The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When we think of all the achievements of the spiritual life, all the insight into the spiritual world and conceptions of the universe which have come to birth during the course of human existence, we have, on the one side, a picture of great and significant progress in the evolution of mankind on the Earth; and when this progress is investigated by Spiritual Science, it becomes clear that the human being—the single individual—participates in this general progress in that he passes through the successive epochs and time-periods in reincarnations; in this way he is able not only to preserve everything that his soul has assimilated in ancient and more recent times, but also to play a real part in the whole evolutionary process. Thus when a man has lived as a being of body and soul in one epoch of culture, he does not vanish from the field of evolution, but remains, in order again to take part in what Earth-existence has later become. In a general sense, progress of this kind is certainly to be perceived. But many of our studies will remind us that this progress is not so straightforward a matter that it could be said to begin with the simple and the primitive, rising from thence into the heights; on the contrary, it will be found that progress—indeed the whole process of evolution—is full of complication.

The First Post-Atlantean epoch of culture after the great Atlantean catastrophe was that of ancient India. Its sublimity and power of vision into the spiritual worlds have never since been equalled, nor will its heights be reattained until the Seventh Post-Atlantean epoch—after the Fifth and Sixth have run their course. Thus in certain forms of spiritual life there is a decline, followed again, in due course, by an ascent. Graeco-Latin culture, for instance, was a most noble expression of the inner union existing between the Greeks and their Art, and of the wise ordering of civic life in Greece and Rome, whereby a certain harmony in the conditions of life on the physical plane was created. But an utterance of a great Greek is also indicative of the character of this epoch: “Better it is to be a beggar in the Upper World than a king in the realm of the Shades.” This indicates that in an epoch of golden prime on the physical plane, men had only very limited consciousness of the significance of the spiritual world lying behind and beyond the physical plane. Since that time the intensity of the union between the human being and life on the physical plane has waned, together with the noblest fruits of that union; on the other hand, however, mankind begins, gradually and perceptibly to ascend once again to the spiritual worlds. This will serve as an illustration of the complicated course taken by human evolution. When emphasis is laid on the blessings and high lights of one particular epoch, this most certainly does not imply that lesser value is to be attached to other epochs which lack certain characteristics. Although we speak again and again of all that Christianity has brought into the world, we know that its impulse is only beginning and that the spiritual heights attained in the East before the coming of Christianity, have not again been reached. All this must be remembered, because there must be no thought or suggestion that in bringing forward the merits of one epoch, we do less than justice to the greatness and significance of others. In this sense I ask you to pay attention to a difference that is neither a merit on the one side nor a failing on the other: I want simply to describe a certain difference between pre-Christian, Oriental culture and Christianity (not Pagan or even ancient Hebrew culture)—a difference which becomes clear when insight into Christianity has been deepened by Spiritual Science.

In typically Oriental conceptions of the world there is a firmly established principle to which repeated allusions are made but to which, up to now, Christianity has paid little heed. Oriental culture has knowledge of the great cosmic Laws revealed today by Spiritual Science, namely, those of the return of the human being in different Earth-lives, and of Karma. Whereas Christianity through the centuries has had eyes only for the life of a man between birth and death, and its continuance in a simple heavenly life, the Oriental world possesses definite knowledge of the return of man in repeated lives on Earth; and the knowledge of this great manifestation of law in the evolution of humanity constitutes much of the profound significance in Oriental teachings. As a result of this, Oriental culture contains teachings regarding the leaders and great heroes of human evolution which differ fundamentally from anything taught in the West. In the Oriental world-conception we find references to Beings of whom it is said from the outset that they return again and again and that the importance of their influence can be measured by their achievements in successive Earth-lives. The very name, “Gautama Buddha” is indicative, for “Buddha” is not a proper name like “Socrates” or “Raphael,” but denotes a rank. The world of thought from which Buddhism has grown speaks of many Buddhas “Buddha” is a rank. Before “Gautama Buddha” the royal son of King Suddhodana—became the “Buddha” of whom Oriental teachings speak, he was a “Bodhisattva.” In other words, the Oriental conception of the world perceives the Individuality who passes through the different incarnations, ascending from incarnation to incarnation and finally reaching the height at which the rank of “Buddha” is attained Such an Individuality is then no longer called by a proper name. In speaking of the characteristics of the Buddha, Buddhism rarely refers to “Prince Siddhartha,” but far more often to a rank, attained not only by him but to which every human being can attain. And so, in pointing to the great leaders, the East points to the Individuality who passes through repeated Earth-lives; the greatness and significance of these leaders are attributed to the merits they acquired through repeated lives on Earth.

