The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Yesterday we spoke at least in a few words about the extent to which the Earth itself is a source of inspiration for people living on it. Of course, only hints can be given in a field that is as all-encompassing as this.

It is important and significant, especially in our time, to become aware that such connections exist as those we have been talking about, because man within the evolution of the earth is at the point, especially in our present time, of emancipating himself, as it were, from this earthly influence, and, on the other hand, to allow himself to be permeated by those influences that do not come from the world of the earth but from the spiritual world surrounding the earth.

This endeavour to get into human abilities, into human thinking and feeling, that which is not merely earthly, underlies our spiritual-scientific endeavour. All tendencies of modern education are really moving towards this spiritual-scientific endeavour, and it may well be said that there are two things that must increasingly come to the consciousness of the modern human being.

The first is that man, in relation to his own soul essence, belongs to a world that does not reveal itself to the external senses, but that lies behind the external sense world. Man belongs to such a world with his innermost soul being, which can be reached neither through sense observation nor through inferences and logic based on sense observation. It will be the task of our time to gain clarity on this point, that all knowledge conveyed by the external senses and their philosophy, which is based only on external sensory knowledge, cannot approach what the human soul actually is.

The second truth is one that you are familiar with from your spiritual scientific life, but you also know that it is still very far from the general consciousness of the present day. It is the important truth of repeated earthly lives, of the fact that the human soul is not exhausted in the body in which it lives between birth and death, in all that is connected with this body, but that it goes from life to life.

Because these two truths, that the soul belongs to a world that lies behind the sensory world and that it goes from life to life, are among the most important for our time, which must be understood first, I have added a chapter to the second volume of my Rätsel of Philosophy», I have added a chapter in which these two truths in particular are pointed out in an intensive way from the course of human development, because it is an urgent requirement of our time that more and more people learn to understand precisely these two truths.

Since this book, “The Riddles of Philosophy”, is not specifically aimed at anthroposophists, but at all people who can read and understand what they read, an attempt had to be made to point out these two truths as briefly but as sharply as possible. It may be said that it lies in the deeper consciousness of people in modern times to direct their thoughts towards these truths. For the time being, I will just say to direct their thoughts. We can see such tendencies to direct thoughts towards these truths everywhere. I have sometimes tried to cite people from the new spiritual history who tend towards such truths. Today I would like to give another example.

Emerson is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds of the 19th century, who wrote so meaningfully and forcefully, if not in pedantic philosophical language, then in a forceful language. Whether he is talking about nature or the human race, Emerson points out that the outer structure of the world, which man surveys with his senses and comprehends with his mind, is only the shell, the phantasmagoria, and that one can only arrive at the truth by trying to penetrate behind the phantasmagoria.

But minds like Emerson's go even further. And I would like to give an example of this. Among his very significant books, Emerson also wrote one called “The Representatives of the Human Race”. In this book, he treated Plato as a representative of all philosophical human endeavor; Swedenborg as a representative of mystical human endeavor; Montaigne, a significant mind of the 16th century , as representative of skepticism; Shakespeare as representative of the poetic faculty; Goethe as representative of the literary faculty; and Napoleon as the man of action, as representative of the man of action.

This book has certainly achieved something significant. It highlights the types of humanity in relation to the soul. It would make for an interesting reflection if one were to shed light on how Plato's representative of philosophical endeavor and Montaigne's representative of skeptical endeavor are actually met. This book marks one of the greatest achievements of human spiritual endeavor. Now, Emerson curiously devotes, I would say, a particularly loving portrayal to Montaigne, although this loving portrayal is only encountered when one thoroughly engages with this chapter on Montaigne. This is also very significant for Emerson's commitment to the spiritual-scientific world view. Anyone who seriously engages with this world view becomes aware of how truly every thing has two sides, how when one tries to express a truth, one can only say something one-sided and the second side must lurk in the background, as it were.

The skeptic who has a vivid sense of the fact that one is, as it were, already doing an injustice when formulating a truth strictly, is touched in the deepest sense by the spiritual-soul fluid that is always present in the human soul and that prevents one, as soon as one is only touched by the spiritual world, from stating a sharply contoured truth with too much aplomb, without pointing out that in a certain sense the opposite of it also has a justification.

This sense of having been touched by a feeling that comes from spirituality is what makes Montaigne an important figure. But that is not what I wanted to point out. I wanted to point out how Emerson tells how he came to Montaigne. He says: Even as a boy, I found a volume of Montaigne in my father's library, but I did not understand him. — When he had then graduated from college, he looked at the book again, and then he got the strange urge to get to know, sentence by sentence, what Montaigne had written. And he did that, following this urge. Now we see in the chapter about Montaigne, which Emerson wrote, that he was looking for an expression for why he was suddenly obsessed by Montaigne and suddenly began to absorb him completely. He finds no better expression for it than to say: It was as if I had written these books by Montaigne in a past life. From this you can see how a man of the most eminently modern mind, who approaches what is demanded by the present, is forced, when he wants to express himself about the most intimate things in his soul, to form an expression that tends entirely towards the spiritual-scientific truth of reincarnation. He cannot find a better expression and must therefore resort to the idea of repeated lives on earth.

Something like this is extremely characteristic and tremendously significant, and this now leads us to tie in with the idea that was expounded yesterday. If we look at the most distinguished minds of our time – and one of the most distinguished is Emerson – then, on the one hand, if they are as great as Emerson, they have inherited the knowledge of the earth, in that they are part of the evolutionary process of the earth. They know what is absorbed by a person today. They know that when you are placed at a certain point on earth, you speak a certain language and so on, that it is customary in the place where you are sent to hand these things down to the child, to the young person, and thus to bring that which is called education to the people. This knowledge, which is handed down to a people in this way, is knowledge of a wide scope. It is fair to say that this is knowledge of a broad scope, and one can see how Emerson actually proceeds.

We know that when he had a lecture to give, it seemed as if what he said sprang forth from his mind as he was saying it. Everything seemed improvised. If he was visited on a day when he was supposed to give a lecture, the visitors could see that all kinds of notes were lying around the room, from which he had gathered what he had to say, so to speak, about the outward appearance of his material. But behind what he passed on to humanity lay intimacies, and this is precisely an intimacy, which I have expressed, that the idea of repeated earthly lives shimmers quite chastely in one place.

One can see how even the best of our time, by feeling and feeling through such truths in their souls and also expressing them, remain chaste within themselves, do not yet want to carry these truths into the realm from which external knowledge arises.

If we now approach the matter from a spiritual scientific point of view, we have to illuminate it differently, because our time is the time whose mission it is to bring to clarity and to real knowledge what has so far been held back in the soul and only occasionally hinted at, clarity, to bring it to real knowledge, to shape it into forms of knowledge, so that our time really has the task of making many things that have emerged from the souls of the best up to this time of ours into full clarity, into a truth that is self-evident for people. And here we can describe exactly how it was when Emerson, in his rich lectures, would soon say a sentence expressing a realization about the industrial life of his surroundings and then a few lines later bring something that deals with ancient India, and then again something that deals with Shakespeare. So he gathers together, so to speak, the knowledge of the earth and then often a remark slips out of him that comes from the intimacy of his soul.

Where does what lies in such a remark come from? This can only be answered by considering all sides of human nature. Man recognizes only the least, only a part of his life, which takes place from waking to falling asleep, during his time on earth. The other part of life is spent asleep, and this part of human life is very, very diverse.

It is true that for many, many people this life in sleep proceeds in such a way that they come into contact with elemental world entities that are connected with lower expressions of human nature than the daytime expressions. One would like to say that people engage in all sorts of nonsense from the moment they fall asleep until they wake up, in the realm of elementary life, of nightlife, things that they have outgrown when they are in the outer life. Who would not know that he often has to be ashamed of his dreams. This is a general experience that anyone can have. Man, then, during sleep, does all kinds of foolish things, in a company that is not a good one, but one that appeals to his passions, his instincts, and is much worse than the one in which he is educated during his waking life.

Only if we understand this can we better understand many historical events. To prevent people today from making too much of a mess of things in the physical world, they need to be endowed with the gift of not attaching too much importance to their dreams. He therefore forgets his dreams very easily, forgets the Allotriia from the dreams, and that is good for him, because he should be prepared to enter the spiritual world in waking consciousness, while the prehistoric times were there to let people enter this spiritual world during sleep until they woke up.

Strictly speaking, a stronger awareness of this world is not as far behind us as is usually believed. I will give you an example of this too. There is a picture by Albrecht Dürer that has posed many riddles for many people, especially scholars. The etching is about a satyr-like, faun-like figure that is holding a female being, as it were. From the background, another female figure appears, approaching the couple as if to punish them. And a Hercules-like male figure stands nearby, holding a club in his hand, which he uses to hold back the punishing female figure from the group of the woman with the satyr, preventing her from approaching. It is, one might say, quite remarkable, extremely remarkable, how the scholars have struggled to understand this picture. It is usually called 'Hercules'. But what it expresses is not found in the usual Hercules saga. So one wonders: how did Albrecht Dürer come up with this scene? And some very curious ideas have been put forward. One can see, for example, how helpless Herman Grimm is in the face of this picture. He does not know what to make of it. He comes up with the strangest ideas. And why is that? Why can't people make sense of it? Because he and the scholars do not know — as Albrecht Dürer still did — that people can still enter a spiritual world when they are asleep. Today, this awareness has been lost. But Dürer still knew, for example, that there are men who, during sleep, engage in all sorts of antics with the elemental world, men who are quite civilized during the ordinary time, but during sleep they fall back into the world of drives and do all sorts of useless things, all sorts of antics.

In the painting by Albrecht Dürer, we see the satyr and Hercules with the club. Good old Hercules, who is standing there, would like to be this satyr himself. But he lives in the physical world, in a moral world on the physical plane, and his wife does not allow him to do so. She comes along and wants to drive him away. But he likes it and holds her back.

We see here an inner process of the soul and know that Albrecht Dürer still knew something of these things. Thus much in the art of not so distant centuries can be explained, because at that time there was still an awareness of the connection of man with the spiritual-elemental world immediately adjacent to the physical.

But if we turn to such noble minds as Emerson's, we have to say that they do not engage in frivolities during their sleep, but in noble things. When they are in the spiritual world with their ego and astral body, they come into contact with the truths that are to be true anthroposophy in humanity. What future physical knowledge is to become comes to her consciousness. One could say that Emerson receives something like this in his sleep. That is why it fits so chastely and intimately into what he has to say about the physical life with his physical senses and mind, surveying the wide expanse of earthly life.

Now it would not be in keeping with the evolution of humanity if people were simply to grasp, as I said, in their life of sleep, what lies behind the appearance of sense and behind the phantasmagoria of the senses. For that is again the meaning of evolution, that the life of sleep loses more and more of its significance in knowledge. One must be a great spirit like Emerson if one wants to conquer something out of the life of sleep, like the idea of repeated lives on earth. But what is spiritual must come into humanity, must find its way into humanity. Just as these truths are related to the innermost human soul life, as they reveal themselves there, as it were, in a kind of dawn, especially in spirits like Emerson, so on the other hand there must be an earthly disposition to understand such truths in the light of waking consciousness. There must be an earthly predisposition to perceive oneself in such a way that one finds it natural to recognize these truths. You understand that this is not yet natural in the present, because we are still such a small group as spiritual scientists, and all those who stand outside of spiritual scientific striving see us as fools or something similar.

It is not part of modern education to recognize these truths directly. Man's natural temperament argues against it. As a rule, the logical arguments people put forward against spiritual science are extremely inferior, because people do not resist on logical grounds; they resist because, by their very nature, they are not predisposed to accept such truths today, through all that they are through the forces of the earth.

But there must come a time when man's nature will be so constituted that he can immediately grasp these truths, just as he can grasp mathematical truths today. Man must be organized naturally so that he can grasp these truths. For this it is necessary that he is physically so constituted for the time that elapses between birth and death that his brain is so developed that he can see these truths.

In the sense of yesterday's discussion, such a relationship must be established between the spirits that work in the earth and people, that people are constituted in such a way that they can absorb these truths, and this happens in such a way that an area of land, as I showed and sketched yesterday, leans from east to west towards the three gulfs I spoke of yesterday. This area of land is only a phantasmagoria on the outside. This area of land is in reality composed of the spirits of the earth. In reality, the spirits of this area of land work on people and physically shape them in such a way that they understand the truths of the spiritual and mental constitution of man and repeated lives on earth. What I would say is more for the Western spirits, which have to conquer from sleep, will have to become a more self-evident truth in waking life for those who lean towards the East in the evolution of humanity. The earth prepares its bodies, one would like to say, for what they need for evolution. This earth is absolutely that which I discussed yesterday: a far-reaching organism that is ensouled and that, from time to time, sends out the earth spirits from its soul life, which organize the bodies in such a way that they can intervene in evolution in an appropriate way.

You see, these things are extraordinarily deep and significant, and one must really get involved with such things if one wants to understand what it is all about. However, if you compare the earth as an ensouled and spiritualized organism with what man is as an ensouled and spiritualized organism, there is a great difference. Man is related to the actual spirits of the earth through the exterior of his physical body, in which he actually does not usually live in it, but in which he is stuck in it. Through the etheric body, he is related to the spirits of water; through the astral body, he is related to the spirits of air, and through his connection with the ego, he is related to the spirits of fire.

When a person leaves their physical and etheric bodies during sleep, they live with their ego and astral body only in relation to the warmth that pervades the earth and the air that flows and breathes through the earth. They are torn away from everything that configures earth and water in the physical body. Man is truly torn out of everything that, I would like to say, the physical and etheric bodies do as earthly beings when they sleep. Of course, air and warmth also belong to the earth, but only to the earth, not to the parts of the earth. Now, for man as a spiritualized being, warmth is, so to speak, that in which he dwells as in his own element. In the higher animals, there is already a preparation for this. They have their own warmth, not just the warmth of their surroundings. They live in their soul, in their own warmth. Man has particularly developed this, that he lives in his own warmth, that he has his own temperature. This is something that separates him from the great variety of the outside world. Heat is, as it were, something that every human being carries within himself and carries with him. There he is in his actual self, there he is at home in the warmth.

In the air, he lives in it to a lesser extent. I would like to say that the differentiation of the earth already exerts a certain influence on him. Whether he lives in mountain air, sea air or country air, that makes a certain difference. In this way, the human being comes into relation to what affects him from the outside. This is the case with the human being as a soul-inspired and spiritualized organism.

The opposite is the case with the earth as a souled and spiritualized organism. What warmth is for human beings, that is for the earth just the earth, the solid earthly, and warmth is for it the 'outmost' that has a relationship to the souled earth like to us the earth. The earth is earth through and through, as we are warmth through and through. The earth is outwardly differentiated in relation to warmth. Depending on whether it extends its limbs into the icy regions or into the sultry region of the tropics, it opens its soul outwardly to warmth, just as we, in relation to our physical body, incline toward the region in which we happen to live. In the case of the earth, it is exactly the opposite of the human being, and this is the basis for the interaction between the earth as a spiritual and animate organism and the human being as a spiritual and animate organism. Through this interaction, that which comes about in the physical human body arises so that this physical human body, in the succession of nations and peoples, enters into the evolution of the whole earthly existence in the right way. We have an intensive relationship between the earthly and the human precisely in those peoples who, as a mass of people, moved from east to west. And one could express this intensive relationship as if one were to see a mighty being in the earth itself, and this mighty being would decide to intervene in evolution in an appropriate way, let us say from the 20th century onwards. Then it must say to itself: I must direct certain spiritual entities up to my surface, I must let them be active in such a way that they prepare physical bodies so that the physical bodies can receive through the brain the truths that are beneficial to humanity in this time of evolution.

What I have just expressed is like a thought that the earth has. This thought can only be grasped if it is grasped with the right devotion and reverence, if it is not taken like the thoughts of external science, but if it is regarded as something sacred, as something that cannot be uttered without reverence, because one is reminded of man's connection with the spiritual world, because one is directly immersed in the communication between the human and the divine, where such things are expressed. Therefore, attention should be paid everywhere to ensure that the necessary atmosphere of feeling and sentiment is present when such things are expressed. This is extremely important in such matters. One might say: in a certain sense, such things must not be expressed in any other way than that they are based on the feeling, the mood of prayer. A looking up to the spiritual worlds must pulsate through what we think through so thoroughly as we approach such thoughts. And that this can happen in a natural way, through the external environment alone, is why our body is constructed, and why everything that is to appear in it is made.

Thus we see in what I have just described a kind of example of how the earth, as earth, works spiritually through what is contained in its solid element, how it creates and forms that which lives on it in evolution.

If, on the other hand, we go more to the west, we have different conditions. Yesterday I explained to you a situation where the west interacts with the east, where the liquid element leans over like a mighty being towards the east and expresses the three-part soul nature, leaning over into the three great gulfs, which the spiritually inclined peoples of ancient Finland still felt as Wäinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen, and which today are so prosaically referred to as the Gulfs of Finland, Bothnia and Riga. In the ancient Finnish people, that which comes from the liquid element and that which comes from the solid element worked together. In the Finnish people, the element that more constitutes the ethereal human being and refines the physical human being, the liquid element, and the element of the earth, that which comes from the earth, that which constitutes the physical human being, united.

