent from the animal is an Ahrimanic inspiration; it is of purely Ahrimanic character. To the obscuring of the wisdom which points to the human head as a Luciferic formation, we owe the delusion that man descends from the animal. In failing to comprehend the descent of the human head in the right way man also failed to grasp the other facts in the right manner. Thus the opinion crept into human thinking that man, as a totality, is related to the animal. The world conception of our modern civilization became permeated by the erroneous idea that the human head is the noblest part of man, and it was contrasted by the rest of his organism, just as the good in the world is contrasted by evil—heaven by hell—a duad instead of a triad. The truth is that what man accomplishes in the world by means of his head he owes to the wisdom of the universe, but to the Luciferic wisdom, and that this Luciferic wisdom must gradually be permeated by other elements.

After mankind's evolution had passed through the Saturn, Sun and Moon states and the Earth evolution had begun, that spiritual power which we call the Michael power organized the Luciferic nature into the human head formation. “And he cast his opposing spirits down upon the earth,” that is, through this casting down of the Luciferic spirits, opposing Michael, man became permeated by this reason, by that which springs from his head.

Thus it is Michael who sent his opponents to man in order that, by receiving this opposing Luciferic element, man might receive his reason. Then the Mystery of Golgotha entered human evolution. The Christ Being passed through the death of Jesus of Nazareth and united Himself with the evolution of mankind.

The time of preparation has passed. Michael himself, in the super-sensible worlds, has participated in the results of the Mystery of Golgotha. Since the last third of the nineteenth century Michael occupies a unique position in the evolution of humanity. The first thing that must occur through the right understanding of man's relation to Michael is the fathoming of such secrets as the one we have endeavored to present today concerning the human head and the rest of the human organism.

The essential thing is for human beings to see that since they did not recognize the true origin of the head they were certain to fall into delusion about the origin of the whole human being. Because they refused to conceive of the Luciferic formative activity that took place in the human head, they fell a prey to the delusion that the human head had the same origin as the rest of the human being. Mankind must penetrate these mysteries. It must, boldly and courageously, face the knowledge that through taking hold of new divine mysteries it must in its inner life improve all that is given to it through mere insight of the head, through mere human, earthly wisdom or cleverness. And first of all, the great error must be corrected which has preceded the turning point, the error which lies in the materialistic interpretation of the evolutionary theory of the descent of the whole human being from the animal.

This will be the only way of arriving at a perception of man which does not see, on the one hand, merely the spirit-soul element, living in a body, as it were, and a soulless body, on the other hand; but which beholds the concrete-spiritual which works, although in a Luciferic manner, in the human head, the concrete-spiritual which works in the whole human being, opposed, however, by the Ahrimanic nature in the organism apart from the head.

Speaking in imaginations, we may point back to the fact that the Luciferic element was incorporated in man through the Michael impulse. Through that which Michael has become, the Ahrimanic element must now, in turn, be taken from man. Seen from the aspect of outer science, the truth about man appears to consist of anatomical and physiological knowledge, or that which confronts us as outer sense observation. We must become capable of looking at the human being in such a way that we can see in his every fiber the concrete-spiritual being together with the bodily element. We must become aware that the blood which flows in the living human being is not the same as the blood we draw off, but that the blood flowing in the living human being is permeated by spirit in a special way. We must learn to know the spirit that pulses through the blood. We must learn to know the spirit that pulses through the nervous system just when the latter passes through a phase of breaking down, and so forth. We must become able to see the spiritual element in every single expression of life.

Michael is the spirit of strength. As he enters human evolution he must bring it about that we do not consider on the one hand abstract spirituality and on the other materiality which we listen to with the stethoscope, which we cut up, and of which we have not the slightest inkling that it is only an externally manifesting form of the spiritual; Michael must permeate us as the strong power which can look through the material and see the spiritual in matter. The Evangelist pointed to an ancient stage of human consciousness and he said: In this ancient time the Word lived in a spiritual way; but the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word united with the flesh and the Michael revelation preceded this event. It is processes in human consciousness that are indicated here. The reverse process must now begin which consists in adding another word to the word of the evangelist. We must acquire the power in our consciousness to see how the human being receives that which out of the spiritual worlds has united itself with the earth through the Christ impulse and which must unite itself with mankind in order that mankind shall not perish with the earth. We must make sure that man takes the spiritual not only into his head but into his whole being, that he permeates himself with the spiritual. Only the Christ impulse can help us with this, the Christ impulse in the interpretation of the Michael impulse. Then to the Evangelist's words these may be added: “And the time must come when the flesh will again become the Word and learn to dwell in the realm of the Word.”

It is not an invention by a later writer when, added at the conclusion of the Gospel, we read that much has been left unsaid. By this means attention is drawn to that which can only gradually be revealed to mankind. Those who maintain that the Gospels must remain as they are and must not be touched understand them very little. They must be interpreted according to the words of the Christ Jesus—I have mentioned this repeatedly—: “I am with you every day even to the end of the earth cycles.” That means: “I have revealed Myself to you not only during the days in which the Gospels were written, I will speak to you always through My day spirit, Michael, if you seek the way to Me. Through the continuous Christ revelation you may add to the Gospels that which was not known in the Gospel of the first millennium but which can be known in the Gospel of the second; and new things may be added during the millennia to come.” What is written in the Gospel is true: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It is, however, just as true that we must add the revelation: “And the flesh of man must again become spiritualized that it may be able to dwell in the kingdom of the Word in order to behold the divine mysteries.” The Word becoming flesh is the first Michael revelation; the flesh becoming Spirit must be the second Michael revelation.

I have spoken of Franz Brentano at some length because the fact is immediately apparent that the first work of this important philosopher, published by his students from his estate, was a work about the life of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus. That provided the external point of contact. But I wanted something more profound with the presentation of this philosopher's life. I wanted to show, through a person who was not just a thinker, not just a scientist, but who was truly a seeker of truth as a whole human being, how a personality of this kind had to position itself in the spiritual life of the second half of the 19th century.

Franz Brentano was born in 1838, so he was a student at the very time when the scientific mentality was emerging within modern civilization. He was a student who, as you have seen, was a devout Catholic who, as a devout Catholic, held firmly to the spiritual world, but only in the way that was possible from Catholic religious practice and Catholic “theology.” This man, who had thus grown into a certain self-evident grasp of the spiritual world, of the immortality of the soul, of the existence of God and so on, did so as a scientist, and indeed as the most conscientious scientist imaginable, in the era when scientific thinking meant everything. So that, more than with any other personality, when one is familiar with Franz Brentano, one has the feeling that here is a person of deep spirituality who, however, in the face of the scientific attitude of the 19th century, did not rise to it, could not penetrate it to a real grasp of spiritual life. I do not actually know of any personality in modern times in whom the necessity for the anthroposophical world view emerges so characteristically. In the case of Franz Brentano, one would like to say: he actually only needed to take one or two steps further and he was with anthroposophy. He did not come to it because he wanted to keep to what was scientifically common practice. Franz Brentano, precisely because of what I described yesterday as the characteristic of his personality, even in his outward appearance, through the dignity of his demeanor, through the seriousness that was present in everything he uttered, already gives the impression that he could have become a kind of leading personality in the second half of the 19th century.

You may now rightly ask: But how is it that this personality has remained quite unknown in the broadest circles? Franz Brentano actually became known only to a narrow circle of students. All these students are people who received the most profound inspiration from him. This can still be seen in the work of those who are in turn the students of those students, for it is they who are actually still around today. Franz Brentano made a significant impression on a narrow circle. And most of the students in this circle are certainly so minded towards him that they perceive him as one of the most stimulating and significant people for centuries.

But the fact that Brentano has remained unknown in the widest circles is characteristic of the entire development of civilization in the 19th century. One could, of course, cite many personalities who, in one direction or another, are also representatives of intellectual life in the 19th century. But you could not find a personality as significant and as characteristic as Franz Brentano, no matter how hard you looked. Therefore, I would like to say: Franz Brentano shows that although natural science, in the form it took in the 19th century, can acquire great authority, it cannot exercise spiritual leadership within the whole of culture despite this great authority. For that, natural science must first be developed into spiritual science; then it has everything in it that can truly, together with spiritual science, assume a certain leadership in the spiritual life of humanity.

To understand this, we must today take a broader view. If we look back to the earliest times of humanity, we know that a kind of dream-like clairvoyance was present everywhere as a general human faculty. To this dream-like clairvoyance, the initiates, the initiates of the mysteries, added higher supersensible knowledge, but also knowledge about the sensory world.

If we were to go back to the very early days of human development, we would find no difference in the way the physical and the supersensible are treated. All spiritual life has proceeded from the mystery schools, which were basically churches and art institutions at the same time. But in the deepest sense, this spiritual life influenced all human life in the old days, including state and economic life. Those who were active in state life sought the advice of the mystery priests, but so did those who wanted to provide impetus in economic life. There was actually no separation between the religious and scientific elements in those ancient times. The leaders of religious life were the leaders of intellectual life in general and were also the people who set the tone in the sciences. But more and more, the development of humanity has taken shape in such a way that those currents of human life that originally formed a unity have separated. Religion has become separate from science, from art.

This happened only slowly and gradually. If we look back to Greece, we find that there was no natural science in our sense, and alongside it, for example, philosophy; rather, Greek philosophy also discussed natural science, and there was no separate natural science. But as philosophy in Greece emerged as something independent, the religious element had already separated from this philosophy. Although the mysteries were still the source of the deepest truths, in Greece, especially in later Greece, what the mysteries gave was already being criticized from the standpoint of philosophical reason. But religious revelation continued, and when the Mystery of Golgotha appeared, it was essentially religious revelation that set out to understand this mystery. Whatever understanding of theology still existed within European civilization during the first few centuries is no longer properly understood by people today; they refer to it disparagingly as 'gnosis' and the like. But there was a great deal of spiritual understanding in this gnosis, and there was a clear awareness that One must understand spiritual matters in the same way as one understands today, for example, gravity or the phenomena of light or anything else in the physical sense. They did not have the awareness that there is a science separate from religious life. Even on Christian soil, the first church fathers, the first great teachers of Christianity, were absolutely convinced that they were treating knowledge as something unified. Of course, the Greek separation of religious life was already there, but they included both the contemplation of the religious and the rational contemplation of the merely physical in the treatment of all spiritual matters. It was only in the Middle Ages that this changed. In the Middle Ages, scholasticism arose, which now made a strict separation - as I already pointed out yesterday - between human science and what is actual knowledge of the spiritual. This could not be attained through the application of independent human powers of knowledge; it could only be attained through revelation, through the acceptance of revelations. And more and more it had come to be that one said: Man cannot penetrate the highest truths through his own powers of knowledge; he must accept them as they are delivered by the church as revelation. Human science can only spread over what the senses give and draw some conclusions from what the senses give as truths, as I said yesterday.