And now compare this with characteristic features of western culture. There we are told of the greatness of a Plato, a Socrates, of a figure like Paul; even in the Old Testament, a figure like Moses stands out in strong relief, and, later on, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci among many others. The West speaks of the single personality—not the “individuality” who passes through repeated lives on Earth. Attention is directed not to the being who goes on from birth to birth, from death to death, but to the one personality who lived from a certain point of time to another. The East directs its attention more to the onward progress of the Individuality from one incarnation to another, whereas western culture has been little concerned as to who Socrates, for example, could have been in previous Earth-lives, or what becomes of him in later lives. It is the same with Paul and with all the others. This is a very fundamental difference. The matter may be summed up by saying that the whole trend of the West hitherto has been to lay emphasis upon the importance of the personality, of the single life of the human being. Only now, when we are on the threshold of a great change in the spiritual life, are we beginning—having acquired in western culture a gauge as it were for the single personality—to discern a principle of existence which Oriental culture accepts as a matter of course, namely, the development of the Individuality within the single personalities, through many lives. A perspective of the future fraught with great significance is here opened up, of which mankind will stand increasingly in need.

Christian thought has actually lost sight of something which the East has always possessed and knowledge of which has now to be reacquired. The course of evolution is such that certain outworn fragments must be discarded and new elements added; ancient heritages must be rescued again, but in a new form and through a new impulse. In olden times, clairvoyance was a natural gift in humanity. It had to fade away and be replaced by thinking based upon purely external observation and perception; this will be enriched by the clairvoyance of the future and will add something of untold significance to human life. The West had to pass through a period during which mankind was split up, as it were, into separate personalities, but now that men stand on the threshold of a deepening of thought and experience, they will themselves be aware of a longing to find the thread uniting the fragments which make their appearance in the life of the human being between birth and death. The light of understanding will thus be shed on the forces which flow onwards through the stream of spiritual development and human progress. Let us illustrate this by a particular example:—

In the lecture on “The Prophet Elijah in the Light of Spiritual Science”¹ I spoke of what occult research reveals concerning this prophet. I do not propose to go into further details now, but will only say that in the light of occult knowledge, Elijah was one who proclaimed with power and deep intensity that the primal, original form of what humanity may call the “Divine” can be glimpsed only in the innermost centre of man's being, in the “ I ”. The great prophetic message of Elijah proclaimed that everything the outer world can teach is, at most, semblance and parable, that realisation of the essential nature of man can only arise in the “ I.” Elijah could not, in his time, proclaim the power and significance of the single, human “ I,” but he proclaimed the existence, as it were, of a Divine Ego, external to the human being. Men must recognise this Divine Ego, must realise that it rays into the human “ I ”. That this Divine Ego rises up within the human “ I ” and there unfolds its full power—such is the knowledge won by Christianity. The work and mission of Elijah are therefore a true heralding of Christianity. This can be said when the life of Elijah and his place in the history of human evolution are being described in the light of occult knowledge.

And then we may think of another life, the life of the personality known as John the Baptist. From the mouth of John, humanity was to learn what the immediate future held in store.... “Change the attitude of your souls! Do not look back to the times that are past, when men sought to find the Divine only at the starting-point of evolution; look, rather, into your own souls and into the deepest core of your being and then you will know that the Kingdoms of Heaven are near”.... This, was the substance of the message of the Baptist. In other words: the phase of development has come when, in very truth, the “ I ” can find the Divine within itself. The form in which Christianity was heralded by Elijah has changed with the flow of time. Something altogether different is represented by John the Baptist. But through Spiritual Science and a deepened understanding, we realise that one and the same Being lived in the prophet Elijah and in John the Baptist. We add to our understanding of the single life a principle of knowledge already possessed by the East, only the East did not lay such emphasis upon the power and force inhering in the single personality.