The question may be raised as to the significance of a people like the great Finnish nation, which has fulfilled such an eminent mission in the course of the Earth's mission and yet still remains for later times. All this has its significance in the whole progress of evolution, that such a people remain, that they do not disappear from the Earth when they have fulfilled their mission. Just as a person retains in living memory the thoughts that he has conceived at a certain age for a later age, so must earlier peoples also remain as a conscience, as a living memory in relation to what happens in later times: as a conscience.

And now one could say: The conscience of the European East will be that which the Finnish people have preserved. There must come a time when an understanding of the tasks of evolution will take hold of the heart, when the ideas of Kalewala will flourish from the very heart of the Finnish people, when this wonderful Kalewala epic will be imbued with modern spiritual ideas and when the whole of Europe will be made aware of its depth.

The European peoples revered the Homeric epics. The Kalevala flowed from even deeper sources of the soul life. This cannot be recognized today. But this will be understood when the teachings of spiritual science are applied in the appropriate way to explain spiritual phenomena in the evolution of the earth. An epic like Kalevala cannot be preserved without being preserved in living existence, without the souls that dwell in the body, which are related to the creative powers of Kalevala. It remains as a living conscience. In this way it can continue to work, not through the words but through that which has lived in it itself, continues to live, that there is a center from which it can radiate. What matters is that this is there, like the thoughts we have had earlier are there in later life.

In the West, there is more of what forms and shapes the etheric body. These are difficult truths, and you will have to get used to them, because I do not have the opportunity, which one will hopefully have one day in the evolution of the earth, to deal with the things that I have to deal with in an hour over the course of a whole year. You will have to be open to supplementing many things with your thoughts, to meditatively reflect on what has been said. Then it will become fully familiar to you. In particular, do not try to approach things with these or those hasty nuances of feeling.

In the West, there is more of an effect on the etheric body, which had to be formed in the same way, but at an earlier time, than it has to be done on the physical body in the East.

You see, it is very easy to misunderstand such things, because the differences are fine, very subtle. If, for example, we see in the West that it depends on the peoples that the etheric body has been formed more by the spirits of water, it is self-evident – because the physical body is an imprint of this – that the physical body has also been formed as an imprint of the etheric body, out of the forces of water. But the important thing is that in the East the forces of the physical body have a more direct effect. So we have to focus on what is important. External physical science cannot make this subtle distinction. It sees that the Eastern physical body is configured in one way and the Western physical body in another. It does not see any more than that. Only spiritual science can go into such differences in more detail. Furthermore, language is so clumsy and very unsuitable for expressing such differences. When you say something completely different, you often have the impression that you are actually saying the same thing. Yesterday, for example, I had to say that for Asian peoples it is important that the forces that build up the physical body lie in their own etheric body. Today I have to say that it is important for the peoples of the West that the etheric body is formed from the forces of water. If you take all of this together, you will understand that in the old days it was the case that the etheric body had to be formed in the Eastern peoples of Europe, but today, now, is the time when the physical body has to be formed , while in the western peoples it is the case that their etheric body is formed after their physical body has already received its character more from the outside, that their etheric body is directly exposed to the genii of the sea, the genii of the water.

In the case of Western peoples, what they are comes about through the impulses entering their etheric body. Where the impulses enter the etheric body more, what matters less is the spatial and more the temporal. How the impulses work in the succession of time is what matters more.

If we look towards the east, we see how thoughts well up out of the earth, as it were, to prepare human beings for future evolution. If we look towards the west, we see thoughts welling up out of the fluid, the forces that form the etheric bodies in the succession of time.

And there we see how, in the ancient times in the West, the etheric body of man was formed far into Central Europe in such a way that this etheric body lives out its immediate life in the body, alive, outwardly.

What does that mean? It means, my dear friends, that in ancient times in western Europe there lived people who brought their way of life to light from the etheric body in the same way that people now bring it to light from the physical body — where the etheric body has already worked with these old impulses. There were people who still had a living relationship with the spiritual world, especially with the elemental world. That belongs to ancient times. Those times are, so to speak, already over, when the genii of the liquid element spoke to the etheric body of man in the West in the most lively way. But when this etheric body is spoken to, it is different from our time, when it is mainly spoken to the physical body of man. The physical body of the human being is spoken to in such a way that an impression is made on his senses, that he acquires knowledge and adopts certain habits of life that are connected with the impressions of the senses.

These ancient Westerners were still more connected with the elemental world in their habits, in what lived within them. Among the Celts, there were people who knew about the elemental world just as we know about the physical world today; people to whom the elemental world was not closed, who could speak of nature genii, of water genii, of earth genii, just as we speak of trees, plants, mountains, clouds, who had direct contact with these nature genii. And the peculiarity of life in Europe is based on the fact that this was precisely the case in ancient times, because in those days, just as one acts today through the senses on the physical body, one acted on the etheric body of the human being.

Then, of course, work was still being done on the etheric body of the human being, but this etheric body was formed and developed in such a way that the relationship of the genii of fluidity to it took place more in the subconscious, and the conscious relationship with the nature spirits receded more.

How did this come about? For France, for example, it came about through the wave of Romanic evolution sweeping over the wave of Celtic evolution, permeating the Celtic element with the Romanic element. In the confluence of the Celtic and the Romance, we have two impulses. An old impulse, which directly mediates the connection between the elementary world and the etheric body, and in the new impulse, in the influence of the Romance, we have that which also enters the etheric body, but that it is like an historical, a historic wave, so that what I said in earlier lectures could occur, that a revival of the ancient Greek element could take place in the French element.

If we want to understand this western type of human being correctly, we must assess these various impulses, which also flow into the etheric body, in the right way. And now, so to speak, we have spoken of characteristic phenomena with regard to the influences on the physical body and with regard to the influences on the etheric body. The situation is different when we consider the middle region. There things are somewhat different. There we are dealing with something, I might say, much more unexpressed, with something that can be less clearly characterized. There we are dealing with the fact that both spirits of the earth and spirits of the liquid element have a direct effect on the physical body.

You see, it is a transition. Here, in the West, the spirits of the liquid element act directly on the etheric body. The spirits of the liquid element subside in Central Europe, and they are joined by certain spirits of the earthly element. They act directly on the physical body; less strongly on the etheric body. The spirits of the earthly element refine the physical body as you go further east. Therefore, in some way connected with Central Europe, we have everything that, over a long period of time, has provided Europe with such physical bodies that are accessible to the liquid and solid elements. And so we see how what flows into human evolution must become more complicated. We see how, out of this store, this reservoir, the people of the Franks, as I have described them, through the agency of the fluid and the solid, are preparing to reintroduce themselves into the Celtic-Romanic folk element; and only then does that which has confronted us as the active element in human evolution arise.

The Franks who remained behind thus retain the peculiarity of preferring to receive in the physical body that which emanates from the liquid and earthly spirits – the Saxons are related to them in this respect. The Franks who moved to the West united their nature with that which comes from the direct influence of the genius of the sea, which becomes even more significant when we consider that it incorporates the historical element of the Romance language.

In this way the impulses interlock and so we can understand how, above all, if we want to characterize Western Europe, we cannot come to an understanding unless we take into account everything that intervenes in the etheric body.

If we want to characterize Central Europe, we have to say that it depends more on the physical body, it depends more on what is configured in the physical body. Now we see how such impulses, like the ones expressed, concentrate in certain centers, as it were, how they characteristically emerge in certain centers. Two such centers, which are truly characteristic of each other, are found in Central Europe on the one hand and in the British Isles on the other. In Central Europe, where it is most strongly expressed, we have what I have called the solid element, and where what comes from the spirits of the liquid and the spirits of the solid flows into the physical body, where it is mixed, and in the British Isles, where - in some ways more strongly than in France, for example - what comes from the spirits of the liquid element has a preferential effect on the etheric bodies. This has led to people living in these two areas who basically carry the same impulses within them; only some carry them in their physical body and are suited to everything connected with the work of these genii in the physical ; the others, in the British Isles, have them in their etheric bodies and are thus called upon to bring about everything that is connected with the impulses of the etheric body. If I may say it grotesquely, I could say that if you put a German and an Englishman together, you notice the difference when you look at their physical bodies. You only notice the similarity when you put the German's physical body together with the Englishman's etheric body. Only then does it become apparent that the same impulses are alive there.

You see what emerges, caricatured, in the external view, which remains with the external phantasmagoria, I would say. Do not misunderstand the word. It only appears in its true form when one considers what becomes the basis of life, what the truth is. But because in the world the entities must work together, because it cannot be otherwise, because the world is a whole, it must be so that on the one hand certain impulses work through the physical body, on the other hand through the etheric body. I would say that is the way it should be. This is how the corresponding real interaction arises.

And so you see, what appears in the spiritual world is that a very special relationship has come about between the German world and the British world. I have explained this very special relationship for the East and West in a previous lesson, in which I showed you how a certain struggle takes place in the spiritual world for the East and West, caused by the diversity of the souls that come from an eastern and the souls that come from a western body.

The effect of the conditions just described is something else. I ask you not to take what I have to say today as if it can be understood or speculated upon rationally. One must observe in the spiritual world, otherwise one will not be able to arrive at the right conclusion. A harmony is gradually emerging between what is happening in Central Europe and the British Isles, a harmony, a true spiritual alliance that has gradually grown so strong that it can be said that spiritually speaking, no earthly souls love each other more than the earthly souls of Central Europe and the earthly souls of the British Isles. There the strongest love, spiritually conceived, exists, and that expresses itself outwardly in what we now see before us. Such are the complications of the situation.

One would truly not express such things if they were based only on a lightly founded knowledge, if one had not gained them through the most painful experiences. Do not think that you can generalize by thinking that every alliance in the physical world is a war in the spiritual world, and a war in the physical world is an alliance in the spiritual world. Things are as I have described them to you. And that this is expressed as a struggle is the expression in today's materialistic culture for the difficulty of really living out the matter in the spiritual.

Our time is reluctant to recognize what is present in the spiritual world, not only in words but also in deeds. It tries to present the opposite of what is present in the spiritual world, because the materialistic age is also reluctant to recognize the spiritual in deeds. And so the tendency of the spiritual world – namely, after the harmony of the physically achieved in Central Europe and the ethereally achieved in the British Isles – is drowned out in Maja by what is happening today in the form of struggle and mutual hatred.

You see, it is worthwhile for those who are not spiritual scientists to consider us fools, because the insights that emerge from the spiritual world are very much at odds with what can be observed in the physical world. But we can be assured that the further development of humanity depends on the fact that spiritual truths will really penetrate, that people really learn to see beyond the world of the senses. For this to happen, events are necessary, of which I have spoken more or less clearly in these days.

We can be glad that Karma has brought us together here in a neutral area, where it is possible to speak so frankly about these things, for it is not easy to speak about them, especially today. But it is good for the humanities to find their way into these things, because they may regard what happens in the outer world precisely as an incentive to look behind the veil. Much would remain quite incomprehensible if one could not see behind this veil. Things only get their full meaning when one sees behind this veil.

Yesterday we considered the forms in the astral world brought about by the influence of man himself. Today we are coming to those beings in astral space who are more or less its permanent inhabitants.

To understand what part man takes in astral happenings, we must consider the nature of the sleeping human being. Man consists, as we know, of four members: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. When he sleeps, the astral body with the ego is outside the human sheath. Such a person wanders about in astral space. As a rule he does not move far away from the physical and etheric bodies which remain lying in the bed. The two other members, the astral body and the ego, are then in astral space.

Now when the physical and etheric bodies remain on the physical plane we must certainly not imagine that because of this only physical forces have an influence on them and only physical beings have access to them. Everything that exists as thoughts and mental images has an influence on the etheric body. When someone sleeps the etheric body remains on the physical plane. If, in the vicinity of a sleeping person, we think about something, we exercise an influence on his etheric body; only nothing of this will be experienced by the sleeper. When awake, the human being is so taken up with the outer world that he represses all the thoughts which penetrate into the etheric body. But in the night the etheric, body is alone, without the ego, and is exposed to all the thoughts flying hither and thither around him, without the sleeper knowing anything about it. During waking life also he knows nothing of this, because the astral body, which dwells in the etheric body, is engaged with the outer world. When man is in a sleeping condition, any being having the power to send out thoughts, can gain an influence over him. He can therefore be influenced by higher individualities, such as those we call Masters. They can send thoughts into the etheric body of the sleeper. Someone can therefore receive into his etheric body pure and lofty thoughts when the Masters consciously wish to make this their concern. But in the night thoughts that flit into it from the outer world also enter into the etheric body. These man finds when in the morning he slips again into his etheric body. There are two kinds of dreams. The one kind arises directly from the experiences of the astral world: from echoes of day experiences and certain things from the astral world. As a rule the ego at night in astral space experiences little else than things connected with daily life. When the ego returns, it may or may not bring with it into waking life the experiences of the astral world. Certain things are however already present in the etheric body. What is found there is taken up by the astral body and then manifests itself to us as dreams. What however has taken place during the night in regard to the etheric body is another kind of experience. Thus in the morning there are to be found in the etheric body, firstly thoughts which have approached it from the environment and secondly thoughts also which the Masters or other individualities have implanted into it. The introduction of these latter is made possible by the person in question meditating. In that someone occupies himself during the daytime with pure, noble thoughts dealing with eternal things, he brings into his astral body the disposition for such thoughts. Should he not have this disposition, it would be useless were a Master to wish to work upon his etheric body. If one reads ‘Light on the Path’⁵⁵ and meditates upon it, one prepares the astral body in such a way that when the Master imbues the etheric body with lofty thoughts the astral body can actually contact them. This is called the relationship of man to his higher self. Such is the true nature of this process. The higher self of man does not live within us, but around us. The more highly developed individualities are the higher self. Man must be clear that the higher self is outside him. Were he to seek for it within himself, he would never find it. He must seek it with those who have already trodden the path that we wish to tread. Within us is nothing except our karma, what we have already experienced in earlier incarnations. Everything else is outside us. The higher self is around us. If, in preparation for the future, we wish to approach it more closely, we must seek it above all in the company of those individualities who can work during the night on our etheric body. The higher self is in the universe; therefore the Vedantist says: ‘Tat twam asi’—That art thou. If through appropriate writings, such as Light on the Path or the Gospel of St. John, we incline the astral body to take in lofty spiritual nourishment and thus to understand the Masters, we are thereby working in a good way towards what will lead to the higher self.

In the night therefore we find in astral space the sleeping bodies, or the pupils with their Masters, in so far as someone who has formed a tie which unites him with the Master, through an appropriate meditation, is led towards him. This is what can happen during the night. It is possible for everyone by immersing himself in inspired writings to reach the point of taking part in such intercourse and through this to attain to the development of his higher self. What in the course of some thousands of years will become our self is now the higher self. In order however really to get to know the higher self we must seek for it where it already is today, with the higher individualities. This is the communication of the pupils with the Masters.

Something else that we can meet with in astral space is the black magician with his pupils. In order to train himself to become a black magician, the pupil has to go through a special schooling. The training in black magic consists in a person becoming accustomed, under methodical instruction, to torture, to cut, to kill animals. This is the ABC. When the human being consciously tortures living creatures it has a definite result. The pain caused in this way, when it is brought about intentionally, produces a quite definite effect on the human astral body. When a person cuts consciously into a particular organ this induces in him an increase in power.

Now the basic principle of all white magic is that no power can be gained without selfless devotion. When through such devotion power is gained, it flows from the common life force of the universe. If however we take its life-energy from some particular being, we steal this life-energy. Because it belonged to a separate being it densifies and strengthens the element of separateness in the person who has appropriated it, and this intensification of separateness makes him suited to becoming the pupil of those who are engaged in conflict with the good powers.

For our earth is a battlefield; it is the scene of two opposing powers: right and left. The one, the white power on the right, after the earth has reached a certain degree of material, physical density, strives to spiritualise it once again. The other power, the left or black power, strives to make the earth ever denser and denser, like the moon. Thus, after a period of time, the earth could become the physical expression for the good powers, or the physical expression for the evil. It becomes the physical expression for the good powers through man uniting himself with the spirits working for unification, in that he seeks the ego in the community. It belongs to the function of the earth to differentiate itself physically to an ever greater degree. Now it is possible for the separate parts to go their own way, for each part to form an ego. This is the black path. The white path is the one which strives for what is common, which forms an ego in community. Were we to burrow more and more deeply into ourselves, to sink ourselves into our own ego organisation, to desire always more and more for ourselves, the final result would be that we should strive to separate ourselves from one another. If on the other hand we draw closer, so that a common spirit inspires us, so that a centre is formed between us, in our midst, then we are drawn together, then we are united. To be a black magician means to develop more and more the spirit of separateness. There are black adepts who are on the way to acquire certain forces of the earth for themselves. Were the circle of their pupils to become so strong that this should prove possible, then the earth would be on the path leading to destruction.