Thus, a strict distinction was made between a science that spread over the sensory world and that which was the content of revelation. Now, for the development of modern humanity, the last three to five centuries have become extraordinarily significant in many respects. If you had told a person from those older times, when religion and science were one, that religion was not based on human knowledge, he would have considered it nonsense; for all religions originally came from human knowledge. Only it was said: If man confines himself to his consciousness, as it is given to him for everyday life, then he does not attain to the highest truths; this consciousness must first be raised to a higher level. From the old point of view, it was said just as one is forced to say today, for example, according to what I have presented in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in the second part of my “Occult Science in Outline”: that man must ascend through special treatment of his soul abilities in order to gain higher knowledge. This was also said in ancient times. People were aware that with ordinary consciousness one can only recognize what is spread around man; but one can further develop this consciousness and thus arrive at supersensible truths. Thus in those ancient times one would not have spoken of a revelation reaching man somewhere without his own activity. That would have been felt to be nonsense. And so all the dogmas contained in the various church teachings originally come from such initiation truths. Today, people easily say: dogmas such as the Trinity or the Incarnation must have been revealed, they cannot be approached through human cognitive abilities. But originally they did arise out of human cognitive abilities.

And in the Middle Ages, people had progressed to a greater use of their intellect. This is characteristic, for example, of scholasticism, in that the intellect was used in a grand sense, but only applied to the sensual world, and that at this stage of human development one no longer felt capable of developing higher powers of cognition, at least not in the circles in which the old dogmas had been handed down as doctrines of revelation. Then they refused to pave the way for man to the supersensible world through higher powers of knowledge. So they took over what had been achieved in ancient times through real human knowledge, through tradition, through historical tradition, and said that one should not examine it with human science.

People gradually came to accept this attitude towards knowledge. They gradually got used to calling belief that which was once knowledge, but which they no longer dared to attain; and they only called knowledge that which is actually gained through human cognitive abilities for the sensual world. This doctrine had become more and more pronounced, especially within Catholicism. But as I already told you yesterday: basically, all modern scientific attitudes are also nothing more than a child of this scholasticism. People just stopped at saying that the human intellect could only gain knowledge about nature, and did not care about the supersensible knowledge. They said that man could not gain this through his abilities. But then it was left to faith to accept the old knowledge as handed-down dogmas or not.

After the 18th century had already proclaimed mere sensual knowledge and what can be gained from it through rational conclusions, the tendency emerged in the 19th century in particular to only accept as science what can be gained in this way by applying human abilities to the sensual world. And in this respect, the 19th century has achieved an enormous amount, and great things are still being achieved in the field of scientific research through the application of scientific methods.

I would like to say that the last public attempt to ascend into the spiritual world was made at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century by the movement known as German idealism. This German idealism was preceded by a philosopher like Cart, who now also wanted to express the separation between knowledge and belief philosophically. Then came those energetic thinkers, Fichte, Schelling, Flegel, and these stand there, at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, like last mighty pillars, because they wanted to go further with the human capacity for knowledge than mere sensory knowledge and what can be deduced from it.

Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are very different from one another. Fichte started from the human ego, developed an enormous power precisely in grasping the human ego, and sought to conquer the world cognitively from the human ego. Schelling developed a kind of imaginative construction of a world view. This impetus in the imaginative construction of thoughts even brought him close to an understanding of the mysteries. Hegel believed in the thought itself, and he believed that in the thought that man can grasp, the eternal lives directly. It is a beautiful thought when Hegel said that he wanted to recognize the spirit and conquer it from the point of view of thought. But only those who grasp Hegel's general striving, this striving towards the spirit, can really taste him. For when one reads Hegel — most people soon stop reading, after all — he is, despite his belief in the spirituality of thought, a terribly abstract thinker when he expounds his ideas. And it is true that, although the impulse that lived in Hegel in terms of the spirit was an immensely strong one, Hegel gave mankind nothing but an inventory of abstract concepts.

Why was that so? It is indeed a tremendous tragedy that these robust, powerful thinkers, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, did not actually penetrate to spirituality.

This is because, in the general civilization of that time, humanity was not yet mature enough to really open the gates to the spiritual world. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel only got as far as thought. But what is the thought that lives in man in ordinary consciousness?

Do you remember what I said some time ago? When we follow a person's life from birth to death, we have the person before us as a living being; soul and spirit warm and illuminate what stands before us as a physical being. When the person has died for the physical world, then we have the corpse in the physical world. We bury or cremate this corpse. Just think what a tremendous difference there is for an unprejudiced human observer of life between a fully living human being and a corpse. If you can only grasp this difference with your heart, then you will be able to understand what the spiritual scientist has to say about another phase of life, when man is considered between death and a new birth, as he is as a soul-spiritual being in a spiritual world, how he develops there, how he, while growing old here on earth, becomes younger and younger in the spiritual world until the moment when he finds his way down to a physical embodiment. What lives in man can be grasped just as much with the higher spiritual powers as one can grasp what lives in a physical human being. And then one can ask oneself: What remains of it when the human being has been born, what presented itself to our view in the spiritual world above, before the soul-spiritual descended? What remains in the human being, perceptibly, are his thoughts. But these thoughts, which the human being then carries within himself here on earth through the physical body, are the corpse of the thoughts that belong to the human being when he lives between death and a new birth in the spiritual and soul world. The abstract thoughts we have here are quite a corpse compared to the living being that is in man between death and a new birth, just as the corpse is in the physical compared to the living person before he has died for the physical world.

Those who do not want to take the step of enlivening abstract thoughts allow nothing more to live in them than the corpse of what was in them before they descended to earth. And only this corpse of thoughts lived in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, however magnificent these thoughts are. One would like to say: In ancient times, when religion, science and art were still one, something of the life that belongs to man in the spiritual world still lived on in earthly thoughts. Even in Plaio, one can perceive in the sweep of his ideas how something supermundane lived on in him. This is becoming less and less. People keep the knowledge of the supermundane as revelation. But otherwise the human being would not have been able to become free, he would not have been able to develop freedom. The human being comes more and more to have nothing but the corpse of his prenatal inner life in his thinking. And just as one sometimes finds in certain people, when they have died, an enormous freshness in the corpse for a few days, so it was with the corpse-thoughts of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel: they were fresh, but they were nevertheless just those corpses of the supersensible, of which a real spiritual science must speak.

But I ask you now: Do you believe that we could ever encounter a human corpse in the world if there were no living people? Anyone who encounters a human corpse knows that this corpse was once alive. And so someone who really looks at our thinking, our abstract, our dead, our corpse thinking, will come to the conclusion that this too once lived, namely before man descended into a physical body.

But this realization had also been lost to man, and so people were experiencing dead thinking, and they revered everything that came to them from living thinking as a revelation, if they still placed any value on it at all. This was particularly confirmed by the great advances in natural science that came in the period I have already mentioned, when Franz Brentano was young.

To the many peculiarities of Franz Brentano, I must add two more today. Yesterday I wanted to characterize the personality more, today I want to point out the development over time. Therefore, today's consideration must be somewhat more general.

In addition to all the qualities that I mentioned yesterday about this Franz Brentano, who grew out of Catholicism but then became a general philosopher, he had an immense antipathy towards Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. He did not rail against them as Schopenhauer did, because he had a better education; but he did use harsh words, only more delicately expressed, not in the same truly abominable tone as Schopenhauer's. But one must realize that a man who grows out of Catholicism into a new outlook cannot, after all, have any other attitude toward Fichte, Schelling and Hegel than Franz Brentano had. When one has outgrown scholasticism, one wants to apply to the sense world what for Hegel, for example, is the highest human power of cognition, thinking, and in the sense world, thinking is only an auxiliary means.

Just think: with this thinking-corpse one approaches the sense world, one grasps inanimate nature first. You cannot grasp living nature with this thinking anyway. This thinking corpse is just right for inanimate nature. But Hegel wanted to embrace the whole world with all its secrets with this thinking corpse. Therefore, you will not find any teaching about immortality or God in Hegel, but what you do find will seem quite strange to you.

Hegel divides his system into three parts:

logic, natural philosophy, and the doctrine of the spirit = art, religion, science

Logic is an inventory of all the concepts that man can develop, but only of those concepts that are abstract. This logic begins with being, goes to nothingness, to becoming. I know that if I were to give you the whole list, you would go crazy because you would not find anything in all these things that you are actually looking for. And yet Hegel says: That which emerges again in man when he develops being, nothingness, becoming, existence and so on as abstract concepts, that is God before the creation of the world.

Take Hegel's logic, it is full of abstract concepts from beginning to end, because the last concept is that of purpose. You can't do much with that either. There is nothing at all about any kind of soul immortality, about a God in the sense that you recognize it as justified, but rather an inventory of nothing but abstract concepts. But now imagine these abstract concepts as existing before there is nature, before there were people, and so on. This is God before the creation of the world, says Hegel. Logic is God before the creation of the world. And this logic then created nature and came to self-awareness in nature.

So first there is logic, which, according to Hegel, is the god before the creation of the world. Then it passes into its otherness and comes to itself, to its self-awareness; it becomes the human spirit. And the whole system then concludes with art, religion and science as the highest. These are the three highest expressions of the spirit. So in religion, art and science, God continues to live within the earth. Hegel registers nothing other than what is experienced on earth in everyday life. He actually only proclaims the spirit that has died, not the living spirit.