Going further, we can speak of that most remarkable personality who lived from 1483 to 1521, was born on a Good Friday and through this very fact, indicated, as it were, his living connection with the Mystery of Golgotha. I am referring, of course, to Raphael, the great painter. In the western world, as is only to be expected, it is customary to study Raphael as a figure in himself, but it will very soon become clear to deeper insight, that what the West has to say with regard to Raphael has many shortcomings. This figure of Raphael presents a remarkable spectacle to those who aspire for a more profound understanding. It is as though his genius came with him at birth. In a manner of speaking it can be said that he “let himself be born” on a Good Friday, in order to indicate his connection with the Mystery of Golgotha. It is quite obvious that from the very first, his life gave promise of all his subsequent greatness. Orphaned at an early age, he was thrown out into the world, and finally into the brilliance and splendour of Rome; there, within the span of a short life, we see him rise step by step to heights of fame. What is there to be said about this remarkable life? Think of the environment into which Raphael was born—it was in the period at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was a time when disputes in the world of religion were rampant and widespread, when Christianity was scattered into countless sects over the whole Earth, when mighty and also terrible conflicts were being waged in Christendom. And now we turn to Raphael's paintings. It is a strange experience! They seem to make us forget what was happening all around in the Christian world at the time and a kind of jubilation at the power with which Christianity has taken root in human evolution streams out from them. Think of a picture like “The School of Athens” as it is generally called. We see all those remarkable figures, deciphered by pedants with the aid of historical guide-books, as Socrates, Diogenes, and so forth. This, however, means nothing whatever from the point of view of Art. But if we take the New Testament and read the Acts of the Apostles attentively, we feel that in this picture we have before our very eyes the whole vivid difference between the pre-Christian views prevailing in Greece and those of Christianity; we also find this in the picture usually, though erroneously, known as the “Disputa.” “The School of Athens” really depicts the scene in the New Testament when Paul came among the Greeks, saying to them: “Until this day you have heard of many Gods; but the Divine does not express Itself in images. You have spoken great words concerning the living Gods, but there is something still greater: the Glory of the God Who died on the Cross and has risen again!“ We feel the power of the message as we stand before the picture called “The School of Athens,” and look at the remarkable figures of the philosophers listening attentively as Paul speaks. When the picture is actually before us, the pedantic interpretation given to it later on—that the central figures are Aristotle, Plato, and so forth—fades into insignificance. We feel that Raphael was trying to depict the moment when Paul came among the Greeks. If we study the New Testament closely, we shall be able to identify the figure of the man with the hand pointing forward so significantly, as a personality drawn from the New Testament account. The New Testament, therefore, provided the model for a personality depicted in this picture, namely, the personality of Paul.

And so we pass from one picture to another, forgetting all the statements that have been made about the one or the other, for a great force streams out of them; we feel that Christianity is living on in its mightiest power in the paintings of Raphael and that they portray a Christianity in which there can be no strife or splitting into sects. Recent times, however, have had little understanding of the Christianity which pours its living influence through Raphael's paintings. When we look at them even more closely, still another feeling comes to us. It is as though their creator wanted to portray the eternal youthfulness, the eternal power of victory in Christianity. And then perhaps we ask ourselves: In what form did the influence of these paintings live on?

Before very long, a despot like Bernini—who accomplished so much for Art—was giving warning against imitation of Raphael; it is even possible to say that Raphael was “forgotten.” In Germany and in the west of Europe during the eighteenth century there is a strange story to tell in regard to men's understanding of Raphael. In the whole of Voltaire's works you will find hardly a mention of Raphael. The name of someone else may also occur to you, although he held a very different view later on. Goethe's experience when he visited the Dresden Gallery for the first time, was a strange one. When you yourselves stand before the “Sistine Madonna” you will probably imagine that the picture must have filled Goethe with enchantment, and this may well be assumed in view of all the eulogies with which he later sang its praises. We have to remember however, what he had heard from the officials of the Dresden Gallery and from those who were the official custodians of the picture. He was informed by them that the Child in the arms of the Mother, the Child Whose eyes express a rare gift of seership, was painted with realistic vulgarity, that it could not be from the hand of Raphael himself but must have been painted over by someone else; and that the little heads of Angels could not possibly have been Raphael's own work. The coming of the Sistine Madonna to Dresden was not crowned with triumph! But at any rate it is to Goethe's credit that after he had learnt to appreciate Raphael, he contributed a great deal towards an understanding of the Sistine Madonna and of Raphael himself.