Man is called upon to enter into the atmosphere of the good Masters to an ever greater degree. Near the adept with his pupils, there is also on the astral plane the black magician with his pupils. One also finds there human beings who have died some time previously and they are there for the purpose of gradually getting rid of the connections they have had with the earth. The satisfaction of desires must be put aside. Such desires are a process in the astral body, but the astral body cannot satisfy them. As long as one lives on the physical plane one can satisfy the desires of the astral body through the instrument of the physical body. After death the desire for enjoyment is still there, but the means for its satisfaction are not to be found. Everything that can only be satisfied through the physical body must be relinquished. This takes place in Kamaloka. When man has put aside all such desires, Kamaloka is at an end and is followed by the time in Devachan.

When Kamaloka time comes to an end something can occur which is not quite normal in human development. In the normal way the following happens: the person has freed himself from desires, wishes, instincts, passions and so on. Now everything which is of a higher nature lifts itself out of the astral body. Then a sort of shell remains behind, the residue of what man made use of in order to enjoy the pleasures of the senses. And when someone has left the Kamaloka plane, these astral human shells float around there. They gradually dissolve, and when the person returns most of them have usually disappeared. It may well happen that strongly somnambulistic or mediumistic natures can be troubled by these astral shells. This shows itself in the case of weak mediumistic people in a way that makes a very unpleasant impression on them. It can come about that in his ego someone may have such a strong inclination for the astral body, in spite of the fact that on the other hand he is already so far developed as to be comparatively soon ready for devachan, that parts of his already developed Manas remain united with this shell. It is not so bad if someone develops lower desires when he is still a simple person, but it is a bad thing if someone uses his highly evolved intellect to gratify those desires. Then part of his manasic nature unites with these lower desires. In the materialistic age this is extremely frequent. With such people part of Manas remains united with the shell, and then this shell has automatic intellect. These shells are called shades. These shades endowed with automatic intellect are very frequently what manifest through mediums. Through this, one can be exposed to the illusion that what is merely the shell of a person is his real individuality. Very often what is made known after the death of a person proceeds from such a shell that has nothing whatever to do with the ego which is developing further. But with the dissolving of the shades, karma is not absolved.

We take with us the cause of every counter-image that we have brought about in astral space. Our works follow us. Just as a monogram is imprinted into a seal, so it is with what we imprint into astral space and it can bring about devastating effects. What corresponds to the seal we take with us. What remains behind however in astral space we should not disregard. Let us imagine that in this life someone were to evolve beyond a certain clearly defined stage of development. At the earlier stage he held opinions which those he held later contradicted. When he ascends into devachan the old opinions, with which he had not come to satisfactory terms, remain behind in the shell. Now if a medium comes into contact with this shell, it can be that opinions are found in it which are in contradiction with the later life of this person. This was actually the case when the attempt was made to get into touch with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky on the astral plane. At one time her attitude had been that there was no such thing as reincarnation. The medium in question⁵⁶ had obtained this opinion from the shell that Blavatsky had left behind, an opinion which however in her later teachings she declared was erroneous.

Innumerable errors can assail anyone who enters astral space. Besides everything else, there is on the astral plane an imprint of the Akasha-Chronicle. If someone has the faculty of reading, on the astral plane, the Akasha-Chronicle, which is there reflected in its single parts, he will be able to see his earlier incarnations. The Akasha-Chronicle does not consist of printed letters, but one reads there what has actually taken place. Even after one thousand five hundred years, an Akasha-picture gives the impression of the earlier personality. Thus on the astral plane there are also to be found all the Akasha-pictures from earlier times. So one can easily fall into the error of believing that one is speaking to Dante, whereas today Dante might actually be reincarnated as a living personality. It is also possible for the Akasha-picture to give sensible answers, even to go beyond itself. It can therefore come about that we get verses from Dante's Akasha picture which do not proceed from the progressed individuality but must be looked upon as a continuation of verses coming from the previous personality of Dante. The Akasha picture is something living, by no means a rigid automaton.

In order to be able to find one's way on the astral plane a severe and systematic schooling is necessary, because there is always the possibility of deception. And it is especially important to refrain from forming judgements as long as possible.

Let us now turn our minds to the process of dying, in order to understand the technique of reincarnation. The moment of death consists in the separation of the etheric and physical bodies. The difference between falling asleep and dying is that when one falls asleep, the etheric body remains connected with the physical body. All one's thoughts and experiences are imprinted into the etheric body. They are deeply embedded in it. Man would be able to remember much more of his experiences if it were not that they are continually obliterated by the outer world. He is not always aware of his thoughts and impressions because his attention is directed outwards. If he ceases to do this, he perceives what is stored up in his etheric body. In the main, he directs his attention outwards and absorbs the impressions into his etheric body. These however he partially forgets. When at the moment of death the physical body is laid aside, he perceives what is stored up in his etheric body. This is what happens after his ego has separated from the physical body together with the astral and etheric bodies. Immediately after death therefore opportunity is given for complete recollection of the past life.

Now we must try to understand another and similar moment, namely the moment of birth, when the human being enters into a new incarnation. Here something different occurs. He brings with him all that he has worked over on the Devachan plane. Like bells, the astral bodies, desirous of incarnation, whirl towards the life-ether and now form a new etheric body. When the human being has united himself with his future etheric body, a momentary vision arises just as previously, at death, he looked back on his past life. This however expresses itself in quite another way, as a gazing into the future, a fore-knowledge. In the case of children with somewhat psychic tendencies, one can sometimes hear them tell of such things, in their earliest years, so long as the materialistic culture has not yet affected them. This is prevision of the coming existence.

These are two vital moments, for they show us what the human being brings with him when he descends in order to incarnate. When he has died, the essential thing is memory. When he reincarnates what is essential is a vision of the future. These two are related to one another as cause and effect. Everything that man experiences in the last moment of dying is the gathering together of all previous lives. In Devachan this is transformed from what is connected with the past into what is connected with the future. These two moments can form an important signpost pointing to quite definite connections in two or more succeeding incarnations.

• 55. Light on the Path by Mabel Collins.
• 56. refers to a booklet by Georg von Langsdorff, Freiburg i. Br. known as a translator and publiciser of spiritualistic material. Rudolf Steiner also refers to the matter in the lecture 24.8.1906 in At the Gates of Spiritual Science.

At the outset of our studies to-day we must deal with a word that in Spiritual Science is very important. In Christian occult science the Old Moon is called the Cosmos of Wisdom and the Earth the Cosmos of Love. By “Moon” we here mean the Moon Period of the Earth. The reason why the Old Moon is called the Cosmos of Wisdom is because all that was then developed was filled with wisdom. When the Earth Period succeeded the Moon Period the Cosmos of Wisdom was replaced by the Cosmos of Love. When the Earth came forth from the darkness of Pralaya, the rudiments of the human being which had been developed in former periods reappeared—the physical, etheric and astral bodies. On the Old Moon Wisdom had been implanted in these bodies and their mutual relationships; we therefore find wisdom in the constitution of these three bodies. We find the greatest wisdom in the construction of the physical body, less in that of the etheric body, and still less in that of the astral body. If we thoughtfully observe the human body we discover this wisdom in each organ, in each part. For instance, if we study the upper portion of the human thighbone we find in it a network of cells beautifully constructed with a view to their purpose. No engineer of the present day would be able to produce these two columns, which bear the upper part of the human body with the smallest expenditure of matter and force. Wisdom was implanted in the human body as long as the divine Spirits worked upon it. As a rule the physical body is looked upon as the lowest part of man, unjustly so, for the very greatest wisdom can be seen just in the physical body. Only through this wisdom is it possible for the physical body to withstand the attacks continually made upon it by the astral body, and so not break up before the time. The pleasures and desires which hold sway in the physical body when tea and coffee and so on are taken, all these are attacks of the astral body on the physical body, and especially on the heart. It has therefore to be so wisely constructed that these attacks can be withstood for decades. Of course the suitable form of the heart could only be discovered by subjecting it to many transformations.

Wisdom lies at the foundation of the construction of the world, and it is for this reason that our intellect can now seek and find it there. But wisdom did not come suddenly into the world, it was only poured in slowly and gradually; and in the same way love will also permeate the Earth very gradually. The purpose of the evolution of our Earth is to be permeated with love. Love has only begun to permeate the Earth to the smallest extent, but it will spread more and more, and at the end of the Earth Period everything will be saturated with love, just as it was saturated with wisdom at the end of the Moon Period.

When the Moon separated from the Earth the force of love was only contained in it seminally. First of all only those who were related to one another by blood loved one another. This state of things lasted for a long time; then the sphere of the activity of love gradually widened. For the perception and exercise of love a certain independence is necessary.

From the beginning of human evolution two forces have always been active: one that draws together and one that separates (Sun and Moon forces). Under the influence of these two forces man was so far developed that his three bodies, together with the bearer of the ego, inclined towards the Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Man. But a final union could not have come about without the addition of a new cosmic force. This force, which exercised a specially strong influence after the separation of the Moon, came from another planet, which entered into a remarkable relationship with the Earth. This planet, Mars, made a sort of passage through the body of the Earth when the latter began its evolution. Until then iron had been lacking in the Earth, and through its appearance on the Earth the course of evolution was changed at one stroke. It was the planet Mars which brought iron to the Earth, and from that time it was possible for Man to develop warm blood containing iron. Through Mars the astral also received a new principle, the sentient soul, the courageous soul. When Mars entered, the aggressive element developed in the soul. We have now to distinguish in men the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the sentient soul. Red, warm blood was the result of the activity of the sentient soul on the physical body; then the fertilising Ego could gradually be membered into the human being.

“Blood is a very special fluid.” The God of Form, Jehovah, now played a specially important role. He took possession of the newly developed organ, the blood, permeated it with His forces, transformed the aggressive qualities of the courageous soul into the forces of love and made the blood into the physical vehicle of the Ego.

In the beginning each human individual did not possess his own Ego. The same Jehovah-force, the Ego-force, the same Ego worked in all who were related by blood, who preserved the same blood through endogamy (near marriage). A small group of this kind had a common Ego. The individual was related to the whole family as a finger is related to the whole body. In the beginning there were group-souls; the individual felt himself to be part of the family or tribe; and the same Ego lived on through several generations, it was not confined to those who were living at the same time; the common Ego was felt as long as the blood remained unmixed, as long as those who belonged to the same tribe intermarried. Therefore the Ego was not felt as something personal, but as something common to all the members of the tribe. Just as a man now remembers what he has experienced from the time of his birth, the men of that time remembered what the ancestors of the same tribe had done as vividly as if they themselves had experienced it: The grandchild and great-grandchild felt within them the some Ego that had lived in the grandfather and great-grandfather. When we know this we shall understand the secret of the great age of the patriarchs. For example, “Adam” was not the name of a single individual but of the common Ego which flowed through many generations. We have just said that Jehovah made the blood, into the physical vehicle of the Ego. He did this by taking in hand the development of the blood. He expressed His force in the kind of breathing; man became the Jehovah-man through Jehovah giving him the breath. The fact that the man who was supplied with the necessary preliminary conditions had the living breath breathed into him must be taken quite literally. “Jehovah breathed breath into man and he became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). But this inbreathing of the soul did not take place suddenly, it was a process which lasted for thousands of years. Man thus became a breather of air.

On the Old Moon there was something else in place of the breathing of air. Whereas the man of the present day breathes air in and out and thereby has a source of warmth within himself, his ancestors on the Old Moon consisting of physical, etheric and astral bodies; breathed the substance of warmth or fire in and out. Man's predecessors on the old Moon were fire-breathers. Occult Science looks upon all matter only as the expression of spirit. We breathe in and out not air alone, we breathe in the Spirit it contains. Air is the body of Jehovah just as flesh is the body of man. The remembrance of this is expressed in the German legend of Wotan who rides in the Wind. What was breathed in and out on the Old Moon was also spirit.

Upon the Old Moon there were the same spiritual Beings as live upon the Earth; there they lived in fire, but upon the Earth they have become spirits of air. In cosmic evolution Beings remain behind in their development, just as some pupils are backward at school. The Beings who made the Sun their dwelling-place had developed more rapidly and made the transition from fire-spirits to air-spirits; but a great host of beings had not made this transition. The former now worked upon man as spiritual forces from outside, from Sun and Moon. Man takes them into himself through his breath. Between Man and these highly developed Sun-Spirits there are the spiritual Beings, who, it is true, developed very much further than man upon the Moon, but not as fast as the Sun-Spirits and Jehovah. They were unable as yet to influence man through his breathing, nevertheless they endeavoured to influence him. They were the Fire-Spirits who had not completed their task. They worked in the element of warmth and this existed in man his blood. They lived in this warmth.

Thus in the course of his evolution man was placed between the Air-spirits, who live in his breathing (the highest Spirits who permeate him with Spirit), and the fire-spirits who live in the warmth of his blood. They act in his blood as the opponents of the God Jehovah. Jehovah sought to hold men together by love in small groups, He desired to fill them with the feeling of belonging together. But if love had only existed in this form men would never have become independent beings; they would have had to develop love involuntarily. The Fire-spirits directed their attacks against this, with the result that man gained his personal freedom. The small groups of people were broken up. Jehovah's only interest was to lead people together in love, He worked in the blood as the God of blood-love. The action of the Fire-spirits was different; it was they who brought art and science to men. These Spirits are also called Luciferic Spirits. The further course of the evolution of humanity proceeded under the influence of Lucifer, who brings freedom and wisdom to man. Under the guidance of the God Jehovah men were to be led together through the principle of blood-brotherhood. The fact that man has become a free citizen of the Earth,—this he owes to Lucifer. Jehovah placed men in the Paradise of Love; then there appeared the Fire-spirit, the Serpent, in the form which man once possessed when he still breathed fire, and opened men's eyes to what still remained from the Old Moon. This Luciferic influence was perceived as a temptation. But those who were instructed in the occult schools did not look upon this enlightenment, as wrong; the great Initiates have not cast the Serpent down but, like Moses in the wilderness, they have raised it. (Numbers 21:8-9).

That which was revealed in humanity was manifested for a long period through Jehovah as blood-love. Beside this worked the Spirit of Wisdom, a principle which has to prepare something different. Love gradually spread from smaller to larger groups of human beings, from families to tribes and peoples. A characteristic example of this is the Hebrew people, which felt itself as a group which belonged together and called all others “Galileans,” i.e. those who did not belong to the blood. But humanity was to receive not only blood-love but spiritual love, which will embrace the whole earth with a bond of brotherhood. The period during which humanity was held together by the love which existed between relations is only to be looked upon as a period of preparation for what was to come later. The action of Lucifer, too, which consisted in splitting apart the bonds which confined human beings, is only the preparation for the activity of a higher Being who was to come. This higher Being was called in the Christian occult schools the true Light-bearer, the true Lucifer, the Christ.

Let us now go back to the period when the Atlantean humanity lived on the Earth. The Earth had quite a different appearance then. Between Europe and America, where now the Atlantic Ocean rolls, there was land, a part of the Earth which now lies at the bottom of the ocean. Modern science is gradually arriving at the knowledge that a continent once existed where the Atlantic Ocean now lies. In Haeckel's magazine, '“Cosmos,” there is an interesting article on “Atlantis.” Atlantis was inhabited by people who were quite different from those of the present day. The relationship between the etheric and physical bodies was then quite different from what it is now. The clairvoyant sees two-points in the human head, one in the etheric brain, the other in the physical brain, between the eyes, about half an inch below the surface. In the man of the present day these two points coincide, but in the Atlantean this was different; the etheric brain projected some distance beyond the physical brain and the two points did not coincide. It may also happen in exceptional cases in people of the present time that these two points do not coincide and the consequence is—idiocy. It was only in the last third of the Atlantean Epoch that these two points came together, and only from that time did man learn to say “I” consciously to himself. Before that time the Atlanteans could not reckon, think logically or form a judgment; but they possessed a wonderful memory, which extended over generations, and they were dimly clairvoyant. They did not see the outlines of physical objects clearly, but they perceived psychic occurrences. When the Atlantean met an animal he perceived clairvoyantly the attitude of the creature towards him whether it was friendly or hostile. For instance, if he saw reddish-brown colour, he turned away for he knew that a hostile influence was approaching; but if he saw a reddish-violet colour he knew that something sympathetic to him was approaching. He also recognised the value of certain foods to him with the aid of this clairvoyance. The animals of the present day, which have preserved this dim clairvoyance, distinguish in a similar way between the plants in the meadows in respect of their value as food or their harmful nature. The kind of vision man now possesses in dreams is a decadent remnant of the clairvoyance of the old Atlanteans. Among the Atlanteans there was not such a clear separation between the consciousness of waking and sleeping as there is in the man of the present day. Their day-consciousness was less clear than ours; but their consciousness during sleep and in dreaming was clearer. During the early part of the Atlantean Epoch there were also times of complete unconsciousness, which were filled with mighty dream-pictures. In those very early times, too, the Atlanteans were unconscious of the act of reproduction. This took place in a state of complete unconsciousness. When the Atlantean awakened, he knew nothing about the act of reproduction; this process was only shown to him in pictorial images. We are reminded of this by the Greek legend which tells of two people who came to Greece and threw stones behind them, and out of these stones men developed. The act of reproduction was veiled in unconsciousness as long as marriages took place between those who were related by blood. It is due to the activity of the Luciferic Spirits, who opened the eyes of men, that men awakened to consciousness and that they recognized the act of reproduction consciously. Men learned to distinguish between good and evil. Because Men now knew about their love and no longer enquired about the blood-relationship they became independent. Then Jehovah was replaced by Christ, Who brought a higher love into the world and made man independent of the members of their tribe and blood-relationships. This universal love is only just beginning; but when the Earth has one day passed on its being to Jupiter, it will be entirely permeated by this spiritual love. It is to this universal love that Christ's statement refers: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26). It is the Christ Who pours out this universal love more and more over the Earth. The evolution of the Earth is divided into two parts through the appearance of Christ Jesus,—the blood, which flowed on Golgotha signifies the replacement of the love of relations by spiritual love. This is the connection between Jehovah, Lucifer, and Christ.