This must be rejected by those people who seek science in the modern sense, based on a scientific education. It must be rejected because, when one penetrates into nature with dead concepts, the matter does not go so that one remains with the abstractions. Even if you are so poorly educated in botany that you transform all the beautiful flowers into the number of stamens, into the description of the seed, the ovary and so on, even if you have such abstract concepts in your head, and then go out with a botany drum and bring back nothing but abstract concepts, at least the withered flowers are still there, and they are still more concrete than the most abstract concepts. And when you, as a chemist, stand in the laboratory, no matter how much you fantasize about all kinds of atomic processes and the like, you cannot help but also describe what happens in the retort when you have a certain substance inside and below it the lamp that causes this substance to evaporate, melt and so on. You still have to describe something that is a thing. And finally, when physicists in optics also draw for you how light rays refract and describe everything that light rays still do according to the physicists, you will still be reminded of colors again and again when that beautiful drawing is made that shows how light rays pass through a prism, are deflected in different ways. And even if all color has long since evaporated in the physical explanation of color, you will still be reminded of the colors. But if you want to grasp the spiritual with a completely abstract system of concepts and with completely abstract logic, then you have no choice but to use abstract logic. A person like Franz Brentano could not accept this as a real description of the spirit, nor could the other scholastics, because at least they still have tradition as revelation. Therefore, as a student in the mid-19th century, Brentano was faced with a truly irrepressible thirst for truth and knowledge, with an inner scientific conscientiousness that was unparalleled in his time, so that he could not receive anything from those who were still the last great philosophers of modern civilization. He could only accept the strict method of natural science. In his heart he carried what Catholicism with its theology had given him. But he could not bring all this together into a new spiritual understanding.

But what is particularly appealing is how infinitely truthful this human being was. Because – and this brings me to the other thing I mentioned – when we look at the human being as he is born into the physical world, as he makes his first fumbling movements as a child, as we first fumbling movements as a child, we see in an unskillful way the unfolding of what was tremendously wise before it descended into the physical world. If we understand spiritual science correctly, we say to ourselves: We see how the childlike head organism is born. In it we have an image of the cosmos. Only at the base of the skull do the earthly forces, as it were, brace themselves. If the base of the skull were rounded, as the top of the head is rounded, the head would truly be a reflection of the cosmos. This is something that human beings bring with them. We can certainly regard the head, when we consider it as a physical body, as a reflection of the cosmos. This is truly the case.

I was criticized for mentioning an important fact in public, but without mentioning such facts, one cannot actually get to the world's interrelations: I have publicly stated that there is a certain arrangement of furrows in the human brain, certain centers are and so on. Even in these smallest details, this human brain is a reflection of the starry sky at the time when the person is born. In the head we see an image of the cosmos, which we also see externally with our senses, even though most people do not perceive its spiritual aspect. In the chest organism, in what mainly underlies the rhythmic system, we see how the roundness of the cosmos has already been somewhat overcome by adapting to the earth. But if you follow the chest organism with its peculiar formation of the spine with the ribs and sees how this thoracic organism is connected to the cosmos through breathing, then, even if only in a very altered form, something like an image of the cosmos can still be seen in the thoracic, in the rhythmic organism. But no longer in the metabolic-limb organism. There you cannot possibly see anything that is modeled on the cosmos. Now, the formation of the head is connected with thinking, the thoracic organism, the rhythmic organism with feeling, and the metabolic-limb organism with will.

Why is it precisely the metabolism-limb organism, which is actually the most earthly part of the human being, that is the seat of the will? This is how it is connected: in the human head we have a very faithful image of the cosmos. The soul-spiritual has flowed into the head, into the formative forces. One could say that the human being learned from the cosmic forces before descending to earth and formed his head accordingly. He still forms the thoracic organism a little, but no longer the limb organism at all. The will is in the latter. So that when one looks at the human external organism, thinking must be assigned to the head, feeling to the middle man and willing to the metabolic-limb organism. But in what is really the lowest, the metabolism and the limbs, the spiritual also maintains itself best, so that in our thinking we have only a corpse of what we were before we descended. In our feelings we have a little more, but feeling, as you know, remains in a dream-like state, and the will, one no longer even notices with the ordinary consciousness. The will remains entirely in the unconscious, but in it there is still most of the life of what we were before we descended to earth. When we are developed as a child, most of our immortal soul is in our will. Now, most people do not have many scruples; they say: Man has the three soul powers within him, thinking, feeling and willing. You know, these three soul activities are listed as if they were present for ordinary consciousness, whereas in anthroposophy we first have to point out that actually only thinking is fully awake. Feeling is already like dreams in people, and people know nothing at all about willing. I must emphasize again and again: Even if we only want to raise an arm, the thought, “I am raising my arm,” flows into the organism and becomes will, so that the arm is actually raised. Man knows nothing of this, he sleeps through it in the waking state, just as he otherwise sleeps through things from falling asleep to waking up. So instead of saying: we have in us the waking thinking, the dreaming feeling, the sleeping willing, they say: we have thinking, feeling and willing, which are supposed to be on a par with one another.

Now imagine a person who has an infinite sense of truth and who works with modern science, that is, who only uses thinking. The modern natural scientist, whether he is using a microscope, looking at the cosmos through a telescope, or doing astrophysics with a spectral analyzer, always turns only to conscious thinking. Therefore, it became an axiom for Franz Brentano that all unconsciousness had to be rejected. He wanted to stick only to ordinary conscious thinking, and for this he did not want to develop higher cognitive abilities. What could we actually expect from such a person when he speaks of the soul, when he wants to speak as a psychologist? One might expect that he would not speak of the will at all in psychology if he sticks only to the conscious. One might expect that he would cross out the will entirely, be quite uncertain about feeling, and really treat only thinking correctly.

Other, more superficial minds have not come to this. Franz Brentano's psychology does not divide the soul faculties into thinking, feeling and willing, but into imagining, judging and into the phenomena of love and hate, that is, into the phenomena of sympathy and antipathy, that is, of feeling. You will not find any will in him at all. The right active will is absent from Brentano's psychology because he was a thoroughly honest seeker of truth, and he really had to admit: I just can't find the will.

On the other hand, there is something tremendously moving in seeing how infinitely sincere and honest this personality actually is. Will is absent from Brentano's psychology, for he separates judgment and imagination so that he now has three parts to the life of the soul; but judgment and imagination coincide in terms of the capacity of the soul, so that he actually has only two.

Now consider the consequence of what appears in Brentano. What does he have in reality i. in man? By becoming a modern natural scientist and not giving anything a value that does not present itself to conscious thinking according to the natural scientific method, he excludes volition from the human soul. And what does he thereby eliminate? Precisely that which we bring with us as living beings from our state before we descend into a physical body.

Brentano was confronted with a science that eliminated precisely the eternal in the soul for him. The other psychologists did not feel this. He felt it, and therefore there arose for him the tremendous abyss between what was once a doctrine of revelation that spoke to him of the eternal in the human soul, and what he could find alone according to his scientific method, which even cut away the volition and thus the eternal from the human soul.

Thus Brentano is a personality who is characteristic of everything that the 19th century was unable to give to humanity. The gates to the spiritual world had to be opened. And that is the reason why I have spoken to you about Franz Brentano, who died in Zurich in 1917, because in him I see the most characteristic of all those philosophers of the 19th century who already had a serious striving for truth But they were held fast by the fetters of the natural-scientific spirit, which did not want to rise to a spiritual comprehension of the world, and in this way show everywhere that the time has come when this spiritual conception is needed. What, after all, is the difference between what spiritual science in the anthroposophical sense really wants and the tragic striving of a man like Franz Brentano? That Franz Brentano, with tremendous acumen, has brought in the concepts that can be obtained from ordinary consciousness, and said: That is where you have to stop. But the knowledge is not complete; one strives in vain for real knowledge. But he was never satisfied with that; he always wanted to get out. He just could not get out of his natural science. And that remained so until his death. One might say that spiritual science had to begin where Brentano left off, had to take the step from ordinary consciousness into higher consciousness. That is why he is so extraordinarily interesting, indeed the most interesting philosopher of the second half of the 19th century, because in him the striving for truth was truly something personal. It must be said: if you want to study one symptom of what a person had to experience in the development of science and in the spiritual development of modern times, you can consider this nephew of Clemens Brentano, the philosopher Franz Brentano. He is characteristic of everything that a person has to seek and cannot find with the usual scientific method. He is characteristic of this because one must go beyond what he strove for with such an honest sense of truth. The more closely one looks at him, right down into the structures of his psychology, the more this becomes apparent. He is precisely one of those minds that show: humanity needs a spiritual life again that can intervene in everything. It cannot come from natural science. But this natural science is the fate of modern times in general, as it has become the fate of Brentano. For like the true modern Faust of the nineteenth century, Brentano sits first in Würzburg, then in Vienna, then in Florence, then in Zurich, wrestling with the greatest problems of humanity. He does not admit to himself that “we cannot know”, but he would have to if he were fully aware of his own method. He would actually have to say to himself: natural science is what prevents me from undertaking the path into the spiritual world.

But this natural science speaks a strong, authoritative language. And so it is also in public life today. Science itself cannot offer people what they need for their soul. The greatest achievements of the 19th and 20th centuries could not give people a kind of guiding spirit. And this scientific attitude is a strong obstacle due to its powerful authority, because wherever anthroposophy appears, science initially opposes it, and although science itself cannot give people anything, when it comes to anthroposophy, the question is: does science agree with it? — For even those who know little about science have the overriding feeling today that science is right, and if science says that anthroposophy is nonsense, then it must be right. As I said, people do not need to know much about science, because after all, what do the monistic speakers know about science? As a rule, they have in mind the general things that applied three decades ago! But they act as if they were speaking from the full spirit of contemporary science. That is why many people see it as an authority.