Now let us think of the course, taken by evolution in the nineteenth century, leaving aside what occurred in Catholic countries and turning our attention to Protestant lands in which the dogma concerning the Virgin Mary is not essential to faith. There, not only the “Sistine” Madonna but all the other Madonnas of Raphael are veritably crowned with glory! Without thinking now of the originals, the many excellent engravings and reproductions are a proof of how men have endeavoured to present Raphael's creations to the world in the most perfect possible form. Few people, after all, have the opportunity of seeing the originals themselves. Naturally, no reproduction can convey the essence of the artistic power in a picture; to suppose any such thing would be ignorant and barbaric. But something else made its way into the evolution of mankind: in regions which would have nothing to do with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, a form of Christianity independent of all differences of doctrine found entrance. While men have fought for these differences of doctrine in theories and systems, a picture of this great Mystery—in the characters of an “occult script,” as it might be said—found entry in the reproductions of Raphael's Art, filling the Mystery with new life. Here again is a heralding of Christianity from which great and glorious fruits will ripen in the future. And understanding of these things will be quickened by the experiences which have arisen in human beings at the sight of the “Sistine” Madonna, the “Madonna del Pesce” and other Madonnas, or from “The School of Athens,” the “Disputa” and other paintings of Raphael. Without being aware of it, men have in their souls today the feeling of an inter-denominational Christianity, conveyed by this wonderful “occult script.”

Raphael both heralded and established a new impulse in Christianity although, to begin with he was not understood. Occult investigation finds that the same Individuality who once worked in Elijah and later in John the Baptist, lived again on earth in Raphael.² This helps us to understand how the forces develop in the same soul from life to life, and to discern the effects of earlier causes. The Baptist was beheaded; his work came to light again in the achievements of his great successor. The new proclamation of the Baptist in the Raphael life was for long ages forgotten. It came to life again in what Spiritual Science teaches concerning the Christ-Impulse. What a light shines in our understanding when we gather up the threads leading through the single personalities, and in what vivid perspective the single personality stands there before us!

I said that the paintings of Raphael are like chants of jubilation at the might of Christianity. Raphael naturally keeps to the accepted events and facts, but out of his feelings he is able to portray them with a unique power. As our eyes wander over his paintings we realise with what majesty and sublimity he portrayed the forces of Christianity, and ask ourselves: What is it that Raphael did not paint? He painted no scene on the Mount of Olives, no Crucifixion. True, he painted a “Bearing of the Cross,” but it was a very poor picture and gives the impression of having been done to order. Neither did he paint any of the scenes leading directly to the Crucifixion. His creative genius begins to reveal itself again only when he portrays the figure of the great successor of John—the figure of Paul in “The School of Athens”; or when, passing over the other events in the life of Christ, he paints “The Transfiguration.” What Raphael has not painted helps us to understand that it was alien to him to portray those events on Earth (not events in the spiritual world) which took place after he was beheaded in his previous life. We realise why it was that Raphael painted fewer pictures of these particular events. When we look at the pictures, we feel that all those which portray events subsequent to the Beheading of John the Baptist, are not, like the others, born of earlier remembrances.

As we think of all this, another feeling, too, may arise in us. In a few more hundred years, what will have become of all the paintings which have been such great and mighty symbols in mankind? True, for some time yet the reproductions will be left to us, but not the originals—for so very long. Anyone who looks today with sorrow in his heart at Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper” realises what will become of the physical materials used in these pictures. It dawns upon us, too, that they can only be truly appreciated when, through Spiritual Science, we understand what it is that Raphael has painted, for example, in “The School of Athens” or the “Disputa.” What is to be seen today on the walls of the Vatican in Rome has been ruined by the many restorations. No real idea of the originals is possible, for they have been so grievously spoilt by the restorations. What, then, will have happened in another few centuries? No means of preservation devised by the mind of man will be able to prevent the materials from deteriorating. In another few centuries everything will have vanished. The subjects themselves, of course, will still be known; but the creations of Raphael's own hand will disappear. And then the thought arises: Is the process of human evolution such that things continually come into being only to sink, finally, into non-existence?

Our gaze wanders further and falls upon the youthful figure of a German poet—Novalis. To begin with, we find in his writings a most wonderful and unique resurrection of the Christ-Idea, of which the following may be said. If we steep ourselves in Spiritual Science and with the means it provides, try to understand the coming of the Christ-Impulse into the evolution of humanity, and then turn to Novalis—wherever we look, something seems to spring into life. Inspirations of the greatest grandeur concerning matters of Spiritual Science are to be found everywhere. Inspirations that are like lofty dreams of Science. From Novalis comes something that finds its way into mankind like seed—seed which will spring to life in times to come. Here again is a heralding of Christianity! In spite of all differences, it is again a beginning, just as the work of the Baptist was a beginning. We are drawn irresistibly to the remarkable figure of Novalis, feeling that a stream of living Theosophy goes out from him, inspired by the power of Christianity. We feel that here, too, is a proclamation of Christianity for the future.