[ 1 ] In the spatial cosmos there stand in opposition to one another: World Expanse, and Earth-Centre. In the World-Expanse, strewn abroad as it were, are the Stars. From the Earth-Centre, forces radiate forth in all directions to the World-Expanse.

[ 2 ] As Man stands to-day in the world, in the present cosmic age, the Stars in their shining, and the Earth-forces in their working, can only appear to him collectively as the accomplished work of the divine spiritual beings, with whom his link is in the inner man.

[ 3 ] But there was once an age of cosmic history when this shining of the stars and these earth-forces were still a direct spiritual revelation of the divine spiritual beings actively at work within his own being.

[ 4 ] Then came another age. The Star-Heaven separated as a corporeal existence out of the divine spiritual tide of activity. There arose what may be called World-Spirit and World-Body. The World-Spirit is a multiplicity of divine Spirit-Beings. They send their influences, in the earlier age, from the places of the stars upon the earth within. What there rained down in light from the regions of the world-expanse, what radiated forth as forces from the earth-centre, was in actuality the Intelligence and the Will of those divine spirit-beings who were shaping Earth and Earth's Manhood.

[ 5 ] In the alter cosmic epoch—after the evolution of Saturn and Sun—this Intelligence and Will of the divine Spirit-Beings became ever more spiritually inward in its workings. What they had actively been present in, present with their very Being, became now the ‘World-Body,’ an harmonious ordering of the stars in cosmic space. Looking back upon these things in spirit, comprehending them in a spiritual world-conception, one may express it thus: Out of the original Spirit-Body of the world-creative Beings there arose World-Spirit and World-Body. The World-Body marks in stellar order the stellar movement the way in which the Gods were working, long long ago in their Intelligence and Will. For the present age of the Cosmos, what once lived in the stars as freely moving, freely shaping divine intelligence and will, is now set fast in them as fixed Law.

[ 6 ] What shines therefore from out of the star-worlds to-day, to Man upon earth within, is not the immediate expression of divine will and divine intelligence, but a sign, left stationary, to mark what this divine will and intelligence were long ago, even in the stars. In the marvelous star-configuration of the heavens, waking wonder in the human soul, we may behold therefore a past manifestation but not the present manifestation of the Gods.

[ 7] But what is thus ‘past’ in the glory of the shining of the stars, is ‘present’ in the world of the spirit. And Man lives with his own being in this ‘present’ world-spirit.

[ 8 ] In the evolving forms of the world, we must look back upon an ancient epoch of cosmic history, when world-spirit and world-body worked together as a unity. We must keep before our eyes the intermediate epoch, during which they develop as a duality. And we must think forward into the future—into the third epoch, when the world-spirit will once more absorb the world-body into its sphere of action.

[ 9 ] For the ancient epoch there could have been no ‘calculating’ the constellations and the courses of the stars, for they were an expression of the free intelligence and the free will of divine spiritual beings. In the future, there will again be no calculating them.

[ 10 ] ‘Calculation’ only has any meaning for the intermediate epoch of the Cosmos.

[ 11 ] This, which is true of the constellations and the courses of the stars, applies also to the action of the forces which radiate from the earth-centre into the world-expanse. What there spring forth ‘from the depths’ also becomes ‘calculable.’

[ 12 ] Everything tends from the earlier cosmic epoch towards the intermediate one, when the worlds of Time and space become ‘calculable,’ and when Divine Spirit, in its manifestations as Intelligence and will, must be sought ‘behind’ the ‘Calculable.’

[ 13 ] This intermediate epoch alone affords the conditions under which Mankind can progress from a dull, dim consciousness to a clear, free consciousness of Self—to free intelligence and free will of his own.

[ 14 ] There had to come the time when Copernicus and Kepler ‘calculated’ the world-body; for the cosmic forces that served to bring about this moment were necessary to that development of human Self-consciousness. The disposition for this Self-consciousness was laid in an older age; then came the time when it was advanced so far as to be able to calculate the distant world-expanses.

[ 15 ] ‘History’ begins to be played out upon earth. There would have been no History, had not the world-expanse with all its stars become set in ‘fixed’ constellations and orbits. In the ‘course of history’ upon earth, we have a reproduction—though a quite transformed one—of what, once on a time, was ‘heavenly history.’

[ 16 ] The peoples of olden time continued to carry this ‘heavenly history’ still in their consciousness, and turned their eyes rather upon this than upon ‘earthly history.’

[ 17 ] In Earthly History there lives the intelligence and will of Man, at first in connection with the cosmic, divine will and divine intelligence, and then independently.

[ 18 ] In Heavenly History there lived the intelligence and will of the divine spirit-beings connected with mankind.

[ 19 ] Looking back over the spiritual life of the various peoples one finds, in the far remote past, such a consciousness amongst men of their being together and willing together with the divine spirit-beings, that their own human history is still a heavenly history. In his narration of first ‘origins,’ man's tale is not of earthly proceedings but of cosmic. Indeed, even for his own times—the times in which he is presently concerned—that which goes on in his earthly surroundings seems to him so insignificant in comparison with what is going on in the Cosmos, that he disregards the former and only pays attention to the latter.

[ 20 ] There was an age when the consciousness of mankind beheld the Heaven's history in mighty impressions, in which the divine spirit-beings themselves stood before Man's soul. The divine Beings spoke, and Man heard their speech in dream-like Inspiration; they revealed their forms, and Man beheld them in dream-like Imagination.

[ 21 ] This Heavenly History, which for a long while filled men's souls, was followed by Mythical History, now for the most part regarded as old poetic fiction. This Mythical History links together heavenly doings and earthly doings. ‘Heroes’ for instance came upon the scene—super-human beings. These are beings who stand higher than men in their evolution. Men at a particular time, for instance, have only developed the different parts of Man's being as far as the Sentient Soul. The Hero however has already evolved what will one day take its place in Man as ‘Spirit-Self.’ The Hero cannot directly incarnate in a physical body under earthly conditions; but he can do so by going down into the physical body of a human being, and thus enabling himself to work as a man amongst men. In the ‘Initiates’ of earlier ages we have beings of this kind.

The actual fact, with regard to all these things which occurred in the course of the world, is not simply that mankind in the successive periods of history ‘pictured’ things in one way or another in their own minds. What actually took place between the more spiritual, ‘incalculable’ world and the corporeal ‘calculable’ one, itself underwent a change. Only this much may be said: long after the actual conditions had changed in the world, human consciousness, in one or another other of the peoples, still clung to a ‘view of the world’ which corresponded to a far earlier reality. At first it was so, that human consciousness—which does not keep pace with the progress of cosmic events—still really saw the things of old. Then came a time when spiritual sight grew dim, and the old things were only maintained by tradition. Thus in the Middle Ages people still traditionally ‘pictured in their minds’ an intervention of the heavenly in the earthly world, which was no longer seen, since the power of pictorial vision no longer existed.

[ 22 ] Moreover, the evolution of the various peoples in the earthly sphere is such that they retain one or other view of the world, with its corresponding picture, for varying lengths of time; so that there are living alongside one another, views of the world which by their essential character should be living after one another.

The different views of the world however, existing amongst the different peoples, did not proceed only from this, but also from the fact that these different peoples, according to their dispositions, saw different things. Thus the Egyptians saw that world in which there are beings who long ago stopped short on the road to human evolution and never became earth-men; and they saw Man, after his earth-life, in all that he had to do with beings of this kind. The Chaldean peoples saw rather, how spiritual beings—both good and evil—from beyond the earthly sphere entered into earth-life to influence its course.

[ 23 ] To the ancient Heavenly History, properly speaking, which extends over quite a long period of time, there then succeeds the Mythological History, which is shorter, but still long in comparison to the subsequent period of ‘history proper.’

[ 24 ] As I described, men in their consciousness leave go but reluctantly of the old views, in which gods and men are pictured as fellow-actors in a common field. Proper, earthly history had long been in existence—ever since the development of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul—whilst men were still ‘thinking’ in the sense of what had been in former times. Only with the first opening flower of the Spiritual Soul did men begin to turn their eyes upon ‘history’ in the proper sense.

[ 25 ] Now in the human spirit working in earthly history, loosed from its tie with the Divine Spirit, men have the possibility to realize within themselves free intelligence and free will.

[ 26 ] So the weaving of the world-process in which Man is interwoven moves on, between the altogether calculable and the workings of free intelligence and free will. Under the joint action of both, the world-process is manifested—in every variety of shade betwixt the two.

[ 27 ] In his life as he leads it between birth and death, Man has ready-laid for him in the Calculable, as a foundation, the bodily groundwork upon which to unfold the free Incalculable of his inner, spiritual soul-life. His life between death and new birth is passed in the Incalculable—yet in such a way that in his inner life of soul and spirit, the Calculable is revealed to him in thought. Thereby—out of this Calculable—he becomes the architect of his next earth-life.

[ 28 ] In ‘history,’ the Incalculable is played out on earth—an Incalculable with which however the Calculable is interwoven, if only in feeble measure.

[ 29 ] Against this order established between Calculable and Incalculable by the divine spiritual beings who have been associated with Man from the beginning of all things, against their harmonizing of the Cosmos through ‘Measure, Number and Weight,’ stands the opposition of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings. Lucifer can combine with his own form of being, as he has made it, nothing calculable. His ideal is the cosmic unconditioned action of intelligence and will.

[ 30 ] This Luciferic tendency is one fitly suited to the world's order in those fields where freedom should rightly rule events. And there Lucifer is justly the spiritual helper of Mankind in their evolution. Without his aid, freedom would never make its way into Man's spiritual and soul life, built as it is upon a calculable, bodily basis. But Lucifer would like to extend this tendency to the whole Cosmos. And here his activity becomes a war against that divine spiritual order to which Man originally belongs.

[ 31 ] Here Michael intervenes. With his own being he stands in the Incalculable; but he dresses the balance between the Incalculable, and that Calculable which he bears within him as a World-thought received from his Gods.

[ 32 ] The Ahrimanic Powers stand otherwise in the world. They are the complete opposite of the divine spirit-beings with whom Man is originally connected. These latter are at the present day purely spiritual beings, who bear within themselves perfectly free intelligence and perfectly free will, but who create, in this their free intelligence and will, a wise insight into the necessity of the Calculable and Unfree, as a World-Thought from whose sheltering lap Man may grow up into a free being. And with all the Calculable, with this World-Thought of the cosmos, they are united in Love. This Love streams from them throughout all the universe.

[ 33 ] In complete opposition to all this is the grasping greed of the Ahrimanic powers, in which lives cold Hate of everything expanding in freedom. Ahriman's aim and endeavour, in all that he pours forth into world-space, is to make a cosmic machine. His ideal is, ‘simply and solely,’ Measure, Number and Weight. He was called into the Cosmos prepared for the service of human evolution, because it was necessary that this, his special department—Measure, Number and Weight—should be developed.

[ 34 ] He who comprehends the world as everywhere Spirit-in-body, he alone really comprehends it. This must be carried down into the world of Nature with regard to the powers at work there, such as the Divine Spiritual Powers who work in Love, and the Ahrimanic Powers who work in hate. In the natural, universal warmth, as it sets in with the spring and tends on into summer, we must behold the natural love of the Divine Spirit-Beings. In the freezing blasts of winter we must recognize the workings of Ahriman.

[ 35 ] In the height of midsummer, Lucifer mingles his power with the Love, the Warmth of Nature. At Christmas-tide, the Divine Spirit-Beings with whom Man is from his origin united turn their power against the frozen Hate of Ahriman. And ever more and more towards the springtime, Natural Divine Love is mildly at work, mitigating Natural Ahrimanic Hate.

[ 36 ] The yearly sign of this Divine Love, new-manifested as it is year by year, is the time of Remembrance, when we recall how with the Christ the free element of God entered into the calculable element of Earth. Christ works in perfect freedom within the Calculable. In so doing, He renders harmless that which craves the Calculable only—Ahriman and his forces.

[ 37 ] The unique Event of Golgotha is the free, cosmic act of Love within Earth's history. It is to be comprehended too only by the Love that Man brings to its comprehension.

Leading Thoughts

[ 38 ] The cosmic process with which the evolution of mankind is interwoven, and which reflects itself in human consciousness as History (in the most comprehensive sense,) may be distinguished into: a lengthy period of Heavenly History; a shorter one of Mythological History; and the comparatively short Earthly History.

[ 39 ] This cosmic process, at the present time, falls apart into: the ‘not-to-be-calculated’ working of divine spirit-beings, who freely create in free Intelligence and Will, and the ‘calculable’ processes or the world-body.

[ 40 ] To the Calculable of the world-body are opposed the Luciferic Powers; to the creating in free intelligence and free will, the Ahrimanic Powers.

[ 41 ] The unique Event of Golgotha is a free cosmic act, which originates in World-Love and can only be comprehended by Man's Love.

The domain of spirit: a scene of various coloured crystal rocks and a few trees. Maria, Philia, Astrid, Luna; the child; Johannes, first at a distance, then coming nearer; Theodora; lastly Benedictus.

Maria:
My sisters who of old
So oft my helpers were;
In this hour help me too
That Ether of the worlds
May quiver in itself;
Resound in harmony,
And thus resounding reach
And permeate a soul
With knowledge that is true.
I now can see the signs
Which guide us to our work;
For your work must to-day
Unite itself with mine.
Johannes who doth strive
Must be by our designs
To real existence raised.
Within the temple walls
The brethren counsel took
How they should raise him up
From depths to heights of light;
From us they do expect
To fill the soul with power
For such high spirit flight.
From breadths of space shalt thou,
My Philia, win for me
Clear essence of the light;
And fill thyself with all
The charm of sound which wells
From soul-creating power.
That thou mayst give to me
Gifts gathered by thyself
From out the spirit's depths.
Then can I weave for him
Their perfect harmonies
In the soul-stirring dance
And rhythm of the spheres.
And thou, my Astrid,
Dear image of my spirit,
Shalt cause within the light
The power of shade to grow
That colours may shine forth.
To formless harmonies
Thou shalt give shape, and thus
World-substance, weaving life,
May sound upon its way.
So I can give to man
When he doth seek therefor
A spirit consciousness.
And thou, strong Luna, too,
So firm in thine own self;
E'en like the living sap
Hid deep within the tree,
To these thy sister's gifts
Do then unite thine own.
Impress thyself thereon
That he who seeks may find
True wisdom's surety.

Philia:
I will myself imbue
With clearest rays of light
From cosmic spaces wide.
I will breathe deep within
Sound-substance that gives life
From distant ether-bounds,
Dear sister, that thou may'st
Succeed in this thy work.

Astrid:
Through all the streaming light
I will weave darkness in
To cloud its radiant beam.
I will make dense and thick
The living life of sound;
That glowing it may sound
And sounding it may glow,
Dear sister, that thou may'st
Direct the soul-life's rays.

Luna:
Soul substance will I warm,
Life's ether harden too.
That they may thus condense
And may thus feel themselves
As living in themselves
And powerful to create,
Dear sister, that thou may'st
Prove wisdom's certainty
To mankind's seeking soul.

Maria:
From Philia's realm
Shall stream forth delight;
And transforming powers
Of Undines arouse
The sensitive soul.
That he who is roused
May feel all the mirth
And feel all the woe
In cosmic domains.

From Astrid's close web
Love's joy shall come forth.
The Sylphs' airy life
Shall rouse in the soul
Self-sacrifice true;
That consecrate man
May rouse to new life
Souls laden with grief,
Souls yearning for joy.

From Luna's domain
Shall firmness stream forth.
And Fire-Beings' might
Shall form for the soul
Security's strength.
That he who doth know
May find his own self
In weaving of souls
And life of the worlds.

Philia:
From cosmic spirits I
Will beg their being's light
The soul-sense to enchant,
The sound too of their words
To charm the spirit's ear;
That he, whose wakening nears,
May raise himself aloft
Upon the paths of soul
Unto celestial heights.

Astrid:
The love-streams will I guide
That fill the world with warmth
Unto the heart of man Who is initiate;
That thus he may bring down
Into his work on earth
The grace of Heaven, and give
The joy of holy rite
Unto the sons of men.

Luna:
From primal powers will I
For might and courage pray
And lay them deep within
The human seeker's heart:
That so trust in himself
May guide him through his life,
Then shall he feel secure
In his own self, and pluck
Each moment's ripened fruit
And draw the seeds therefrom
For all eternity.