One can also see from Brentano's inner destiny the outer destiny, not the inner destiny of the anthroposophical world view, but its outer destiny.

I will try to answer your prepared questions during the course of this lecture. Except that I would like to answer some of them in a special session with the arch-rulers even if they were asked by others. This could be done in the next few days, and the answers could then be passed on.

I would especially like to draw your attention to a seal in the Apocalypse which is an Imagination of the Apocalypticer and which has often been depicted by artists in connection with the Apocalypse. One cannot always say that these pictorial renderings of what is in the Apocalypse are very felicitous. However, one can hardly fail to recognize the individual parts of the seal that is involved here and which will be realized in our time, as we saw yesterday, for they come to meet one in the Apocalypse in a quite characteristic way. However, in order to understand this seal, we will have to discuss something which goes parallel with it, which is very important for our time, and has already been touched upon in an Anthroposophical connection and which we find illuminated in a particular way at this point in the Apocalyptic discussion.

If one looks at the development of man and notices how he becomes a being who is split into three parts, as his consciousness makes the transition from the physical, sensory world to a perception of the spiritual world, as I described in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?,—if one looks at this one will say to oneself, a triad and a monad are united in men through the integration of these into the form of a physical being. This union is really quite obvious. One can see it if one studies the opinion about the division of the human being that is expressed in Anthroposophy.

Let's look at man and his spirit, soul and body. The way this division is related to the others that are given in Anthroposophy should be clear without further ado. Now, thoughts live in the spirit which man has today. These thoughts are like I the ones which I refer to in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, for instance, where one has pure thoughts that are freely created in man's consciousness, and not the kind that are permeated by sense perceptions. Here, thoughts are almost completely illusory from a qualitative viewpoint; they are a full reality to such a small extent that we don't have quite enough inner force because we don't have a mirror image, and so we can't quite, compare them with mirror images, and yet in a certain sense we can. The image that appears in a mirror doesn't unfold any forces along the directions of its lines, it is completely passive. Human thoughts have some force when they are developed, so that we can catch this force and we can permeate it with will—as I said yesterday in the esoteric class. But the ordinary thoughts that man has during his lifetime are really like mirror images in comparison with the universe's existence and its full content. So that although we hear spirit in our human being, it's a mirror image of the spirit.

What we bear within us there comes from a world which I called spiritland in my Theosophy. So when we think on earth we're really bringing the ingredients of the spiritland down to the earth as an illusory reflection. When we think we carry what Theosophy calls devachan down into the earth sphere, even though this is only a faint reflection of it. We bear these contents in us on earth; we bear a faint reflection of heavenly splendors in us.

If we pass on to the soul element we mainly find feeling there. It exists as feeling during the waking state, and as pictorial dreams while we're asleep. The only difference between dreams and feelings is that one is the content of the soul during the waking state and the other is its content during sleep. What we experience in our feelings as men on earth between birth and death comes from another world that I described from a certain viewpoint in my Theosophy. It comes from the soul world which we experience in its real form after death. Our feeling life is not a mirror image of this real form but an image of it which is maintained in our soul by creative elemental powers. We only dream of this soul world in our feelings and there is no reality in our image of it.

What constitutes men's bodies on earth today does not develop any consciousness of archetypes, but it contains the strongest realities of existence. We are real in our body, but we are only active in the physical, terrestrial world in it. Thus the three members of man's being belong to different worlds.

You must develop a correct view about these things, since you want to work upon the being of man, and therefore you must have something in your feelings that points to what exists in man's being. Quite good philosophers have failed to understand my division of man's being altogether. They have expressed one misunderstanding after another about it, which shows how difficult it is even for good thinkers of the present time to really get into Anthroposophy.

One philosopher spoke about this division of man as if it were an arbitrary one that had been made with the intellect and which amounted to a formal schematism. Of course one can also divide a table into legs, top, etc., even though the whole thing is made of wood. One could also divide it from left to right, but the division of the human being has nothing to do with such an arbitrary classification. One could put it like this: if one has real hydrogen and real oxygen and one combines them one gets water. They are realities and not just artificial schemata. Likewise, man's members are not separated in an arbitrary way; they are integrated into the reality of human nature, so that one can say that the spirit comes from spirit land, the soul from the soul world and the physical body from the physical world. These members of the human being come from three different worlds and they are integrated in man. And when man leaves the physical world with his consciousness, his inner elements split up, and the one becomes three. However, what happens in individual men in this way takes place in the whole of humanity throughout its various racial and national evolutions, although not everyone has to participate in it. One can say that the evolving humanity which is present in the sub-consciousness of every single human being and which doesn't become noticeable to ordinary consciousness, goes through stages of development that are similar to the ones individual men go through.

Something like a splitting into three and a crossing of the threshold by mankind is taking place in our time. In our consciousness age individual men have to acquire something which constitutes a going past' the Guardian of the Threshold, if they want to do it. However, mankind is going past the Guardian of the Threshold in our time, although, individual men are unaware of this. The whole of humanity is crossing the threshold. Whereas the physical body still gave something to men on earth up to the end of the 18th century because of the elemental beings which are living in it, men must now get their virtues and everything productive that they will find inwardly from the spiritual world; this is mankind as a whole, not individual human beings. So that a crossing of the threshold is occurring in the evolution of mankind as a whole, which appears to the Apocalypticer before he has his vision of the sun-illuminated woman with the dragon under her feet, because it actually precedes it in time. Here the Apocalypticer has another vision that clearly reflects what he wants to say: The time is coming when the whole of humanity, or at least its civilized parts will have to cross the threshold. And a triad appears which is the cosmic Imagination of what mankind is going through. There will be ever more men who will have the feeling: My thoughts want to run away from me, and my feet are being pulled down by the earth's gravity; this is in addition to other feelings that men can develop when these things become more pathological. Many people today have the strong feeling that their thoughts are running away from them and that their feet are being pulled down to the earth too much. Except that our present-day civilization talks people out of something like this, just as children are talked out of visions they have which are nevertheless based on a real foundation.

However, what lives strongly in our time appears before the clairvoyant eye of the Apocalypticer as a figure that forms out of the clouds, has a face like a sun, goes over into a rainbow, and has fiery feet, of which one is planted on the ocean and the other on the earth. One could say that this is really the most significant vision that the present-day human soul should look at. For the thoughts that belong to spirit land are in the face which is born out of the clouds above. The rainbow is the feeling world in man's soul which belongs to the soul world. What is contained in the bodies of men who belong to the physical world is in the fiery feet that get their strength from the power of the earth Which is covered by the ocean.

One could say that this points to a real cultural secret of the present, which is that there are three kinds of men, and not that each man is split into three parts. One can see this very clearly today. We have cloud men who can only think, whereas the two other parts—rainbow and fiery feet—remain stunted. We have rainbow men where the main development is in the feelings. They can only grasp Anthroposophy with their feelings and not with their minds. However, this type is also present in the outside world and not just in the Anthroposophical Society. They can only grasp the world with their feelings. These people's feelings are well developed but their thinking and will are stunted. Then there are people today who act as if they only had a hypertrophically developed will; their thinking and feeling are stunted; they charge like bulls and act in accordance with direct, outer impulses,—they're the fiery footed men.

The vision of John the Apocalypticer depicts these three kinds of men which we meet in life. We should become aware of this secret of our present-day civilization so that we can look at human beings in the right way. One can also discover them if one looks at larger world events.

Just look at what is, happening in Russia. We have the influence of the cloud man, of the man who mainly thinks, in whom feeling and will are neglected. They would like to surrender their will to a social mechanism, and their feelings are used by Ahrimanic powers because they don't have any control over them. They are thinkers, but since man on earth is organized in an Ahrimanic and Luciferic way, their thinking is like - - I will use an analogy that will seem like a perfectly natural one to anyone who knows spiritual science; it will only scare such people away who haven't worked their way into this kind of thing yet. If one takes the thoughts of Lenin and the others and one looks at these thoughts, that is, if one tries to imagine what the combined thoughts of Lenin, Trotsky, Lunacharski, etc., looks like, if one imagines what is growling and raging in the heads of leading Russians today, one gets what one calls a system of forces in physics. If one was a gigantic elemental spirit one could form clouds and arouse thunder and lightning up in the sky over a large territory with these forces. But they don't belong on earth. This image might surprise you, but anyone who can look into the occult depths of existence must say that the same forces that weave and live in the heads of leading Russians are also in the lightning that is formed in the clouds over our heads and that they flash the lightning down to the earth and roll the thunders. This is where these forces belong. Their action in leading Bolsheviks is out of place.

So you see that the Apocalypticer clearly foresaw many things that are present in our time. And he knew that such an epochal period of time can be indicated with a number. I myself have indicated the approximate number of years which the development of the consciousness soul, intellectual or mind soul, etc., covers. I said that such a period lasts one twelfth of 25.920 years.

Now the place in the Apocalypse to which I'm referring gave me quite a bit of trouble for a while. For the Apocalypticer supposedly prophesies about things that will take one thousand two hundred and threescore days. They used to speak of days when they meant years. Anyway, the Apocalypticer mentions the number 1260. It took a lot of intensive research to discover that the 1260 days is really a printing error, as it were, in the Apocalypse that was handed down. It should say 2160 days. Then it agrees with what one can see today. It's quite possible that an un-clarity arose in some school where the things were handed down, because many numbers look like their mirror images to seers. However, this is something that is not too important when one feels one's way into the Apocalypse.

Now the people who stand within their race in such a way that they're really cloud men are confronted by others who are rainbow men. Their thinking is relatively inactive, they mainly like to use traditional thoughts and they are rather timid about approaching the spiritual world with their thoughts. One meets a large number of such rainbow men in central European regions.

Thinking and feeling get increasingly stunted the further we go west, where we find a pathological development of fiery footed men. One finds large numbers of such fiery footed human beings in the western part of Europe and presumably in America. So that we can divide the earth along these lines: In the east there are many cloud men, in the center many rainbow men, and in the west many fiery footed men.

If we take racial developments into account, one could say that something like a picture of the figure which we encounter here in the Apocalypticer is spread out over the earth, if one looks at it, spiritually from outside. One can't do this in a balloon or airplane, but if one would raise oneself up spiritually into the heights from a point in Westphalen and would look down at the earth, Asia would have a kind of a cloud form face with solar shapes, and one would see rainbow colors spread out over Europe, and further over would be the fiery feet, with one planted on the Andes in South America and the other in the Pacific Ocean. And then one has the earth underneath this image.

This is one of the most incisive prophecies that the Apocalypticer has for our time. This is something that is very important for priestly activities, for the great riddle of our time that developed with Napoleon consists of this. This striving of men into races and nations that has come to expression so incomprehensibly throúgh Wilsonianism today really only arose in a distinct way under the influence of Napoleonism, of the first Napoleon. The way that men are striving towards races and nations and the way that they basically want to bury all cosmopolitanism today is really quite terrible. But the reason for this is that this passage through the threshold, place is occurring.

Just as a human being splits up in the spiritual world when he develops further, so men on earth split up into regions that individual human beings remain unaware of, namely, into cloud men, rainbow men and fiery footed men. This splitting of men into three parts—which I described for individuals in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, has occurred for humanity on earth; it's here. The powerful sign which the Apocalypticer sketches is there in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. People cannot find the harmony between the three parts at first, and so they look for things in the split rather than in the union; which sometimes leads to rather strange results.

For instance, through this whole external way of thinking that takes hold of people, one can see that people don't find their way together with inner understanding, that is, they often unite for superficial reasons. For instance, we can see that the Czechs whose land is between the Krusnehory and Fichtel mountains, the Bohemian Forest and down to the Morave River and over to Bratislava (formerly Pressburg), and up to the Ceskyles and Sumava Mountains as the southern boundary,—that these Czechs are cloud people in the most eminent sense of the word, who have only developed their thinking. They were welded together with the Slovaks in a way that shows a lack of inner understanding, for the Slovaks are definitely a rainbow people who are not the thinking type at all. On the other hand, we see that another quite external relationship which had been formed shortly before is dissolved. All of these human, earthly activities are not very sensible, because they want to exclude the spirit.

We see that the whole of Slovakia was recently separated from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, which is the territory which I just indicated. We see that all of this Slovakia was previously united with Magyar country and with real Magyars. You must distinguish the real Magyars from the immigrated ones, and you can do this just by looking at their names. A real Magyar has a name one can't even pronounce in the west, especially if he's an older type. But he's called Hirschfeld, if he's one of those agitative and screaming Magyars of today. One has to go back to the genuine Magyars who are all fiery-footed men, and they were briefly welded together with the rainbow Slovaks. The non-spirit in the world today throws the dice in such a way that the Slovaks are first thrown together with the Magyars and then with the Czechs.

That is the way the dice are being thrown in general today. This comes to expression in deeper symptoms, such as the fact that a really significant person like Masaryk who is standing at the helm in the Czechoslovakian Republic, is a Slovak, and not a Czech. Anyone who knows Masaryk knows that he is a rainbow man who can't think at all. If you read his books you will see that our age is speaking in them. He is a rainbow man, a real Slovak.

One has to be able to look at contemporary human beings in accordance with these categories in order to see the kind of crap game that is being played, although of course this is based on world karma. Here we must look at the age—which is really ours—which can say of itself that it is entering ever more into men's consciousness and into the consciousness soul. People previously saw the starry script written outside; they saw the contents of old traditions and old wisdom written outside. There is a kind of a memory of this man who is split into three in ancient books. Everything which the wise men proclaimed about the world in the mystery centers in Macedonia, Greece, Ephesus, Samothrace, Delphi and in other places in Asia Minor and elsewhere is the book which is preserved from ancient times, which is in the hand of the angel whose face is fashioned out of clouds, his chest out of a rainbow, and his feet out of fire, and he stands firmly in America with the rest of his body spread out over Europe and Asia. However, as consciousness men we can only keep this active and alive for ourselves if we have to look within ourselves for the source which enables us to learn how to see spiritual things. We must devour the book, which could previously only be brought from outside, and bring it into ourselves. This book which contains the world's secrets is sweet in the mouths of some people at first. People like to come to things which can give them spiritual views; so that they taste like honey to them. But as soon as one has to fulfill the exacting conditions in life which are connected with a spiritual comprehension of the world then what the Apocalypticer says is sweet as honey becomes a stomach ache, especially to the people who have become so materialistic today. These people find that the digestion of the spiritual nourishment that is so necessary for them is painful.

If we look at this, we have to admit that all of this dice throwing and confusion indicates that a force which can measure everything in a new way must come from the spiritual power that can be seen in threefold man. A reed, or really a measuring rod, is sent down from heaven, with which everything is to be measured in a new way. Just look at our time. Doesn't everything have to be measured anew? Shouldn't we add something like a cloud shape to that abstract Asian shape that we find on our maps, rainbow colors to Europe and fiery feet to the Americas? Don't we have to measure everything anew from the viewpoint of the spiritual life? After all, we're right m the midst of what the Apocalypse is showing us here.

If we grasp what we must stand in in a fully conscious way, we will get away from the layman's attitude that is often present in the depths of our sub-consciousness today and we will acquire a non-rationalistic grasp of the tasks of our time through what is to be a new priesthood. This is something that should be said in connection with this particular chapter of the Apocalypse. The things agree in every detail. Vie will have more to say about racial and individual evolution tomorrow.

Let us consider to-day the transformation of the ancient Moon into the present Earth. But first of all we must draw attention to an important phenomenon of the Moon development. When this development drew towards its close, when. everything, which I have already described to you had more or less taken, place, the ancient Moon and the Sun were reunited. The ancient Moon found its way back, as it were, to the Sun, and as a result a uniform body arose. These two celestial bodies which were reunited then passed over into a kind of latent planetary existence. Out of this came forth the fourth metamorphosis, which did not immediately resemble our present Earth, for the present condition of our Earth was prepared gradually and slowly. A study of the Earth in particular can give us a clear conception of the cosmic law that later conditions of development must in a certain way repeat conditions which have already existed. Before the Earth became our present planet—after awaking from its latent planetary condition—it had to repeat briefly the Saturn, Sun and Moon conditions. Of course, this development took a somewhat different course than in the case of the three planets themselves.

Upon Saturn we found the first foundation of the sensory apparatus which we now possess; During the first repetition of the Saturn Condition these sensory forms had progressed so far that a kind of human shape could develop; but during this metamorphosis the automatic sense-apparatus did not as yet possess an etheric body. The etheric body was embodied during the repetition of the Sun condition, and the astral body was added during the third transformation, the repetition of the moon condition. During the third phase we once more have Sun and Moon as separate bodies in the cosmic space. But the beings who lived upon them had in the meantime developed further; they had gradually prepared themselves for the experiences which awaited them upon the Earth. There, a fourth member was added to the three bodies which the animal-like human race possessed upon the ancient Moon, and this fourth member was the Ego.

But this course of development did not take place so quickly. While the earth was passing through its Saturn epoch, the automatic sense-apparatus of man had to mould a form enabling it to absorb the Ego. During the Sun repetition the etheric body also transformed itself, so as to be able to become the bearer of an Ego, and during the Moon repetition the astral body underwent a change enabling it to take in the Ego. These members waited, as it were, for the moment when they could take in the Ego.

What we were able to pursue thus far, was the separation of the Sun from the Moon. Then comes a stage which more closely approaches our present development, namely the separation of the Moon from the Earth. Two bodies emerge from the ancient Moon: one which consisted of the worst material in regard to its beings and substances, was thrown out into the cosmic space, and the other formed the present Earth. It was necessary to eliminate that which would have hindered the beings from their further development and this part which was cast out became the present Moon. After the elimination the Earth existed as an independent cosmic body. This entailed powerful cosmic events: first the separation of the Earth plus Moon from the Sun, and then the separation of the Earth from the Moon. These two events prepared our present development.

I have led you as far as the point where our Earth became an independent sphere. Let me now lead you to this point by following another direction, so that you may have a clear idea as to the exact position of this point in regard to our Earth. Let us go back from the immediate present into the past; let us go back from the present form of the Earth which you all know, to a past condition. Even natural science draws attention to the great differences between the present and the past aspect of our Earth. All this, to be sure, is based on hypotheses, but in this field natural science meets spiritual science to some extent. Natural science says: Huge virgin forests once existed in the regions which we now inhabit, their climate was one which we now encounter in Equatorial zones and gigantic animals lived in those forests.

According to the statements of modern natural science the face of our Earth once presented quite a different aspect from the present one. The ice-age followed the tropical climate and preceded the present temperate one. Every book on geology contains these facts. I am only telling you this in order to show you that the face of our Earth underwent great transformations in the course of certain epochs of time and that now it presents an entirely different aspect from that of the past.

As far as the external aspect of the Earth is concerned, natural science, which only disposes of the combining intellectual power, of apparatuses, etc., can only look back upon a few thousands of years. The descriptions of a clairvoyant looking back upon the past development of our Earth must, however, differ from those of natural science though a kind of harmony ,will one day be established between natural science and spiritual science. Natural science draws attention to a fact which a clairvoyant can ascertain without any doubt namely that the face of our Earth has not only changed in regard to plants, but that continents and oceans once existed in regions of our Earth where they no longer exist. Huxley, for instance, pointed out that a whole part of Great Britain has already been submerged by the ocean four times. Thus the face of our Earth constantly undergoes a transformation. In volume 12 of “Kosmos” you may, for instance, find an article on the so-called old continent of Atlantis, where a scientist who completely adopts the standpoint of natural science proves, through the configuration of the flora and fauna in Europe and in America, that the present Atlantic Ocean must once have been a continent, and that great parts of Africa must in those times have been covered by the ocean. On the other hand, the continent of Atlantis existed, in the West, stretching between the present Europe and America. This scientist only speaks of the fauna and of the flora of Atlantis, which is of course natural. But even if remnants of the ancient human beings, who were our ancestors could be found (they must exist at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean), it is not possible to-day to investigate to such an extent the bottom of the ocean. The clairvoyant, however, can look back as far as the time of Atlantis, and he knows that this ancient Atlantean continent, which Plato describes, really existed. Essentially speaking, the whole surface now covered by the Atlantic Ocean was once Atlantis, and this continent was inhabited by the physical predecessors of the present human race. Of course they had a rather different aspect from the one imagined by modern natural science.