Maria:
With you, my sisters, joined in noble work
I shall succeed in what I long to do.
But hark! There rises to our world of light
The cry of him who hath been sorely tried.
(Johannes appears.)

Johannes:
'Tis thou, Maria! Then my suffering
Hath at the last born richest fruit for me.
It hath withdrawn me from the phantom shape
Which I at first did make out of myself,
And which then held me fast, a prisoner.
Pain do I thank for thus enabling me
To reach thee o'er the pathways of the soul.

Maria:
And what then was the path that led thee here?

Johannes:
I felt myself from bonds of sense released:
My sight was freed from that close barrier,
Which hid all but the present from mine eyes.
Quite otherwise I viewed the life of one
I knew on earth, and looked beyond the space
Bound by the present moment's narrow ring.
Capesius, whom with the eyes of sense
In his old age I saw—this man
The spirit placed before my soul a youth;
As first he entered on life's thorny path
Full of those dreams of hope, which ofttimes brought
A group of faithful hearers to his feet.
And Strader, also could I see e'en thus
As he appeared in earthly life when young,
E'er he had full outgrown his cloistered youth:
And I could see what he might once have been,
If he had followed out in that same way
The goal he set before himself of old.
And only those who in their earthly life
Are filled already with the spirit's power
Appear unchanged within the spirit-realms.
Both Dame Felicia and good Felix too
Had kept the forms in which they lived on earth,
When I beheld them with my spirit's sight.
And then my guides showed kindness unto me,
And spake of gifts which shall one day be mine
When I can reach to wisdom's lofty heights.
And many things besides have I beheld
With spirit-organs which sense-sight at first
Had shown to me in its own narrow way.
And judgment's all-illuminating light
Irradiated this new world of mine.
But whether I lived in some shadowy dream,
Or whether spirit-truth surrounded me
Already, I could not as yet decide.
Whether my spirit-sight was really stirred
By other things, or whether mine own self
Expanded into some world of its own,
I knew not. Then didst thou appear thyself;
Not as thou seemest at the present time,
Nor as the past beheld thee; nay—I saw
Thee as thou art in spirit evermore.
Not human was thy nature: in thy soul
Clear could I recognize the spirit-light,
Which worked not as man clothed in flesh doth work.
As spirit did it act, that strives to do
Such work as in eternity hath root.
And only now, when I dare stand complete
In spirit nigh thee, doth the full light glow.
In thee my sight of sense already grasped
Reality so fast, that certainty
Doth meet me even here in spirit-realms
And well I know that now before me stands
No phantom shape. 'Tis thy true character
In which I met thee yonder, and in which
'Tis now permitted me to meet thee here.

Theodora:
I feel compelled to speak. A glow of light
From out thy brow, Maria, upward mounts.
This glow takes shape, and grows to human form.
It is a man with spirit deep imbued,
And other men do gather round his feet.
I gaze into dim times, long passed away
On that good man who rose from out thy head:
His eyes do shine with perfect peace of soul;
And deep true feeling glows in every line
And feature of his noble countenance.
A woman facing him mine eye doth see,
Who listens with devotion to the words
Proceeding from his mouth; which words I hear,
And thus they sound: ‘Ye have unto your gods
Looked up with awed devotion until now.
These gods I love, as ye love them yourselves.
They did present unto your thought its power,
And planted courage in your heart; but yet
Their gifts spring from a higher spirit still.’
I see how rage doth spread amongst the throng
At this man's words. I hear their mad wild cries:
‘Kill him; for he desires to take from us
The gifts the gods have given to our race.’
But unconcernedly the man speaks on.
He tells now of that God in human form,
Who did descend to earth and conquer death.
He tells of Christ; and as his words flow on
The souls around grow calm and pacified.
One only of the heathen hearts resists,
And swears it will wreak vengeance on the man.
I recognize this heart; it beats again
In yonder child, that nestles at thy side.
The messenger of Christ speaks to it thus:
‘Thy fate doth not permit thee to draw nigh
In this life; but I shall wait patiently,
For thy path leads thee to me in the end.’
The woman who doth stand before the man
Falls at his feet and feels herself transformed.
A soul prays to the God in human form;
A heart doth love God's messenger on earth.
(Johannes sinks upon his knees before Maria.)

Maria:
Johannes, that which dawneth in thy mind
Thou shalt awaken to full consciousness.
E'en now within thee hath thy memory
Wrenched itself free from fetterings of sense.
Thou hast found me, and thou hast felt thyself,
As we were joined in former life on earth.
Thou wast the woman whom the seeress saw,
For so didst thou lie prostrate at my feet,
When I as messenger of Christ did come
Unto thy tribe in days long since gone by.
What in Hibernia's consecrated shrines
Was then entrusted to me by that God,
Who dwelt in human form, and did become
A conqueror o'er all the powers of death,
I had to bring to tribes, in whom still lived
A soul that brought a willing sacrifice
To mighty Odin, and with sorrow thought
Upon the death of Balder, god of light.
The power, which from that message grew in thee,
Attracted thee to me from the first day
Thine eyes of sense beheld me in this life.
And since it strove so mightily in us,
And yet remained unrecognized by both,
It wove into our life those sufferings,
Which we o'ercame. Yet in that pain itself
There lay the power to guide us on our way
To spirit-realms, where we might recognize
And know in very truth each other's soul.
Intolerably did thy pain increase
Through all the men who thronged thee round about,
With whom by fate's decree thou art conjoined.
Hence was the revelation of their selves
Able so fiercely to convulse thine heart.
These men hath Karma gathered round thee now,
To wake in thee the power that once did urge
Thee on the path of life, which selfsame power
Hath thus far roused thee, that, from body freed,
Thou couldst ascend into the spirit-world.
Thou standest nearest to my soul, since thou
Hast kept through pain thy steadfast faith in me.
And therefore hath it fallen to my lot
That consecration to complete in thee,
To which thou owest this thy spirit-light.
The brethren, who within the temple serve,
Have wakened sight in thee; yet canst thou know
That what thou seest is very truth indeed,
Only when thou dost find in spirit-realms
A being, unto whom in worlds of sense
Thou wast united in thine inmost soul.
And that this being might thus meet thee here,
Before thee did the brethren send me out.
And this did prove the hardest of thy tests,
When I was summoned here to wait for thee.
Our leader, Benedictus, did I ask
To solve for me the riddle of my life,
That seemed to be so cruel and unkind;
And blessedness streamed from his every word,
Telling of his own mission and of mine.
He told me of the spirit I must serve
With all the power which I have found in me.
And at his words it seemed to me as though,
All in a moment clearest spirit-light
Streamed through and through my soul, and suffering
Was changed to joyous blessedness; one thought
Alone then filled my soul;—he gave me light,
Yea, light, that gave to me the power of sight;—
And in that thought there lived the firm resolve
To this same spirit to devote myself
And make me ready for the sacrifice
Which in due time would draw me near to him.
This thought did generate the highest power:
It gave wings to my soul and wafted me
Into that realm where thou hast found me now.
In that same moment when I felt released
From my sense body, I was free to turn—
My spirit's eye upon thee, and I saw
Not only thee, Johannes, standing there;
I saw the woman too, that followed me
In ancient times; and had bound close to mine
Her destiny. E'en thus was spirit-truth
Revealed to me in spirit-realms through thee,
Who in the world of sense already wast
Made one with me in inmost consciousness.
So did I gain this spirit-certainty
And was endowed to give it unto thee.
Sending a ray of highest, tenderest love
To Benedictus, I went on before;
And he hath given unto thee the power
To follow me into the spirit-spheres.
(Benedictus appears.)

Benedictus:
Ye here have found yourselves in spirit-realms;
And so it is permitted unto me
To stand once more beside you in these realms.
I could confer the power that urged you here,
But I could not conduct you here myself.
Thus reads the law, which I must needs obey:—
Ye must through your own selves first gain the eye
Of spirit, which doth here make visible
My spirit to you. Ye have just begun
E'en now the path of spirit-pilgrimage.
Henceforth indeed upon the plane of sense
Endowed with novel powers shall ye both stand,
And with the spirit in your hearts unsealed
The cause of human progress shall ye serve,
For Fate itself hath so united you,
That ye together may unfold the powers
Which needs must serve divine creative work.
And as ye journey on the path of souls
Wisdom will teach you that the loftiest tasks
May be achieved for the weal of men
When souls that gave each other spirit certainty
Unite in faith to do salvation's work.
My spirit-guidance hath united you
To realize each other: now do ye
Unite yourselves to do the spirit's work.
May powers that dwell within this realm confer
On you through these my lips this Word of strength:—
‘The weaving essence of the light streams forth
From man to man to fill all worlds with truth.
The grace of love spreads warmth from soul to soul
To work out bliss eternal for all worlds.
And spirit-messengers come forth to wed
Man's works of love and grace to cosmic aims.
And when the man who finds himself in man
Can wed these twain, there doth stream forth on earth
True spirit-light from his warm loving soul.’

A landscape composed of fantastic forms. This picture of blazing fire on one side of the stage with rushing water on the other whirled into living forms is intended to suggest the sublime. In the centre a chasm belching forth fire which leaps up into a kind of barrier of fire and water. The Guardian of the Threshold stands in the centre with flaming sword erect. His costume is the conventional angelic garb. The Guardian, Thomasius, Maria, later on Lucifer and then the Other Philia.

The Guardian:
What unchecked wish doth sound within mine ear?
So storm men's souls when first approaching me
E'er they have fully gained tranquillity.
It is desire that really leads such men
And not creative power which dares to speak;
Since it in silence could itself create.
The souls which thus comport themselves when here
I needs must relegate again to Earth,
For in the Spirit-realm they can but sow
Confusion, and do but disturb the deeds
Which cosmic powers have wisely foreordained.
Such men can also injure their own selves
Who form destructive passions in their hearts
Which are mistaken for creative powers,
Since they must take delusion for the truth
When earthly darkness no more shelters them.

(Thomasius and Maria appear.)

Thomasius:
Thou dost not see upon thy threshold now
The soul of him who was the pupil once
Of Benedictus, and came oft to thee,—
Thomasius, although upon the Earth
It had to call Thomasius' form its own.
He came to thee, with thirst for knowledge filled
And could not bear to have thee near to him.
He hid in his own personality
When he felt near thee, and thus oft did see
Worlds which, he thought, made clear the origin
Of all existence and the goal of life.
He found the happiness of knowledge there
And also powers which to the artist gave
That which directed both his hand and heart
Toward creation's source, so that he felt
There truly lived within him cosmic powers,
Which held him steady to his artist's work.
He did not know that nought before him stood
In all that he created through his thought
Except the living content of his soul.
Like spiders, spinning webs around themselves
So did he work, and thought himself the world.
He once believed Maria in true spirit
Stood face to face with him, and yet 'twas but
The picture she had graven on his soul
Which like a spirit did reveal itself.
And when he was allowed a moment's glimpse
Of his own being, as it really was,
He gladly would have fled away from self;
He thought himself a spirit but he found
He was a creature but of flesh and blood.
He learned to know the power of this same blood;
'Twas there in truth, the rest was but a shade.
Blood was his teacher true; and this alone
Gave him clear vision, and revealed to him
Who was his sire and who his sister dear
In long forgotten ages on the Earth.
To blood-relations his blood guided him.
Then did he see how strongly souls of men
Must be deceived when they in vanity
Would rise to spirit from the life of sense.
Such effort truly binds the soul more firm
To sense-existence than a daily life,
Dull human dream existence following.
And when Thomasius could view all this
Before his soul as being his own state
He gave himself with vigour to that power
Which could not lie to him although as yet
'Twas but revealed in picture, for he knew
That Lucifer himself is really there
E'en if he can but show his pictured form.
The gods desire to draw near to mankind
Through truth alone; but Lucifer—to him
It matters not if men see false or true,
He ever will remain the same himself.
And therefore I acknowledge that I feel
I have attained reality when I
Believe that I must search and find the soul
Which in his own realm he did bind to mine.

(To the Guardian):
So armed with all the strength which he bestows
I mean to pass thee and to penetrate
To Theodora whom I know to be
Within the realm that o'er this threshold lies.

The Guardian:
Thomasius, think well what thou dost know.
What o'er this threshold lives is all unknown;
Yet dost thou know quite well all I must ask,
Before thou canst set foot within this realm.
Thou must first part with many of those powers
Which thou hast won when in thine earthly frame.
Out of them all thou canst alone retain
That which by efforts, pure and spiritual,
Thou didst achieve, and which thou hast kept pure.
But this thou hast thyself cast off from thee
And given as his own to Ahriman.
What still is thine hath been by Lucifer
Destroyed for use within the spirit-world.
This too upon the threshold I must take
If thou wouldst really pass this portal by.
So nought remains to thee; a lifeless life
Must be thy lot within the spirit-realms.

Thomasius:
Yet I shall be and Theodora find.
She'll be for me the source of fullest light,
Which ever hath so richly been revealed
Unto her soul, apart from lore of Earth.
That is enough. And thou wilt set thyself
In vain against me, even if the power
Which I myself have won upon the Earth
Should not fulfil the estimate which thou
Didst form of my good spirit long ago.

Maria (to the Guardian):
Thou knowest well, who hast been guardian
Of this realm's threshold since the world began,
What beings need to cross the threshold o'er
Who to thy kind and to thy time belong:
So too with men, who meet thee at this gate
If they do come along, and cannot show
That they have done true spirit-good they must
Go back again from here to life on Earth.
But this one here hath been allowed to bring
That other soul unto thy threshold now,
Whom fate hath bound so closely with her own.
Thou hast been ordered by high spirit powers
To keep back many men from here, who would
Try to approach the gateway of this realm
And would but bring destruction on themselves
If they should dare to pass the threshold o'er.
Yet thou may'st throw it open unto those
Who through their inmost personality
Are in the spirit-realms inclined to love,
And to such love can cling as they press through,
As hath been foreordained them by the gods
Before to battle Lucifer came forth.
Standing before his throne my heart hath vowed
With strictest oath, that in Earth's future times
It would so serve this love that knowledge bright
Pouring from Lucifer to human souls
Can harm it not. And men must e'er be found
Ready with earnest minds to hearken well
Unto the love revealed of the gods
As once from Lucifer wise words they heard.
Johannes in his earthly form doth now
No longer listen to my voice, as once,
When in an earthly life long since passed by
I was enabled to reveal to him
That which had been entrusted to myself
In holy temples in Hibernia
By that same God Who dwells within mankind
And Who once conquered all the powers of death,
Because He lived love's life so perfectly.
My friend will once again in spirit-realms
Discern the words which come forth from my soul
But which were hindered from his earthly ears
By Lucifer and his delusive power.

Thomasius (as one who perceives some being in the spirit):
Maria, dost thou see, clad in long cloak
That dignified old man, his solemn face,
His noble brow, the flashing of his glance?
He passeth through the streets, 'mid crowds of men,
Yet each doth step aside in reverence
That yon old man may go his way in peace,
And lest his train of thought be rudely stirred.
For one can see that, wrapped within himself
He meditates with powerful inmost thought.
Maria, dost thou see?

Maria:
Yea, I can see,
When through the eyes of thine own soul I look.
But 'tis to thee alone that he would now
Reveal himself in scenes significant.

Thomasius:
I now can see into his very soul,
Things full of meaning lie within its depths
And memory of something he's just heard.
Before his eyes there stands a teacher wise.
He lets the words which he hath heard from him
Pass through his soul; it is from him he comes.
His thinking scans the very source of life;
As once mankind in olden times on Earth
Might stand quite near and view the spirit-scenes,
Although their soul-life was but like a dream;
The old man's soul doth trace that line of thought
Which from his honoured teacher he hath learned.—
And now he disappears from my soul's sight—
Ah, if I could but watch his further steps.
I see men speaking with each other now
Among the crowd; and I can hear their words;
They speak of that old man with reverence deep.
In his young days he was a soldier brave;
Ambition, and desire to be renowned
Were burning in his soul; he wished to count
As foremost warrior within his ranks.
In battle's service he did perpetrate
Unnumbered gruesome deeds through thirst for fame.
And in his life full many a time it chanced
He caused much blood to flow upon the earth.
At last there came a day when suddenly
The luck of battle turned its back on him.
He left the battlefield in bitter shame
To enter his own home, a man disgraced;
Scorn and derision were his lot in life,
And from that time wild hatred filled his soul
Which had not lost its pride and love of fame.
He looked upon his boon-companions now
Only as enemies to be destroyed
As soon as opportunity occurred.
But since the man's proud soul was soon compelled
To recognize that vengeance on his foes
Would not be possible for him in life,
He learned the victory o'er his own self
And vanquished all his pride and love of fame.
He even made resolve in his old age
A circle small of pupils to attend
Which had arisen then within his town.
The man who was the teacher of this band
Was in his soul possessed of all the lore
Which by the masters in much older days
Had been delivered to initiates—
All this I hear from men within the crowd
It fills me with warm love when I behold
With my soul's sight, this aged man, who thus
After the victories which love of fame
Had won for him, could even then achieve
The greatest human task—to conquer self—
Therefore do I perceive within this place
The man to whom I wholly give myself,
Although I see him but in pictured form.
This feeling howsoe'er it comes to me
Is not a moment's work. Through lives long past
I must have been in closest union joined
Unto a soul I love as I love him.
I have not in this moment roused in me
A love so strong as that which now I feel;
It is a recollection from past times;
Nor can I grasp it with my thought as yet,—
Though memory calls these feelings back to me.
Surely I once was pupil of this man
And full of awe and wonder gazed on him?
Oh, how I long once more in this same hour
To meet the earthly soul which formerly
Could speak about this body as its own,
No matter if on Earth or otherwhere.
Then would I prove the strength with which I love;
What noble human ties did once create
This can good powers alone renew in me.