We should not in any way compare them with the present apes; though psychically and physically the Atlanteans greatly differed from modern men, they were not apes. Apes did not exist at that time, for this animal species, only arose much later; simply through the fact that certain human shapes of that time remained behind at the stage of development which had then been reached, and afterwards degenerated, sinking down to a lower stage. Darwinism consequently makes a great mistake, which is, however, easy to detect. If we have before us two men, one upon an imperfect stage of development and the other a man who applied his faculties in order to perfect himself, and if we are told that these two men are relatives, we shall not say: They are relatives, and consequently the more perfect man descends from the less perfect one. Yet Darwinism comes to such a conclusion: The perfect and imperfect specimens stand side by side; one developed upwards by applying his faculties in the right way, while the other led them down and thus became decadent. That is how apes the descendants of human beings, confront man. An ape is a caricature of man, but he is not like a human being.

At the time of Atlantis there existed an entirely different human race, which gradually developed towards a higher stage. But certain men remained behind in there development, and because the Earth itself underwent changes, these beings also changed; they degenerated and became a caricature of man—they became apes. These lower beings, the apes, are consequently degenerated specimens of higher beings who had become decadent.

If we study the Atlantean man, an observation of his psychic qualities will give us the best idea of his way of living.

All that modern men are able to do—to think logically, to calculate, etc.—all this arose much later. Logic, power of judgment, etc. were unknown to the Atlanteans. But on the other hand, they had a soul-quality which has now become decadent; they had an almost inconceivable power of memory. They could not calculate twice two is four, nor make this calculation over and over again through intellectual power, but they could bear in mind the result obtained by multiplying two by two, and they were always able to remember this result. This is connected with an entirely different constitution which existed on that ancient continent. If you wish to have an idea of the physical aspect of that continent, imagine a mountain valley filled with thick fogs and mists: The Atlanteans never saw an atmosphere which was free from moisture. The air was always filled with water. When the ancient Atlanteans came over into Europe,they preserved the memory of this condition and they called the land of their ancestors.“Niflheim”, which mans the land of fogs.

When the last third of the Atlantean epoch drew towards its close, the Atlanteans began to notice that they were Egos. The Ego foundation had indeed existed for some time, and the Atlantean even had a certain feeling for the Ego, but only during the last third of the Atlantean epoch he learned to say clearly: “I am an Ego.” This is connected with the relationship of the etheric body with the physical body.

If you observe these two bodies, you will notice that they more or less coincide, but the etheric body slightly protrudes above the physical body. Between the eyebrows there is a point which constitutes a centre for certain forces and streams of the etheric body, and this corresponds to a definite point in the physical brain. These two points must coincide; on this depends the capacity of being able to experience oneself as an Ego, to calculate, combine, etc. In the case of idiots, f0r instance, these points in the head do not coincide, and when this is the case, man's power of judgment no longer functions properly. In the case of the Atlanteans these points did not coincide, and this is still the case to-day with animals. If you observe the head of a horse you will find that these two points are far apart. In the Atlantean, the etheric head protruded and his physical head had a retreating brow.

But the Atlantean had something which man lost when the etheric body and the physical body began to coincide. The Atlantean still possessed dull clairvoyance, but he was, for instance, unable to count up to five. All his judgments were based on his capacity of remembering incredibly distant times. And that old clairvoyance appeared as the enhancement of our present dream-life. Imagine the highest enhancement of this dream-life: this would lead you to the conceptual capacity, to the ancient, dull, dream-like clairvoyance of the Atlantean. When the Atlantean walked over the earth; he could indeed see the human beings in their physical involucres more or less as we see them to-day, but this perception had in a certain way a misty and foggy outline. The Atlantean could, however, perceive something which we cannot perceive. When we meet someone today, we do not see anything special of his inner being, we can only see what his features reveal to us; a gloomy expression will tell us that he is sad and will enable us to guess something of his state of mind. But when an Atlantean encountered someone who had evil intentions towards him, a brown-red vision rose up before him, and if that person loved him he saw a blue-red vision. A kind of colour vision harmonized with the psychological state of the other person; the Atlantean could still perceive something of what took place in the inner being of other men. An Atlantean walking along, who saw a terrible red-brown fog rising up before him, ran away, for he knew that a dangerous animal was approaching (perhaps it was still far away), one that would surely devour him.

The ancient Atlantean clairvoyance even had a physical foundation. For the Atlantean considered that only his close relatives belonged to him (to a far greater extent than was the case later on). Small communities existed which did not extend beyond the family circle. It was of greatest importance to marry only within this restricted family circle. These marriages between closely connected relatives produced a blood mixture which preserved the etheric body's capacity to receive spiritual influences. Had the Atlantean attempted to marry outside his family circle, he would have suppressed his clairvoyant faculty and, astrally speaking, would have become an idiot. It was a moral, ethical law to remain within the blood-ties of one s family. Before the Atlantean was able, to have a definite experience of his Ego,he said “that am I” to his whole blood-brotherhood. He considered himself as a part of the whole blood-brotherhood, even as the finger is a part of the hand.

But something else is based on this fact. The Atlantean could not only remember his own experiences, but also the experiences of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., reaching far down the line of the generations, as far as the founder of his family. Everything which came from there, everything which streamed through the line of the generations was experienced as a unity. This can show you how greatly developed was the memory of the Atlanteans! Everything was based upon memory. Later on we shall see how man lost this powerful memory because he broke through the circle of close marriages.

An Atlantean soul necessarily required quite a different physical nature and environment than is the case to-day. He needed an environment described, for instance, in the legendary “Niflheim” of the ancient Germans. Legends and myths are not in any way based upon so-called popular fancy or poetic invention. The origin of such legends can be clearly traced. The Atlanteans still possessed an ancient, dull clairvoyance, and the events which were later on related and preserved (though frequently in a distorted form) in the legends and myths of various nations really occurred.

The transmigration of the Atlanteans to the East has been preserved wonderfully in a cycle of European legends. Man could not say “I” to his individual personality, when he still lived on the ancient Atlantean continent. Consequently egoism, which later on constituted the foundation of social life, did not exist among the Atlanteans. The inhabitant of Atlantis considered as his possession everything which belonged to all his blood-relatives and he felt that he was a member of this blood relationship. Then came the transmigration to the East. Man's Ego-consciousness emerged more and more, and with it, human egoism. Man once lived far more in the external world than within his own being; Nature still formed part of his being. He felt as if he were embedded in Nature, as if he were a part of Nature. With the acquisition of his Ego-consciousness, the world around him became narrower and narrower; he separated himself from his environment little by little and the Ego emerged more and more.

This was at the same time connected with a process of Nature. When the old Atlantean looked up to the sky, he could not see the sun as we see it to-day; thick masses of fog filled the air, and when he looked at the sun and at the moon he saw an immense circle of rainbow colours. Then came the time when the Atlantean could perceive the sun and the moon as such. But there was one phenomenon which was unknown to the Atlantean—the rainbow. When the waters of Atlantis began to leave the atmosphere, when rain alternated with sunshine as is the case to-day, then the Atlantean learned to know the rainbow, for there no rainbows in the moisture-filled atmosphere of ancient Atlantis. Now bear in mind that great stretches of land were laid bear by the great Atlantean flood, and this has been wonderfully preserved in many legends, particularly in the Bible. Consider the deep truth contained in the Bible words: “And when the waters had departed, Noah saw the rainbow”. Only when the atmosphere became freed from the fogs and mists of Atlantis, could the sun appear to man in its present form. This process accompanied the narrowing of man' s being, so that he became confined within his own self, within his Ego.

For reasons which have a profound meaning, spiritual wisdom defines the light flooding through space as the etheric gold, and gold is looked upon as the condensed light of the sun. The ancient Atlanteans were taught by their teachers that there is a connection between the light of the sun and gold, and they took in the following image: “The light of the Sun, the gold of the sun, shines forth! It envelops us with a ring which frees the Ego, bringing about the fact that we no longer experience ourselves selflessly as a part of Nature”. Among the Atlanteans the Ego was still dispersed within clouds of mist, but now it began to enfold him like a ring.

The mists of Atlantis left the atmosphere, they were pressed down and appeared in the West as rivers. For the descendants of the Atlanteans, the Rhine was nothing but mist which descended from the air and then flew along as a river. In the Rhine they perceived the masses of water still permeated by light; in the Rhine they felt the presence of the sun's gold, which exercised such a pure and selfless influence upon the inhabitants of ancient Atlantis. They saw this gold in the Nibelung treasure of the Rhine, and anyone who strove to gain possession of this treasure, was their enemy.

Richard Wagner, who describes this in music, was not clearly conscious of this truth, but nevertheless he was inspired by this powerful, encompassing fact. Remember the Prologue to “Rhine Gold”: Is the wonderful organ-theme in E sharp not the point where the Ego enters humanity? But even as the plant does not know the laws according to which it grows, so the poet does not require the full knowledge of what he writes. We must think of the creative artist as one who is inspired by forces which stand behind him. In this case, a conspicuous artist has felt something which must again enter mankind. We can therefore see that even in art the same spirit which lies at the foundation of spiritual science streams into human culture. We can see it flowing into it from two directions. This is how we should consider life as a whole.