Maria:
Art thou quite sure, Johannes, that this soul
If it approached thee now would show itself
Upon the same bright height whereon it stood
In those old days just pictured 'fore thy soul?
Perchance it now is chained a prisoner
By feelings all unworthy of its past.
Many a man now walks upon the Earth
Who would be filled with shame, if he could see
How little in his present mode of life
Doth correspond with that which once he was.
Perchance this man hath wallowed in the mire
Of lust and passion, and thou saw'st him now
Oppressed by consternation and remorse.

Thomasius:
Maria, why dost thou suggest such words?
I cannot see what leads thee so to speak.
Have thoughts then here quite other influence,
Than in the realms where man is wont to dwell?

The Guardian:
Johannes, that which here within this place
Reveals itself is proving of thy soul.
Gaze on the groundwork of thy self, and see
What thou, unknowing, willst and canst perform.
All that was hidden in thine inmost depths
While thou wert living with thy soul still blind

(Lucifer appears.)

Will now appear and rob thee of the dark
In whose protection thou wast living then.
So now perceive what human soul it is
To whom thou dost bow down in ardent love,
And who indwelt the body thou didst see.
Perceive to whom thy strongest love is given.

Lucifer:
Sink thyself deep in depths of thine own self;
Perceive the strongest powers of thine own soul;
And learn to know how this strong love of thine
Can hold thee upright in the cosmic life.

Thomasius:
Yea, now I feel the soul that wished to show
Itself to me—'tis Theodora's self—
'Twas she who wished to be revealed to me.
She stood before me since 'tis her I'll see
When I have gained an entrance through this gate.
'Tis right to love her, for her soul did stand
Before me in that other body-form
Which showed me how 'tis her that I must love.
Through thee alone will I now find myself
And win the future, fighting in thy strength.

The Guardian:
I cannot keep thee back from what must be.
In pictured form thou hast already seen
The soul thou lovest best; it shalt thou see
When thou hast crossed the threshold of this realm.
Perceive, and let experience decide
If it shall prove so healing as thou dream'st.

The Other Philia:
Ah, heed thou not the Guardian strict
Who leadeth thee to wastes of life
And robs thee of thy warmth of soul;
He can but see the spirit-forms,
And knoweth naught of human woe
Which souls can only then endure
When earthly love doth guard them safe
From chilling cosmic space.
Strictness to him belongs,
From him doth kindness flee,
And power to wish
He hath abhorred
Since first the Earth began.

Curtain

[ 1 ] In the spatial Cosmos we have the contrast of the Universal spaces and the Earthly centre. In the Universal spaces the stars, as it were, are scattered wide, while from the Earthly centre forces are streaming out in all directions into the far spread Universe.

[ 2 ] To man as he stands in the world in the present cosmic epoch, it is only as a great totality that the glory of the stars and the working of the earthly forces can represent the finished work of the Divine-Spiritual Beings with whom he in his inner being is connected.

[ 3 ] But there was once a cosmic epoch when the glory of the stars and the forces of the Earth were still a direct spiritual revelation of the Divine-Spiritual Beings. At that time, man in his dim consciousness felt the Divine-Spiritual Beings actively working in his own nature.

[ 4 ] Another epoch of time ensued. The starry heavens became severed, as a corporeal existence, from the Divine-Spiritual working. There originated what we may call the ‘World-spirit’ and the ‘World-body.’ The World-spirit is a multitude of Divine-Spiritual Beings. In the former epoch these Beings had worked from the starry places inward to the Earth. All that had shone forth from universal space, all that had radiated by way of forces from the earthly centre, was in reality Intelligence and Will of the Divine-Spiritual Beings, who were working creatively upon the Earth and Earth humanity.

[ 5 ] In the later cosmic epochs—after the Saturn and Sun evolutions—the working of the Intelligence and Will of the Divine-Spiritual Beings became more and more spiritually inward. That in which They had been actively present in the beginning became the ‘World-body’: the harmonious arrangement of stars in universal space. Looking back on these matters with a spiritual world-conception, we may express it thus: From the original spirit-body of the World-creative Beings, the World-spirit and the World-body were evolved. And in the ordering and movement of the stars, the World-body now shows what the Intelligent and Will-imbued working of the Gods once upon a time was like. For the cosmic present however, what was once the Divine Intelligence and Will living and moving freely in the stars, has become fastened in the fixed Laws of the starry universe.

[ 6 ] Today, therefore, that which shines inward from the starry worlds to man on Earth is no longer an immediate expression of Divine Will and Divine Intelligence, but it is a sign that has come to stand:—a sign of what the Divine Will and Intelligence was, once upon a time, even in the very stars. Potent as it is to call forth wonder in the human soul, we must recognise in the sublime formation of the starry heavens a revelation of the Gods which is of the past; we cannot perceive in it their present revelation.

[ 7 ] That, however, which in the shining of the stars is ‘of the past,’ is ‘present’ in the Spirit-world. And in this ‘present’ Spirit-world, man with his own true being dwells.

[ 8 ] Studying the formation of the world, we must look back to an ancient cosmic epoch when the World-spirit and the World-body still worked as an undivided unity. Then we must envisage the middle epoch, in which they unfold as a duality. And at length we must think into the future—into the third epoch when the World-spirit will once again take up the World-body into its active working.

[ 9 ] For the old epoch, it would have been impossible to ‘calculate’ the constellations and the courses of the stars; for these were then the expression of the free Intelligence and free Will of Divine-Spiritual Beings. Moreover, in the future they will once again become ‘incalculable.’

[ 10 ] ‘Calculation’ has a meaning only for the middle cosmic epoch.

[ 11 ] And this holds good, not only of the constellations and the movements of the stars, but of the working of the forces which radiate from the earthly centre to the far-spread Universe. That which works ‘out of the depths’ also becomes ‘calculable.’

[ 12 ] Everything strives from the older cosmic epoch towards the middle epoch, when the Spatial and Temporal becomes ‘calculable,’ and the Divine-Spiritual as manifestation of Intelligence and Will must be sought for ‘behind’ this ‘calculable’ world.

[ 13 ] Only in this middle epoch are the conditions given for man to progress from a dim state of consciousness to one of free and bright self-conscious being, with a free Intelligence and a free Will of his own.

[ 14 ] Thus there had to come the time when Copernicus and Kepler could ‘calculate’ the body of the world. For it was through the cosmic forces with which this moment was connected, that the self-consciousness of man had to take shape. The seed of man's self-consciousness had been laid in an older time; and now the time was come when it was far enough advanced to ‘calculate’ the far-spread Universe.

[ 15 ] On the Earth, ‘History’ takes place. What we call ‘History’ would never have come about if the far spaces of the Universe had not evolved into the ‘hard and fast’ constellations and starry courses. In ‘historic evolution’ on the Earth we have an image—albeit thoroughly transformed—of what was once upon a time ‘heavenly History.’ [ 16 ] Earlier peoples still had this ‘heavenly History’ in their consciousness, and were indeed far more aware of it than of the Earthly.

[ 17 ] In earthly History there lives the intelligence and will of men—in connection, to begin with, with the cosmic Will and Intelligence of the Gods; then, independent of them.

[ 18 ] In heavenly History, on the other hand, there lived the Intelligence and Will of the Divine-Spiritual Beings who are connected with mankind.

[ 19 ] When we look back into the spiritual life of nations, we come to an age of far-distant antiquity when there was present in man a consciousness of being and willing in communion with the Divine-Spiritual Beings—so much so that ,the History of men was heavenly History. The man of that age, when he came to speak of ‘origins,’ did not relate earthly events but cosmic. And even in relation to his own present time, that which was going on in his earthly environment seemed to him so insignificant beside the cosmic processes that he gave his attention to the latter only, not to the former.

[ 20 ] There was an epoch when humanity was conscious of beholding the history of the heavens in mighty and impressive revelations, wherein the Divine-Spiritual Beings themselves stood before the soul of man. They spoke, and man in Dream Inspiration hearkened to their speech; they revealed their forms, and in Dream-Imagination man saw them.

[ 21 ] This heavenly History, which for a long time filled the souls of men, was followed by the mythical History, generally regarded in our time as a poetic creation of the ancients. Mythical History combines heavenly events with earthly. ‘Heroes,’ for instance,—super-human beings—appear on the scene. They are beings at a higher stage in evolution than the human being. In a given epoch, for example, man had developed the members of human nature only so far as to the Sentient Soul, but the ‘Hero’ had already evolved what will one day appear in man as Spirit-Self. In the existing conditions of the Earth, the ‘Hero’ could not incarnate directly, but he could do so indirectly by diving down into the body of a human being, and thus becoming able to work as a man among men. Such beings are to be seen in the ‘Initiates’ of an earlier time.

[ 22 ] To understand the true position of the facts in this world process, we must not imagine that in the successive epochs mankind ‘conceived’ of the processes and events in just this way. But that which actually took place, as between the more spiritual, ‘incalculable’ and the corporeal, ‘calculable’ world, underwent a change. Long after the world-relationships had actually changed, human consciousness in this or that nation still held fast to a world-conception corresponding to a far earlier reality. To begin with, this was due to the fact that the consciousness of men, which does not keep pace exactly with the cosmic process, really continued to behold the old condition. Afterwards there came a time in which the vision faded, but men still held fast to the old by tradition. Thus in the Middle Ages an in-playing of the heavenly world into the earthly was still conceived out of tradition, but it was no longer seen, for the force of Imaginative picture-seeing was no longer present.

[ 23 ] In the earthly realm, the different peoples evolved in such a way as to hold fast to the content of one or other world conception for varying periods of time. Thus, world conceptions which by their nature follow one upon the other are found living side by side. Albeit, the variety of world conceptions is due not to this alone, but also to the fact that the different nations, according to their inner talents, did really see different spiritual things. Thus the Egyptians beheld the world in which beings dwell who have come to a premature standstill on the path of human evolution and have not become earthly Man. The Egyptians too saw man himself, after his earthly life, in the midst of all that he had to do with beings such as these. The Chaldaean peoples, on the other hand, saw more the way in which extra-earthly spiritual Beings, both good and evil, entered into the earthly life to work there.

[ 24 ] The ancient ‘Heavenly History’ properly speaking, which belonged to a very long epoch of time, was followed by the epoch of Mythological History, shorter, but, in comparison to the subsequent period of ‘History’ in the accepted sense, none the less very long.

[ 25 ] It is, as I explained above, only with difficulty that man in his consciousness takes leave of the old conceptions wherein the Gods and men are thought of in living interplay and co-operation. Thus the period of Earthly History in the proper sense has long been present; it has in fact been present since the unfolding of the Intellectual or Mind-soul. Nevertheless for a long time men continued to ‘think’ in the sense of what had been before. It was only when the first germs of the Spiritual Soul evolved, that they began therewith to pay attention to what is now called ‘History in the proper sense.’ And in this Human-Spiritual element, which, loosed from the Divine-Spiritual, becomes ‘History,’ the free Intelligence and the free Will can be experienced consciously by men.

[ 26 ] Thus the World-process in which man is interwoven, runs its course between the fully calculable and the working of the free Intelligence and the free Will. This World-process manifests itself in all conceivable intermediate shades of co-operation between these two.

[ 27 ] Man lives his life between birth and death in such a manner that in the ‘calculable’ the bodily foundation is created for the unfolding of his inner soul-and-spirit nature, which is free and incalculable. He goes through his life between death and new birth in the incalculable, but in such a way that the calculable there unfolds, in thought, ‘within’ his existence of soul and spirit. Out of this calculable element he thereby becomes the builder of his coming life on Earth.

[ 28 ] That which cannot be calculated is manifested forth on Earth in ‘History,’ but into it the calculable is incorporated, though only to a slight extent.

[ 29 ] The Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings oppose themselves to the order which is established between the incalculable and the calculable by the Divine-Spiritual Beings who have been united with man from the very beginning; they oppose the harmonising of the Cosmos by the Divine-Spiritual Beings through ‘measure, number and weight.’ Lucifer cannot unite anything calculable with the nature that he has given to his being. His ideal is a cosmic and unconditioned activity of Intelligence and Will.

[ 30 ] This Luciferic tendency is in keeping with the cosmic order in the realms in which there should be happenings that are free. And Lucifer is there the competent spiritual helper of the unfolding of humanity. Without his assistance freedom could not enter into the human life of spirit and soul which is built on the foundation of the calculable bodily nature. But Lucifer would like to extend this tendency to the whole Cosmos. And in this, his activity becomes a conflict against the Divine-Spiritual order to which man originally belongs.

[ 31 ] At this point Michael steps in. With his own being he stands within the incalculable; but he balances the incalculable with the calculable, which he bears within him as the cosmic Thought that he has received from his Gods.

[ 32 ] The position of the Ahrimanic Powers in the world is different. They are the exact opposite of the Divine-Spiritual Beings with whom man is originally united. At the present time these latter are purely spiritual Powers who possess absolutely free Intelligence and absolutely free Will, but in this Intelligence and Will they create the wise insight of the necessity of the calculable and the unfree—the cosmic Thought out of whose lap man is to unfold as a free being. And in the Cosmos they are united in love with all that is calculable—with the cosmic Thought. This love streams from them through the Universe.

[ 33 ] In complete contrast with this, there lives, in the greedy desire of the Ahrimanic powers, cold hatred against all that unfolds in freedom. Ahriman's efforts are directed towards making a cosmic machine out of that which he allows to stream forth from the Earth into universal space. His ideal is ‘measure, number and weight’ and nothing else than these. He was called into the Cosmos that serves the evolution of humanity, because ‘measure, number and weight,’ which is his sphere, had to be unfolded.

[ 34 ] The world is truly understood only by one who comprehends it everywhere with respect to spirit and body. This must be carried right into Nature, with respect to such Powers as the Divine-Spiritual who work in love and the Ahrimanic who work in hatred. In Nature's cosmic warmth which comes in spring and works more strongly towards summer, we must perceive the love of the Divine-Spiritual Beings working through Nature; in the icy blast of winter we must become aware of Ahriman's working.

[ 35 ] At midsummer, Lucifer's power weaves itself into the love that works in Nature:—into the warmth. At Christmas the power of the Divine-Spiritual Beings with whom man is originally united is directed against the frost-hatred of Ahriman. And towards spring the Divine Love working in Nature continually softens down the Ahriman-hatred there.

[ 36 ] The appearance of this Divine Love which comes each year is a time of remembrance, for with Christ the free element of God entered into the calculable element of Earth. Christ works in absolute freedom in the calculable element, and in this way He renders innocuous the Ahrimanic which craves for the calculable alone.

[ 37 ] The Event of Golgotha is the free cosmic deed of love within Earthly History, and it can only be grasped by the love which man develops for its comprehension.

(About Christmas, 1924)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the foregoing on the subject of Heavenly History, Mythological History, Earthly History, the Mystery of Golgotha)

[ 38 ] 140. The cosmic process in which the evolution of mankind is interwoven—reflected, in the consciousness of man, as ‘History’ in the widest sense—reveals the following successive epochs: a long epoch of ‘Heavenly History’; a shorter epoch of ‘Mythological History’; and the epoch, relatively very short, of ‘Earthly History.’

[ 39 ] 141. Today, this cosmic process is divided, into the working of Divine-Spiritual Beings in free Intelligence and Will which none can calculate, and the ‘calculable’ process of the World-body.

[ 40 ] 142. Against the calculable order of the World-body the Luciferian Powers stand opposed; against all that creates in free Intelligence and Will, the Ahrimanic.

[ 41 ] 143. The Event of Golgotha is a cosmic deed, and free. Springing from the Universal love, it is intelligible only by the love in Man.

In the previous lecture, we took a look at the essence of human nature. Today, we will continue this consideration. Once we have learned the meaning of human development, we will better understand the main idea of John's gospel. This developmental process of humanity is the theme of the opening chapters. It wants to say, firstly, that it is this Christ Jesus that I want to make you understand. Secondly, the developmental process of all humanity is influenced by this Christ in a very specific way. From Christ onwards, the developmental process of the individual human being also became quite different. We must clearly understand the parallel between the developmental process of all humanity and that of the individual human being.

In the human being, the three highest elements of being are still undeveloped today. The higher these elements are in nature, the later they are worked through by the human being. Let us take a look at the evolution of humanity on earth through the different races. The main races of prehistoric times are the polaric, the hyperborean and the lemuric. In the first main race, the physical body is developed, in the second main race the etheric body, in the third the astral body, the body of feeling. So far man has progressed in the Lemurian period.