We have traced human evolution as far back as Atlantis. Let us now consider a few more details. At that time men did not build houses such as they exist to-day, for they could utilize to a far greater extent the forces which existed in Nature. Masses of rock were moulded together with that which existed in the environment, and constituted dwelling places which resembled natural houses. The further back we go, the more we come across men endowed with clairvoyance and possessing an image-consciousness. In a visionary form, in pictures which rose up before their souls, they could see the feelings of those who lived round about them. In the early Atlantean epoch, even the human will presented quite a different aspect. To-day you can stretch out the finger of your hand through your will, and this action is connected with your thinking. But in the early Atlantean age the body was a far more supple mass. The Atlantean could not only stretch out his finger, but he could even make it longer or shorter; he could easily make his hand grow when he saw a small plant, he could make it grow through an effort of his will. He disposed of a kind of magic. He also had a strange connection with the animal world; he still perceived something which later on could no longer be perceived and he exercised a fascinating power over animals through his gaze.

If we go back still further, we reach an age in which even Atlantis did not exists; people then lived upon a continent designated as “Lemuria”. It stretched south of our present Asia, as far as Africa and Australia; this was the continent inhabited by our ancestors when they were Lemurians. Their body was far softer than that of the Atlanteans and their will, far more powerful. But the ground under their feet was most unsteady; fire eruptions, vulcan ic powers continually upheaved it; ancient Lemuria was a kind of fire-country.

If we go back still further, we reach a time in which the osseous system began to develop out of a boneless mass, and then comes a time in which the earth had not yet developed the present mineral kingdom; everything was in a constant state of flux and reflux.

The further back we go into the evolution of the earth, the greater is the degree of heat which we encounter. We reach an age in which the forms now constituting our solid earth were in a liquid state, like mercury or molten lead. The solid state only developed in Lemuria. Thicker and thicker grow the messes of mist. This was not a sea of fog, but a thick ocean of hot steam, containing, all kinds of molten substances whirling within it. Man's predecessor could already live in certain parts of this steam, but he of course possessed quite a different constitution from the present human being. We thus reach a time in which man lived in a kind of primordial ocean, in a warm, fiery-watery element. The earth's kernel was enveloped by a kind of primordial ocean, containing the germs of everything which developed later on.

This was the aspect of the Earth immediately after the Moon's exit from it as a separate body.

We have now gained insight into a course of development reaching to the time in which the Sun first severed itself from the Earth and from the Moon; and when the Moon severed itself from the Earth, leaving it in the condition described above.

To-morrow we shall once more consider this process which I have set forth just now from two aspects, and then we shall consider the further development of man and of the earth, reaching as far as the present time.

Today I want to discuss some elementary aspects of the idea of multidimensional space [among other things, in connection with the] spirited Hinton.

You will recall how we arrived at the concept of multi-dimensional space, having considered the zeroth dimension [last time]. I would like to briefly repeat the ideas of how we can move from two- to three-dimensional space.

What do we mean by a symmetrical behavior? How do I align a red and a blue [flat figure, which are mirror images of each other]?

With two halves of a circle, I can do this relatively easily by sliding the red [half] circle into the blue one (Figure 10).

This is not so easy in the following [mirror]symmetrical figure (Figure 11). I cannot make the red and blue parts coincide [in the plane], no matter how I try to slide the red into the blue.

But there is a way [to achieve this anyway]: if you step out of the board, that is, out of the second dimension [and use the third dimension, in other words, if you] place the blue figure on the red one [by rotating it through the space around the mirror axis].

The same applies to a pair of gloves: I cannot match one with the other without stepping out of [three-dimensional] space. You have to go through the fourth dimension.

Last time I said that in order to develop an understanding of the fourth dimension, you have to make [the relationships in] space fluid, thereby creating conditions similar to those you have when moving from the second to the third dimension. In the last lesson, we created spatial structures out of paper strips that intertwined. Such interweaving causes certain complications. This is not a game, but such interweavings occur in nature all the time. Anyone who reflects on natural processes knows that such interweavings really do occur in nature. Material bodies move in such intertwined spatial structures. These movements are endowed with forces, so that the forces also intertwine. Take the movement of the earth around the sun and then the movement of the moon around the earth. The moon moves in an orbit that is itself wound around the earth's orbit around the sun. It thus describes a spiral around a circular line. Because of the movement of the sun, the moon describes another spiral around this. The result is very complicated lines of force that extend through the whole space.

The heavenly bodies behave in relation to each other like the intertwined strips of paper [by Simony, which we looked at last time]. We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with complicated spatial concepts that we can only understand if we do not let them become rigid. If we want to grasp space [in its essence], [we must first conceive it as rigid, but then] make it completely fluid again. [You have to go as far as zero]; the [living] point can be found in it.

Let us once again visualize the structure of the dimensions]. The point is zero-dimensional, the line is one-dimensional, the surface is two-dimensional and the body is three-dimensional. The cube has the three dimensions: height, width and depth. How do the spatial structures [of different dimensions] relate to each other? Imagine that you are a straight line, that you have only one dimension, that you can only move along a straight line. If such beings existed, what would their concept of space be like? Such beings would not perceive one-dimensionality in themselves, but would only be able to imagine points wherever they went. Because in a straight line, if we want to draw something in it, there are only points. A two-dimensional being would only encounter lines, so it would only perceive one-dimensional beings. [A three-dimensional being like] the cube would perceive two-dimensional beings, but could not perceive its [own] three dimensions.

Now, humans can perceive their three dimensions. If we reason correctly, we must say to ourselves: Just as a one-dimensional being can only perceive points, a two-dimensional being only straight lines, and a three-dimensional being only surfaces, so a being that perceives three dimensions must itself be a four-dimensional being. The fact that humans can define external beings in terms of three dimensions, can [deal with] spaces of three dimensions, means that they must be four-dimensional. And just as a cube can perceive only two dimensions and not its third, so it is clear that man cannot perceive the fourth dimension in which he lives. Thus we have shown [that man must be a four-dimensional being]. We swim in the sea [of the fourth dimension, like ice in water].

Let us return once more to the consideration of mirror images (Figure 11). This vertical line represents the cross-section of a mirror. The mirror reflects an image [of the figure on the left]. The process of reflection points beyond the two dimensions into the third dimension. [To understand the direct and continuous connection between the mirror image and the original, we have to add a third dimension to the two.

[Now let us consider the relationship between external space and internal representation.] The cube here apart from me [appears as] an idea in me (Figure 12). The idea [of the cube] is related to the cube like a' mirror image to the original. Our sensory apparatus [creates an imagined image of the cube. If you want to align this with the original cube, you have to go through the fourth dimension. Just as the third dimension has to be transitioned to (during the continuous execution of the two-dimensional) mirroring process, our sensory apparatus has to be four-dimensional if it is to be able to establish a [direct] connection [between the imagined image and the external object].

If you only imagined [two-dimensionally], you would [only] have a dream image in front of you, but you would have no idea that there is an object outside. Our imagination is a direct inversion of our ability to imagine [external objects by means of] four-dimensional space.

The human being in the astral state [during earlier stages of human evolution] was only a dreamer, he had only such ascending dream images.” He then passed from the astral realm to physical space. Thus we have mathematically defined the transition from the astral to the [physical-] material being. Before this transition occurred, the astral human being was a three-dimensional being and therefore could not extend his [two-dimensional] ideas to the objective [three-dimensional physical-material] world. But when he [himself] became physical-material, he still acquired the fourth dimension [and could therefore also experience three-dimensionally].

Due to the peculiar design of our sensory apparatus, we are able to align our perceptions with external objects. By relating our perceptions to external things, we pass through four-dimensional space, imposing the perception on the external object.

How would things appear if we could see from the other side, if we could enter into things and see them from there? To do that, we would have to pass through the fourth dimension.

The astral world itself is not a world of four dimensions. But the astral world together with its reflection in the physical world is four-dimensional. Anyone who is able to see the astral world and the physical world at the same time lives in four-dimensional space. The relationship of our physical world to the astral world is a four-dimensional one.

One must learn to understand the difference between a point and a sphere. In reality, this point would not be passive, but a point radiating light in all directions (Figure 13).

What would be the opposite of such a point? Just as there is an opposite to a line that goes from left to right, namely a line that goes from right to left, there is also an opposite to the point. We imagine an enormous sphere, in reality of infinite size, that radiates darkness from all sides, but now inwards (Figure 14). This sphere is the opposite of the point.

These are two real opposites: the point radiating light and infinite space, which is not a neutral dark entity, but one that floods space with darkness from all sides. [As a contrast, this results in] a source of darkness and a source of light. We know that a straight line that extends to infinity returns to the same point from the other side. Likewise, it is with a point that radiates light in all directions. This light comes back [from infinity] as its opposite, as darkness.

Now let us consider the opposite case. Take the point as the source of darkness. The opposite is a space that radiates light from all sides.

As was recently demonstrated [in the previous lecture], the point behaves in this way; it does not disappear [into infinity, it returns from the other side] (Figure 15).

[Similarly, when a point expands or radiates out, it does not lose itself in infinity; it returns from infinity as a sphere.] The sphere, the spherical, is the opposite of the point. Space lives in the point. The point is the opposite of space.

What is the opposite of a cube? Nothing other than the whole of infinite space, except for the piece that is cut out here [by the cube]. So we have to imagine the [total] cube as infinite space plus its opposite. We cannot do without polarities if we want to imagine the world as powerfully dynamic. [Only in this way] do we have things in their life.

If the occultist were to imagine the cube as red, the space around it would be green, because red is the complementary color of green. The occultist not only has simple ideas for himself, he has vivid ideas, not abstract, dead ideas. The occultist must enter into things from within himself. Our ideas are dead, while the things in the world are alive. We do not live with our abstract ideas in the things themselves. So we have to imagine the infinite space in the corresponding complementary color to the radiating star. By doing such exercises, you can train your thinking and gain confidence in how to imagine dimensions.

You know that the square is a two-dimensional spatial quantity. A square composed of four red- and blue-shaded sub-squares is a surface that radiates differently in different directions (Figure 16). The ability to radiate differently in different directions is a three-dimensional ability. So here we have the three dimensions of length, width and radiance.

What we did here with the surface, we also think of as being done for the cube. Just as the square above was made up of four sub-squares, we can imagine the cube as being made up of eight sub-cubes (Figure 17). This initially gives us the three dimensions of height, width and depth. Within each sub-cube, we can then distinguish a specific light-emitting capacity, which results in a further dimension in addition to height, width and depth: the radiation capacity.

You can imagine a square made up of four sub-squares, a cube made up of eight different sub-cubes. And now imagine a body that is not a cube, but has a fourth dimension. We have created the possibility of understanding this through radiative capacity. If each [of the eight partial cubes] has a different radiating power, then if I have only the one cube that radiates only in one direction, if I want to obtain the cube that radiates in all directions, I have to add another one on the left, doubling it with an opposite one, I have to put it together out of 16 cubes.

Next lesson we will have the opportunity to consider how we can think of a multidimensional space.

The Temple, of the Sun; hidden site of the Mysteries of the Hierophants; Lucifer, Ahriman, the three Soul-Figures, Strader, Benedictus, Theodosius, Romanus, Maria.

(Enter first Lucifer and Ahriman.)

Lucifer:
The Lord of Wishes stands as victor here—
He hath been able to o'erpower the soul
Which even in the light of spirit-sun
Still had to feel akin to this our realm.
I seized th' auspicious hour in which to cast
A glamour o'er its vision of the light
To which in dreams alone it had bowed down.
Yet all my hopes must forthwith disappear
That victory is ours in spirit-realms,
Since thou art worsted, comrade of my fight.
Thou wast unable to o'erpower the soul
Which was to bring our labours to their goal.
The human soul that gave itself to me
I can possess and in our kingdom hold
For short earth-lives alone, but all in vain;
For then I must restore it to our foes.
To win outright we need the other, too,
That hath withdrawn itself from thy domain.

Ahriman:
The time is not well suited to my arts,
I find no means of access to men's souls.
See, here comes one whom I did sorely plague.
Though ignorant in spirit he draws nigh;
For reason doth compel him to push on.
So I withdraw from him and from this place
Which he can only tread unconsciously.

(The three Soul-Figures with Strader.)

Philia:
I will myself imbue
With power of Faith's clear light,
I will breathe deep within
The living force of Trust
From soul's aspiring joy;
That thus the light may rouse
The spirit slumberer.

Astrid:
With humble joy of soul
I will inweave forthwith
Sure revelation's word.
I will make dense and thick
The shining rays of Hope;
That light in dark may shine
And twilight in the light,
So powers may bear aloft
The spirit slumberer.

Luna:
Soul light will I make warm
Love's power will harden too:
That thus they may grow bold
And thus may raise themselves
And mounting up on high
Endow themselves with weight
And free from cosmic loads
The spirit slumberer;
That his soul's love of light
At last may set him free.

Benedictus:
My comrades, I have hither summoned you
Who with me seek to find the spirit-light
That should flow streaming to the souls of men.
Ye know the nature of the sun of soul
Oft doth it shine with fullest noontide glare,
And then again like feeble twilight steal
Powerless through mists of visionary dream.
And often doth the darkness drive it out.
The temple-servants' spirit-gaze must pierce
To soul depths where there shines with powerful ray,
The spirit-light that comes from cosmic heights.
Then too it must disclose mysterious aims
That lurk unnoticed in the soul's dark fairs
Intent on shaping man's development.
Those spirit-beings who from cosmic powers
Bestow the spirit-food on human souls
Are present now within the sacred fane
To guide this man's soul from the spirit-night
Into the kingdom of the light on high.
The sleep of knowledge still envelops him;
But spirit-calls already have been heard
In his soul's depths of which he never knew,
That which they spoke deep in his inmost soul
Will shortly find its way to spirit-ears.

Theodosius:
This soul hath not been able hitherto
To recognize himself in spirit-light
That through sense-revelation is outpoured,
To show the meaning of all earthly growth.
He saw God's spirit stripped of nature's guise,
And Nature's self estranged from deity.
And so through many lives he had to pass
And stay a stranger to the sense of life;
He could but find such carnal tenements
To carry out his individual work
As barred him from the cosmos and from man.
Now, in the temple he will gain the power
Himself in other beings to behold,
And so at length he will attain the force
That leads from out the labyrinths of thought
And points the way unto the springs of life.

Benedictus:
Another man strives to the temple's light;
Though not at once will he approach its doors
And seek for entrance to this hallowed spot.
Throughout a life of studious research
He planted germs of thought in his soul-depths.
And so perforce the spirit-light went forth
To ripen them outside our temple's doors.
'Twas given him to know his present life
To be the product of a former one
Lived in a time that now hath long gone by.
Now he can see the errors of that life
And realize what their result will be,
But lacketh power, those duties to fulfil,
Which through self-knowledge he can recognize.

Romanus:
Capesius shall, through the temple's power,
Learn how a man must, in a single life,
Take up a load. of duties which demand
For their entire accomplishment the space
Of many lives of eartly pilgrimage.
So casting fear aside he will admit
That ancient errors with their consequence
Pursue the soul e'en past the gate of death.
Nor shall he then be vanquished in the fight
By which the spirit-portals are flung wide
If eye to eye, undaunted, he shall brave
The Guardian of the Threshold of that realm.
To him shall by that guardian be revealed
That none may climb up to the heights of life
Who fears to look on destiny's decrees.
His insight will admit with courage then
That of self-knowledge suffering is the fruit
For which she knows no words of comforting.
Will shall become his comrade on the way
Which faceth boldly all that may befall,
And, heartened by a draught from hope's clear spring
Endures the pain of widening consciousness.

Benedictus:
Ye have, my brothers, at this present hour,—
True servants of the temple that ye are,—
Set forth the ways in Wisdom's outlines drawn
By which these two who seek the spirit-truth
Shall have their souls brought to their goal by you.
Yet other work the temple-service claims.
Here by our side the Lord of Wishes stands;
He can be present in this holy place
Because Johannes' soul unbarred for him.
The gates which he would otherwise find barred.
The brother who is our initiate
Lacks for the moment courage to withstand
With power the words that from the darkness rise.
The powers of good can only strengthen him.
When on their opposite they test themselves.
'Twill not be long ere he again appears
Here in this temple, compassed by our love:
Yet must his spirit-treasure guarded be
Now that he must descend into the dark.

(Turning to Lucifer.)

Thee must I now address who not for long
Canst occupy the ground where thou dost stand.
The temple's power can at the present time.
Not yet release Johannes from thy grasp.
In times to come he will be ours again,
When those fruits of our sister shall be ripe.
Whose blossoms we already see unfold.

(Maria appears.)

She could behold in bygone earthly lives
How closely linked Johannes was to her.
He followed after her so long ago
As in those far-off days when she opposed
The light whose humble handmaid now she is.
When soul-links prove themselves so staunchly true
As to outlast the spirit's wanderings
Then shall the Lord of Wishes find his power
Unable to effect a severance.

Lucifer:
But Benedictus' will itself compelled
Johannes' and Maria's souls to part.
And wheresoe'er men from each other part
There is the field made ready for my power.
I ever work for separateness of soul,
To set the earth-life free, and for all time
To break its servitude to cosmic chains.
Maria's being, in monastic garb,
Turned from its father yonder soul away
That now is dweller in Johannes' form.
This too hath caused some seeds of mine to grow
Which I shall surely bring to ripening.

Maria (turning to Lucifer):
In human nature there are springs of love
To which thy power can never penetrate.
They are unsealed when faults of former lives—
A load unwittingly assumed by man,—
Are in a later life by spirit seen,
And by the free-will of self-sacrifice
Transformed to earthly action, which shall tend
To bear fruit for the real good of man.
The powers of destiny have granted me
The vision which can penetrate the past;
Already too have I received the signs
So to direct my, free-will sacrifice
That good may pour therefrom for every soul
Whose thread of life shall have to twine with mine
Throughout the evolution of this earth.
I saw how in its earthly frame of yore
Johannes' soul turned from his sire away,
And saw the forces that compelled myself
To make the son repel the father's heart.
Thus is the father now opposed to me
To bring to mind my own offence of old.
Plainly he speaks in cosmic language clear
Whose symbols are the actions of man's life.
That which I set between the sire and son
Must reappear, though in another form
In this my life in which Johannes' soul
Math once again been closely knit to mine.
The suffering which I had to undergo
In severing Johannes from myself
Was but my own act's fated consequence.
If now my soul is faithful to the light
Which from the spirit-forces comes to it,
It will be strengthened by the services
Which it may render to Capesius
In this sore stress of his life-pilgrimage;
And with such forces, similarly won,
Will also learn to see Johannes' star
When he, by fetters of desire misled
Treads not the way illumined by the light.
The spirit-vision which hath led me back
To distant days on earth will teach me now
How I must deal with soul-links at this time
So that life-powers unconsciously prepared
Shall henceforth work awakened for man's weal.

Benedictus:
In olden days on earth was formed a knot
Of threads which Karma spins world-fashioning.
Three human lives are interwoven there,
And now upon this fateful knot there shines
This holy temple's lofty spirit-light.
'Tis thee, Maria, I must now address
Of these three souls at this time thou alone
Art present at the place of sacrifice.
May this light operate within thyself
And turn to welfare those creative powers
Which once upon a time thy life-threads wove
Fast in a life-knot with those other two.
The father could not in his former life
His son's heart find; but now in other scenes
The spirit-seeker will accompany
Thy friend's self on its way to spirit-land.
And thine is now the duty to maintain
Johannes' soul in light by thine own force.
Once didst thou hold it in so fast a bond
That it could only blindly follow thee.
Thou didst then give it back its liberty,
When still it clung to thee in fancy fond.
But thou shalt once more find it, when, self-willed,
It wins its individuality.
If thy soul to that light holds ever true
Which powers from spirit-realms bestow on thee,
Johannes' soul will thirst to drink of thine
E'en where the Lord of all Desire holds sway;
And through the love which holds it bound to thee
It will regain the path to light on high.
For ever must a living being strive
Through light or darkness, which hath once beheld
And known the heights of spirit in its soul,
It hath drawn breath from cosmic distances
Of air that pulseth with immortal life,
And living raiseth all our human kind
From founts of soul to spirit-sun sublime.

Curtain