During the Atlantean period, the fourth main race, the sentient soul is formed out of the sentient body, followed by the rational soul and finally, towards the end of Atlantis, the consciousness soul with the ego, with which the fifth main race began, our present race. Before the awakening of the consciousness soul, the main abilities of man were language and memory. He could not yet combine, reason logically or calculate. It is only with the dawning of consciousness that the fifth main race begins, whose mission is to integrate Manas, the spirit self, into the human being and to educate it. With the awakening of Manas, the first sub-race of our root race develops. It is the Indian pre-Vedic culture. It is followed by the Persian, then the Chaldean-Egyptian-Hebrew, and fourthly the Greek-Latin. We ourselves belong to the fifth sub-race. We are going through the fifth stage of the development of Manas. We will be followed by the sixth sub-race with still other, higher tasks of human development.

The task of expressing the principle of manas is common to all of them. Each of the races does this in a special way. In detail, it happens something like this:

In the first sub-race, the sentient body or astral body had to accomplish the general manasic work of empathy. Our present physical body comprises a manifold, complicated sum of organ systems. In the age in which we live, it includes the bone and muscle system. The entire sensory apparatus is formed by the forces of the physical body. The etheric body causes all vegetative functions, all organs that serve nutrition, digestion, and reproduction. The astral body builds the nervous system into this bodily complex. All unconscious movements, all reflexes depend on the sympathetic nervous system, which extends symmetrically on both sides of the spinal cord. We call the part that extends into the abdominal cavity the solar plexus. In the Lemurian period, the sympathetic nervous system was the actual astral organ of perception. At that time, it was of a different nature and served clairvoyance. Under the influence of the sentient soul, the spinal cord was incorporated, which then became the brain under the influence of the mind soul, with the two cords of the spinal cord puffing up and widening at their ends, as it were. The forebrain did not develop until the end of the Atlantean epoch. Parallel to this development was another, namely the higher development of breathing and blood circulation, the processes of nutrition and growth.

At the beginning of the fifth root race, the human being was strongest in the sentient body, so that in the first sub-race, the Indian, Manas is sunk into the sentient body. The leaders of this epoch sought to awaken the old power of clairvoyance within themselves. The higher powers of the intellect, which were not yet strong enough, were excluded. Thus, with the help of the sympathetic nervous system, a dream-like clairvoyance was developed. Manas descended into the sympathetic nervous system and thus into the sentient body. In this way the whole wonderful dream world of ancient India becomes understandable, the great and wide, but dim and dull grasping of Brahman, the being beside oneself of the ancient yoga system.

In the second sub-race, the manas rises higher, into the sentient soul. The ancient Persians represent this to us. For them, the spirit self or manas lives in the sentient soul. The first expression of this is the confrontation between world and soul, between world and ego. This is expressed in the contrast between the spirit figures of Ormuzd and Ahriiman. Man seeks to overcome the resulting conflict through labor. Chaos, the disorderly matter, is to be overcome by the good God, who leads to the spiritual.

The third sub-race lives in the Egyptian, Assyrian and Israelite peoples. The Manas or spiritual self rises up into the mind soul. Manas in it now seeks to understand the world around it rationally. Or in other words: man seeks to find Manas in the cosmos. From this the wisdom-filled systems of Chaldean astrology arise, the combinations between the eternal laws that guide and move the cosmos and human destinies. The Chaldean priest-sage looks up to the stars, and the wonderful knowledge of planetary motion arises. But the rule of manas applies to a particular extent in the case of the one people, the chosen people. The Israelites apply the manasic principle in such a way that the people themselves are organized according to reason, as a unified national community. The legislation of Moses is a reflection of the star wisdom of the Chaldean priests.

In the fourth sub-race, the Greco-Latin, the spirit self penetrates as far as the consciousness soul. It is the awakening of consciousness when it takes itself by the scruff of the neck, as it were. The fully awakened consciousness now not only puts its intellect and its mind into the world, as in Jehovah's law, but in Hellas it puts its whole ego into its gods, into pure images of man. But Rome recreates its idealized ego in its state. The Greek gods and the Roman state are thus the image of what the ego has within itself and now seeks to make objective.

The fifth sub-race is our Anglo-Germanic race, which is to express the spirit-self in the spirit-self, Manas in Manas. That is, man will learn to comprehend what the spirit-self actually is; man will stand within Manas. Manas will finally work within itself. Today, only a few people really understand the manas. To grasp thinking with thinking, to catch thinking in thinking, to completely round off the snake of eternity, that is the task of the fifth sub-race. Thinking is the organ where the human being first grasps himself at one point. To stimulate this in man is the purpose of my book 'The Philosophy of Freedom'.

The sixth sub-race is the future one. The spiritual self rises up to the level of the Budhi; there, as in Manas, a light from above, Budhi shines into man. But at first Budhi is still a gift from above. This illumination by Budhi corresponds to the Christian concept of Grace. The beginning of this inflow goes back to the fourth sub-race. We have to describe this point in time as the beginning of Christianity. And the one who brought Budhi into the earthly human world is the Christ Jesus. And the Christ Jesus appeared as the bringer of that power, which had been completely foreign until then.

To sum up: What man has acquired during the five races is Manas - Manas, the spiritual self. It is met, as a gift from above, by Budhi, which corresponds to the Christian basic idea of grace. This, then, is the theme of the Gospel of John. But how was the approach made to this? Two things must, had to come together in order for Budhi to really take effect: first, as the bearers of the previous development, people now had to have an organ for Budhi formed from Manas. They had to be thirsty for Budhi, thirsty to go beyond the intellect. Brain development, without connection to the higher limbs, always ends in a dead end; it does not go beyond manasic development, beyond astral things.

There were such people who, out of the manas, brought a highly developed soul organ to the Budhi. It must be so. No matter how much light there is, if there is no eye, it will not be perceived. It is the same with Budhi. There was a name for all those people who had developed such an organ, who were thirsty for Budhi, a generic name: John. It can also be applied to the Baptist. Christ and Budhi are the same spiritual current.

We must now also consider the other: Manas also transforms the physical man. Gradually, the organs grew stronger, the strengthening spinal cord gradually integrated itself, and new centers of power were constantly forming. As always, these spiritual processes had to be matched by physical ones. The task of the fifth main race was the establishment of Manas, and in the body, the formation of the brain. The sixth main race will see the establishment of Budhi; the perfection of the heart as a completely voluntary muscle. In the seventh main race: the establishment of Atman; the perfection of breathing.

We saw how the heart and respiratory organs formed. In the circulatory system, the development of the budhi is modeled on the heart. The heart is actually only at the beginning of its development. Anatomy is faced with a mystery, because it creates a hole in its theory. The heart is a striated muscle, like all voluntary muscles, but the heart is also an involuntary muscle. Thus it is now the case that it is destined to become an arbitrary muscle, and that is in the future, when Budhi is developed. The heart is organized for the future; it will then be an extremely important organ. Just as manas is nourished in man through the blood circulation, so manas will then work in the heart and from the heart.

Let us consider the historical development before and after the illumination of Budhi. Let us first turn our attention to the blood. The blood is influenced by the nervous system. It is only when the manasic development advances that the relationship to the blood changes. In the primeval times of all peoples we have the very special phenomenon of the so-called Nahehe. We have the small ethnic groups that all marry within their blood relationship. But in every people we find a transition to distant marriage, so that an intensive blood mixture occurs. Earlier groups of peoples were therefore related by descent; they had a common ancestor who was particularly revered, for example, among the Germanic tribes, the progenitor Tuisto.

The legends faithfully preserve the conflicts that arose from the breaking of the blood ties. The blood of such neighboring communities was influenced by the lower parts of the nervous system. This gave man clairvoyance and the intuitive distinction between good and evil; he had a sure moral instinct. The moment man steps out of nearness, it becomes impossible for him to delve into clairvoyance from within, from the sympathetic nervous system. With remoteness, instinctive guidance ceases and the external law begins. The original moral instinct disappeared with remoteness; the external law had to enter. Out of the night of the old instinct there dawned a moral guiding star. Then came the Mosaic Law religion as the custodian of morality. This will finally be replaced by a new light, the Christ-light, the spiritual guidance.

What the moral instinct was for the individual tribe, that is Budhi or the Christ Principle for all mankind. In Christ, this process has become flesh. Christ came when the tribal blood ties had loosened sufficiently for the tribal god to change into a god of all men, for blood brotherhood to become a duty towards every fellow human being, and for tribal loyalty to be extended to self- and god-loyalty. What sunlight is to matter, what intelligible truth to intellect, that is the Christ-light to the Budhi, the grace coming from above. Through the Budhi, the earlier is no longer decisive, neither the moral instinct given by blood ties nor the law of the priests, neither Moses nor tribal authorities at all, the last of which was Jehovah. Now the sentence applies: “Whoever does not leave father and mother and brother for my sake cannot be my disciple.” That is to say, anyone who does not forget the old tribal principles and does not extend blood love to all people cannot follow Christ. The old tribal gods had entered into indissoluble marriages with their peoples, and with their peoples they had to pass away. The Christ represents a completely new spirit in the world, which entered into humanity, and this spirit united with the human soul, which passes through the whole evolution. Those who bore the name John, the leading people of that time, were so far as to feel with the greatest strength the burning yearning for something that lies above mere legality and justice, that is, they thirsted for the new Son of Man. And the One Who satisfied this longing was the Christ, the Bridegroom of the soul of humanity in general, humanity itself being the Bride. Thus Christ or Budhi is indeed the only begotten Son of God: “He must increase, but I must decrease,” was the saying of John the Baptist. One of the greatest symbols of this wedding feast is the wedding at Cana in Galilee, a place where all kinds of peoples flocked together in a colorful, international mix. We see how a wedding feast is celebrated there. “And the mother of Jesus was also there,” it says. In the Gospel of John, the mother of Jesus is never called “Mary”, just as the author of the Gospel of John, the disciple whom the Lord loved, is never called “John”. The mother of Jesus is the human soul, and this must first mature before Christ can work in it. Hence the words: “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.” Never would such a high individuality as Christ have spoken thus to his mother.

The fourth chapter of the Gospel of John shows Jesus with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Here you have Jacob, the representative of the tribal deity; the well: the old tradition from which one must draw and which does not satisfy. “Then the Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, since I am a Samaritan woman?’ (For the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans).” Here you have the old law. But in place of what flowed through the tribal blood, a new principle of life was to come: the Budhi. “But whoever drinks the water that I give him will never thirst. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The man-God married the human soul, the Budhi descended into the Manas, and henceforth humanity could draw the consciousness of good and evil from another source, the source of the “living waters”, and no longer from the well of Father Jacob, the Mosaic legislation. For it is in this sense, and in no other, that the conversation of Christ Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman is to be understood.

Who was Christ? And what did he do for evolution? These are the big questions, and we will gradually approach their answers. Some of it may still be difficult to grasp, so we must first gradually strike notes that will resonate even more strongly.

So far Budhi radiates into it.

For the next, the sixth round, Budhi would have to do everything that Manas did in the fifth; on it the world pointer stopped at the end of the fifth main race and the fourth sub-race. In the seventh round, Atman would then have to be developed.

Answering questions: What is the position of spiritual science regarding Swedenborg?

Rudolf Steiner: Swedenborg is like a person who has a spot in his eye and therefore cannot see clearly. He shot at the defect of his eye. It is often said, and even more often believed, that spiritual insight precludes a scientific education. But Swedenborg only became a spiritual researcher after he had already had an outstanding scientific career. His spiritual vision is even more important to him, as he can make all the objections of others himself. This is a crux for scientists, that someone is first a great experimentalist, then deals with occultism. They then say that he was simply no longer scientific later on, so one must distinguish between a healthy-thinking morning crux and a crazy-thinking afternoon crux! Of course, we cannot rely on Swedenborg in every detail, but he did see into the spiritual world. At the same time, however, he is an example of how spiritual organs can show a person what is wrong. Both the saying “Man errs, as long as he strives” and the saying “A good person in his dark urges is well aware of the right path” apply here. For ultimately, the human being is designed for truth and not for untruth.

Question: What about freedom of will?

Rudolf Steiner: Please read my Philosophy of Freedom.

Question: How can consciousness be present when the human being is free of the body?

Rudolf Steiner: First of all, we need to be clear about what we mean by “consciousness”. It is only since Descartes that we have spoken of “consciousness” in the abstract; before that, we spoke more of the soul and soul forces. Today we even have a “philosophy of the unconscious”, but consciousness is nevertheless a property of the soul. During the night, the soul is present, even if not conscious. One cannot manage with Wundt's abstract definition: the soul is the unity of the phenomena of consciousness. Outside of the body, however, the processes also become conscious; through spiritual development one even attains a higher state of consciousness. This is carried into the ordinary consciousness like a memory, and in a sense only becomes conscious in thinking. Otherwise it would be like dreams that a person does not remember. Beginners often say: I do not experience anything in the spiritual worlds, even though I do exercises. They can still experience an enormous amount, but just do not remember it in their ordinary consciousness. This is also necessary for some things. It is good fate for people that the moral law flows down to them unconsciously.

Question: What about thinking horses and Rolf, the dog from Mannheim? The animal is said to be able to calculate a root of a seven-digit number in five minutes, which would take a mathematician two hours.

Rudolf Steiner: I have not seen the Elberfeld horses, so I cannot speak about them. I have only seen the horse of Mr. von Osten, Clever Hans, but that was enough to give me an idea of these complicated things. A private lecturer gave a very materialistic explanation, even though such explanations are considered idealistic. He says that it has to do with the subtle play of features on the face of the person setting the arithmetic problem. He only said that he had studied facial expressions for a decade, but that here it was about such fine movements in the human face that even he could not follow them, but the animal could. So it takes ten years to judge a person, and then there is a facial expression that only a horse can judge, not even a horse breeder.

The truth is that when you are out of the body, the body mathematizes; you leave the mathematics behind in the body, and then you watch it. The horse can do that too. It is connected with currents that go around the earth. This can lead to the development of latent abilities that would not otherwise be developed. We should not be too mocking of these things, otherwise the world could be somewhat astonished by them after all.

[ 1 ] When I observe how a billiard ball, when struck, communicates its motion to another, I remain entirely without influence on the process before me. The direction and velocity of the motion of the second ball is determined by the direction and velocity of the first. As long as I remain a mere spectator, I can say nothing about the motion of the second ball until after it has happened. It is quite different when I begin to reflect on the content of my observations. The purpose of my reflection is to construct concepts of the process. I connect the concept of an elastic ball with certain other concepts of mechanics, and consider the special circumstances which obtain in the instance in question. I try, in other words, to add to the process which takes place without any interference, a second process which takes place in the conceptual sphere. This latter process is dependent on me. This is shown by the fact that I can rest content with the observation, and renounce all search for concepts if I have no need of them. If, therefore, this need is present, then I am not content until I have established a definite connection among the concepts, ball, elasticity, motion, impact, velocity, etc., so that they apply to the observed process in a definite way. As surely as the occurrence of the observed process is independent of me, so surely is the occurrence of the conceptual process dependent on me.

[ 2 ] We shall have to consider later whether this activity of mine really proceeds from my own independent being, or whether those modern physiologists are right who say that we cannot think as we will, but that we must think exactly as the thoughts and thought-connections determine, which happen to be in our minds at any given moment. (Cp. Ziehen, Leitfaden der Physiologischen Psychologie, Jena, 1893, p. 171.) For the present we wish merely to establish the fact that we constantly feel obliged to seek for concepts and connections of concepts, which stand in definite relation to the objects and processes which are given independently of us. Whether this activity is really ours, or whether we are determined to it by an unalterable necessity, is a question which we need not decide at present. What is unquestionable is that the activity appears, in the first instance, to be ours. We know for certain that concepts are not given together with the objects to which they correspond. My being the agent in the conceptual process may be an illusion; but there is no doubt that to immediate observation I appear to be active. Our present question is: what do we gain by supplementing a process with a conceptual counterpart?

[ 3 ] There is a far-reaching difference between the ways in which, for me, the parts of a process are related to one another before, and after, the discovery of the corresponding concepts. Mere observation can trace the parts of a given process as they occur, but their connection remains obscure without the help of concepts. I observe the first billiard ball move towards the second in a certain direction and with a certain velocity. What will happen after the impact I cannot tell in advance. I can once more only watch it happen with my eyes. Suppose some one obstructs my view of the field where the process is happening, at the moment when the impact occurs, then, as mere spectator, I remain ignorant of what goes on. The situation is very different, if prior to the obstructing of my view I have discovered the concepts corresponding to the nexus of events. In that case I can say what occurs, even when I am no longer able to observe. There is nothing in a merely observed process or object to show its relation to other processes or objects. This relation becomes manifest only when observation is combined with thought.

[ 4 ] Observation and thought are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our minds. Philosophers have started from various ultimate antitheses, Idea and Reality, Subject and Object, Appearance and Thing-in-itself, Ego and Non-Ego, Idea and Will, Matter and Mind, Matter and Force, the Conscious and the Unconscious. It is, however, easy to show that all these antitheses are subsequent to that between observation and thought, this being for man the most important.

[ 5 ] Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must prove that somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of a clear concept which can be rethought by any other thinker. Every philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles, must express them in conceptual form and thus use thought. He therefore indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thought. We leave open here the question whether thought or something else is the chief factor in the development of the world. But it is at any rate clear that the philosopher can gain no knowledge of this development without thought. In the occurrence of phenomena thought may play a secondary part, but it is quite certain that it plays a chief part in the construction of a theory about them.

[ 6 ] As regards observation, our need of it is due to our organization. Our thought about a horse and the object “horse” are two things which for us have separate existences. The object is accessible to us only by means of observation. As little as we can construct a concept of a horse by mere staring at the animal, just as little are we able by mere thought to produce the corresponding object.

[ 7 ] In time observation actually precedes thought. For we become familiar with thought itself in the first instance by observation. It was essentially a description of an observation when, at the beginning of this chapter, we gave an account of how thought is kindled by an objective process and transcends the merely given. Whatever enters the circle of our experiences becomes an object of apprehension to us first through observation. All contents of sensations, all perceptions, intuitions, feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies, images, concepts, ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given to us through observation.

[ 8 ] But thought as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as those objects appear within the horizon of my field of consciousness. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thought about these things. I observe the table, but I carry on a process of thought about the table without, at the same moment, observing this thought-process. I must first take up a standpoint outside of my own activity, if I want to observe my thought about the table, as well as the table. Whereas the observation of things and processes, and the thinking about them, are everyday occurrences making up the continuous current of my life, the observation of the thought-process itself is an exceptional attitude to adopt. This fact must be taken into account, when we come to determine the relations of thought as an object of observation to all other objects. We must be quite clear about the fact that, in observing the thought-processes, we are applying to them a method, which is our normal attitude in the study of all other objects in the world, but which in the ordinary course of that study is usually not applied to thought itself.

[ 9 ] Some one might object that what I have said about thinking applies equally to feeling and to all other mental activities. Thus it is said that when, e.g., I have a feeling of pleasure, the feeling is kindled by the object, but it is this object I observe, not the feeling of pleasure. This objection however is based on an error. Pleasure does not stand at all in the same relation to its object as the concept constructed by thought. I am conscious, in the most positive way, that the concept of a thing is formed through my activity; whereas a feeling of pleasure is produced in me by an object in a way similar to that in which, e.g., a change is caused in an object by a stone which falls on it. For observation, a pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the event which causes it. The same is not true of concepts. I can ask why an event arouses in me a feeling of pleasure. But I certainly cannot ask why an occurrence causes in me a certain number of concepts. The question would be simply meaningless. In thinking about an occurrence, I am not concerned with it as an effect on me. I learn nothing about myself from knowing the concepts which correspond to the observed change caused to a pane of glass by a stone thrown against it. But I do learn something about myself when I know the feeling which a certain occurrence arouses in me. When I say of an object which I perceive “this is a rose,” I say absolutely nothing about myself; but when I say of the same thing that “it causes a feeling of pleasure in me,” I characterize not only the rose, but also myself in my relation to the rose.

[ 10 ] There can, therefore, be no question of putting thought and feeling on a level as objects of observation. And the same could easily be shown of other activities of the human mind. Unlike thought, they must be classed with any other observed objects or events. The peculiar nature of thought lies just in this, that it is an activity which is directed solely on the observed object and not on the thinking subject. This is apparent even from the way in which we express our thoughts about an object, as distinct from our feelings or acts of will. When I see an object and recognize it as a table, I do not as a rule say “I am thinking of a table,” but “this is a table.” On the other hand, I do say “I am pleased with the table.” In the former case, I am not at all interested in stating that I have entered into a relation with the table; whereas, in the second case, it is just this relation which matters. In saying “I am thinking of a table,” I adopt the exceptional point of view characterized above, in which something is made the object of observation which is always present in our mental activity, without being itself normally an observed object.

[ 11 ] The peculiar nature of thought consists just in this, that the thinker forgets his thinking while actually engaged in it. It is not thinking which occupies his attention, but rather the object of thought which he observes.

[ 12 ] The first point, then, to notice about thought is that it is the unobserved element in our ordinary mental life.

[ 13 ] The reason why we do not notice the thinking which goes on in our ordinary mental life is no other than this, that it is our own activity. Whatever I do not myself produce appears in my field of consciousness as an object; I contrast it with myself as something the existence of which is independent of me. It forces itself upon me. I must accept it as the presupposition of my thinking. As long as I think about the object, I am absorbed in it, my attention is turned on it. To be thus absorbed in the object is just to contemplate it by thought. I attend not to my activity, but to its object. In other words whilst I am thinking, I pay no heed to my thinking which is of my own making, but only to the object of my thinking which is not of my making.

[ 14 ] I am, moreover, in exactly the same position when I adopt the exceptional point of view and think of my own thought-processes. I can never observe my present thought, I can only make my past experiences of thought-processes subsequently the objects of fresh thoughts. If I wanted to watch my present thought, I should have to split myself into two persons, one to think, the other to observe this thinking. But this is impossible. I can only accomplish it in two separate acts. The observed thought-processes are never those in which I am actually engaged but others. Whether, for this purpose, I make observations on my own former thoughts, or follow the thought-processes of another person, or finally, as in the example of the motions of the billiard balls, assume an imaginary thought-process, is immaterial.

[ 15 ] There are two things which are incompatible with one another: productive activity and the theoretical contemplation of that activity. This is recognized even in the First Book of Moses. It represents God as creating the world in the first six days, and only after its completion is any contemplation of the world possible: “And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good.” The same applies to our thinking. It must be there first, if we would observe it.

[ 16 ] The reason why it is impossible to observe the thought-process in its actual occurrence at any given moment, is the same as that which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course, the manner in which the process, in detail, takes place. What in the other spheres of observation we can discover only indirectly, viz., the relevant objective nexus and the relations of the individual objects, that is known to us immediately in the case of thought. I do not know off-hand why, for perception, thunder follows lightning, but I know immediately, from the content of the two concepts, why my thought connects the concept of thunder with that of lightning. It does not matter for my argument whether my concepts of thunder and lightning are correct. The connection between the concepts I have is clear to me, and that through the very concepts themselves.

[ 17 ] This transparent clearness in the observation of our thought-processes is quite independent of our knowledge of the physiological basis of thought. I am speaking here of thought in the sense in which it is the object of our observation of our own mental activity. For this purpose it is quite irrelevant how one material process in my brain causes or influences another, whilst I am carrying on a process of thought. What I observe, in studying a thought-process, is not which process in my brain connects the concept of thunder with that of lightning, but what is my reason for bringing these two concepts into a definite relation. Introspection shows that, in linking thought with thought, I am guided by their content not by the material processes in the brain. This remark would be quite superfluous in a less materialistic age than ours. Today, however, when there are people who believe that, when we know what matter is, we shall know also how it thinks, it is necessary to affirm the possibility of speaking of thought without trespassing on the domain of brain physiology. Many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of thought in its purity. Anyone who challenges the account of thought which I have given here, by quoting Cabanis' statement that “the brain secretes thoughts as the liver does gall or the spittle-glands spittle, etc.” simply does not know of what I am talking. He attempts to discover thought by the same method of mere observation which we apply to the other objects that make up the world. But he cannot find it in this way, because, as I have shown, it eludes just this ordinary observation. Whoever cannot transcend Materialism lacks the ability to throw himself into the exceptional attitude I have described, in which he becomes conscious of what in all other mental activity remains unconscious. It is as useless to discuss thought with one who is not willing to adopt this attitude, as it would be to discuss colour with a blind man. Let him not imagine, however, that we regard physiological processes as thought. He fails to explain thought, because he is not even aware that it is there.

[ 18 ] For every one, however, who has the ability to observe thought, and with good will every normal man has this ability, this observation is the most important he can make. For he observes something which he himself produces. He is not confronted by what is to begin with a strange object, but by his own activity. He knows how that which he observes has come to be. He perceives clearly its connections and relations. He gains a firm point from which he can, with well-founded hopes, seek an explanation of the other phenomena of the world.

[ 19 ] The feeling that he had found such a firm foundation, induced the father of modern philosophy, Descartes, to base the whole of human knowledge on the principle “I think, therefore I am.” All other things, all other processes, are independent of me. Whether they be truth, or illusion, or dream, I know not. There is only one thing of which I am absolutely certain, for I myself am the author of its indubitable existence; and that is my thought. Whatever other origin it may have in addition, whether it come from God or from elsewhere, of one thing I am sure, that it exists in the sense that I myself produce it. Descartes had, to begin with, no justification for reading any other meaning into his principle. All he had a right to assert was that, in apprehending myself as thinking, I apprehend myself, within the world-system, in that activity which is most uniquely characteristic of me. What the added words “therefore I am” are intended to mean has been much debated. They can have a meaning on one condition only. The simplest assertion I can make of a thing is, that it is, that it exists. What kind of existence, in detail, it has, can in no case be determined on the spot, as soon as the thing enters within the horizon of my experience. Each object must be studied in its relations to others, before we can determine the sense in which we can speak of its existence. An experienced process may be a complex of percepts, or it may be a dream, an hallucination, etc. In short, I cannot say in what sense it exists. I can never read off the kind of existence from the process itself, for I can discover it only when I consider the process in its relation to other things. But this, again, yields me no knowledge beyond just its relation to other things. My inquiry touches firm ground only when I find an object, the reason of the existence of which I can gather from itself. Such an object I am myself in so far as I think, for I qualify my existence by the determinate and self-contained content of my thought-activity. From here I can go on to ask whether other things exist in the same or in some other sense.

[ 20 ] When thought is made an object of observation, something which usually escapes our attention is added to the other observed contents of the world. But the usual manner of observation, such as is employed also for other objects, is in no way altered. We add to the number of objects of observation, but not to the number of methods. When we are observing other things, there enters among the world-processes—among which I now include observation—one process which is overlooked. There is present something different from every other kind of process, something which is not taken into account. But when I make an object of my own thinking, there is no such neglected element present. For what lurks now in the background is just thought itself over again. The object of observation is qualitatively identical with the activity directed upon it. This is another characteristic feature of thought-processes. When we make them objects of observation, we are not compelled to do so with the help of something qualitatively different, but can remain within the realm of thought.

[ 21 ] When I weave a tissue of thoughts round an independently given object, I transcend my observation, and the question then arises, what right have I to do this? Why do I not passively let the object impress itself on me? How is it possible for my thought to be relevantly related to the object? These are questions which every one must put to himself who reflects on his own thought-processes. But all these questions lapse when we think about thought itself. We then add nothing to our thought that is foreign to it, and therefore have no need to justify any such addition.

[ 22] Schelling says: “To know Nature means to create Nature.” If we take these words of the daring philosopher of Nature literally, we shall have to renounce for ever all hope of gaining knowledge of Nature. For Nature after all exists, and if we have to create it over again, we must know the principles according to which it has originated in the first instance. We should have to borrow from Nature as it exists the conditions of existence for the Nature which we are about to create. But this borrowing, which would have to precede the creating, would be a knowing of Nature, and that even if after the borrowing no creation at all were attempted. The only kind of Nature which it would be possible to create without previous knowledge, would be a Nature different from the existing one.

[ 23 ] What is impossible with Nature, viz., creation prior to knowledge, that we accomplish in the act of thought. Were we to refrain from thinking until we had first gained knowledge of it, we should never think at all. We must resolutely think straight ahead, and then afterwards by introspective analysis gain knowledge of our own processes. Thus we ourselves create the thought-processes which we then make objects of observation. The existence of all other objects is provided for us without any activity on our part.

[ 24 ] My contention that we must think before we can make thought an object of knowledge, might easily be countered by the apparently equally valid contention that we cannot wait with digesting until we have first observed the process of digestion. This objection would be similar to that brought by Pascal against Descartes, when he asserted we might also say “I walk, therefore I am.” Certainly I must digest resolutely and not wait until I have studied the physiological process of digestion. But I could only compare this with the analysis of thought if, after digestion, I set myself, not to analyse it by thought, but to eat and digest it. It is not without reason that, while digestion cannot become the object of digestion, thought can very well become the object of thought.

[ 25 ] This then is indisputable, that in thinking we have got hold of one bit of the world-process which requires our presence if anything is to happen. And that is the very point that matters. The very reason why things seem so puzzling is just that I play no part in their production. They are simply given to me, whereas I know how thought is produced. Hence there can be no more fundamental starting-point than thought from which to regard all world-processes.

[ 26 ] I should like still to mention a widely current error which prevails with regard to thought. It is often said that thought, in its real nature, is never experienced. The thought-processes which connect our perceptions with one another, and weave about them a network of concepts, are not at all the same as those which our analysis afterwards extracts from the objects of perception, in order to make them the object of study. What we have unconsciously woven into things is, so we are told, something widely different from what subsequent analysis recovers out of them.

[ 27 ] Those who hold this view do not see that it is impossible to escape from thought. I cannot get outside thought when I want to observe it. We should never forget that the distinction between thought which goes on unconsciously and thought which is consciously analysed, is a purely external one and irrelevant to our discussion. I do not in any way alter a thing by making it an object of thought. I can well imagine that a being with quite different sense-organs, and with a differently constructed intelligence, would have a very different idea of a horse from mine, but I cannot think that my own thought becomes different because I make it an object of knowledge. I myself observe my own processes. We are not talking here of how my thought-processes appear to an intelligence different from mine, but how they appear to me. In any case, the idea which another mind forms of my thought cannot be truer than the one which I form myself. Only if the thought-processes were not my own, but the activity of a being quite different from me, could I maintain that, notwithstanding my forming a definite idea of these thought-processes, their real nature was beyond my comprehension.

[ 28 ] So far, there is not the slightest reason why I should regard my thought from any other point of view than my own. I contemplate the rest of the world by means of thought. How should I make of my thought an exception?

[ 29 ] I think I have given sufficient reasons for making thought the starting-point for my theory of the world. When Archimedes had discovered the lever, he thought he could lift the whole cosmos out of its hinges, if only he could find a point of support for his instrument. He needed a point which was self-supporting. In thought we have a principle which is self-subsisting. Let us try, therefore, to understand the world starting with thought as our basis. Thought can be grasped by thought. The question is whether by thought we can also grasp something other than thought.

[ 30 ] I have so far spoken of thought without taking any account of its vehicle, the human consciousness. Most present-day philosophers would object that, before there can be thought, there must be consciousness. Hence we ought to start, not from thought, but from consciousness. There is no thought, they say without consciousness. In reply I would urge that, in order to clear up the relation between thought and consciousness, I must think about it. Hence I presuppose thought. One might, it is true, retort that, though a philosopher who wishes to understand thought, naturally makes use of thought, and so far presupposes it, in the ordinary course of life thought arises within consciousness and therefore presupposes that. Were this answer given to the world-creator, when he was about to create thought, it would, without doubt, be to the point. Thought cannot, of course, come into being before consciousness. The philosopher, however, is not concerned with the creation of the world, but with the understanding of it. Hence he is in search of the starting-point, not for creation, but with the understanding of the world. It seems to me very strange that philosophers are reproached for troubling themselves, above all, about the correctness of their principles, instead of turning straight to the objects which they seek to understand. The world-creator had above all to know how to find a vehicle for thought, the philosopher must seek a firm basis for the understanding of what is given. What does it help us to start with consciousness and make it an object of thought, if we have not first inquired how far it is possible at all to gain any knowledge of things by thought?

[ 31 ] We must first consider thought quite impartially without relation to a thinking subject or to an object of thought. For subject and object are both concepts constructed by thought. There is no denying that thought must be understood before anything else can be understood. Whoever denies this, fails to realise that man is not the first link in the chain of creation but the last. Hence, in order to explain the world by means of concepts, we cannot start from the elements of existence which came first in time, but we must begin with those which are nearest and most intimately connected with us. We cannot, with a leap, transport ourselves to the beginning of the world, in order to begin our analysis there, but we must start from the present and see whether we cannot advance from the later to the earlier. As long as Geology fabled fantastic revolutions to account for the present state of the earth, it groped in darkness. It was only when it began to study the processes at present at work on the earth, and from these to argue back to the past, that it gained a firm foundation. As long as Philosophy assumes all sorts of principles, such as atom, motion, matter, will, the unconscious, it will hang in the air. The philosopher can reach his goal only if he adopts that which is last in time as first in his theory. This absolutely last in the world-process is thought.

[ 32 ] There are people who say it is impossible to ascertain with certainty whether thought is right or wrong, and that, so far, our starting-point is a doubtful one. It would be just as intelligent to raise doubts as to whether a tree is in itself right or wrong. Thought is a fact, and it is meaningless to speak of the truth or falsity of a fact. I can, at most, be in doubt as to whether thought is rightly employed, just as I can doubt whether a certain tree supplies wood adapted to the making of this or that useful object. It is just the purpose of this book to show how far the application of thought to the world is right or wrong. I can understand anyone doubting whether, by means of thought, we can gain any knowledge of the world, but it is unintelligible to me how anyone can doubt that thought in itself is right.