Occult investigation finds that in Elijah, in John the Baptist, in Raphael, in Novalis, the same Individuality lived and worked. In Raphael there is a new resurrection of the work of John the Baptist, and it may indeed be said: Raphael himself is able to ensure that his work will not perish when his paintings are no longer to be seen on the walls, just as he was able to prevent other achievements from passing away. Just as he provided for the revival, in a new form, of what it had once been his mission to proclaim, so he will always provide, in incarnations yet to come. Thus does the Individuality bear through eternity what has once been accomplished.

It may be that concrete examples like these, given as illustrations of abstract laws and principles, will do more than the external teachings of Spiritual Science, to render the theosophical conception of human life as intelligible as those things which confront us in the outside world. Deep insight may come to us when, in the light of such concrete examples, we observe processes operating more secretly in the evolution of the human soul. As spiritual research is still a young science, men who have studied Raphael hitherto can naturally know nothing of the power and impulse he bears through the ages. But because the time has come when the idea of the reincarnation of the human being is to dawn, even though nothing concrete is known about it, undefined intuitive feelings may arise here and there. A striking example of this has come again to my mind during the last fortnight. I remembered how Herman Grimm, a most gifted writer on the History of Art and a distinguished student of Raphael, speaks of the painter. Naturally, when Herman Grimm was writing about Raphael, he knew nothing of Spiritual Science and studied only the single life of Raphael. He observed Raphael's fame through the centuries, its decline and subsequent growth, and discerned how, in his creations, Raphael lives on through time. And then there dawned upon Herman Grimm the remarkable thought which he expressed in his work on Raphael (he had wanted to write a volume, but it remained a mere fragment). He says there, expressing an entirely instinctive feeling: When we ponder on the things that will endure in the evolution of mankind, and thus catch a vista of the future, the thought arises that all these things will be lived through again! This is an eloquent indication of how the thought of “re-experience” rises instinctively, like a longing, in the souls of men who observe evolution thoughtfully and sensitively, for the very reason that without such a conception, the rest has no meaning. This is of infinite significance. And when we reflect about these things, an idea that is beautiful and true comes to us of what Spiritual Science will be able to do for the evolution of humanity, and of the enrichment which human life in all its forms will receive through knowledge of the laws on Reincarnation and Karma. But if the life of humanity is to be thus enriched, men will have to learn to observe the Spiritual with the same exactitude with which they observe the Physical; they will have to perceive how repetition in the physical world is a great law of existence, and that recurrence—as in the return of the soul into the body—is also a law governing the return of the fruits of the various lives. Such an experience, however, is always preceded by others—by human longings and hopes, and instinctive knowledge which has been unfolding during recent years. When we think of these things, it seems as though Spiritual Science has been growing and developing without consciousness on the part of human beings, but that they were already dreaming of it, instinctively divining its approach. There are some, however, who have pondered about the spiritual life, and they have indicated what they felt concerning the rhythmic recurrence of phenomena and even concerning the return of the human soul.

It is interesting, here, to speak of a case—which I could multiply a hundredfold—because it is an example of what is alive in all those who have contemplated the picture presented by human evolution and in their life of feeling have discerned the rhythmic recurrence, the rhythmic return of events. I will quote one example, which shows how this thought has taken root, causing something to spring to life in the soul. This writer could not have been a theosophist in the modern sense, for what I am going to refer to is a poem written in the year 1835.³ The writer could have had no knowledge of the vista of human evolution one day to be opened up by Spiritual Science. Yet something rises up in him that is like a dream of the future of humanity—an instinctive perception of recurrent phenomena in human existence. I am speaking of the poet Anastasius Grün, who in the year 1835 published a poem (Schutt) in which he depicts five recurrences of a certain happening, rhythmic repetitions of the spiritual message working in humanity. The poem depicts how on Easter Day, Christ re-visits the Mount of Olives in the Spirit, in order to look again at the places where He had lived and suffered. The poem speaks of five returns, four of which lie in the past, and the fifth in the future. The first occurs in the period after the destruction of Jerusalem. The second, “when Christ beholds the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders”; as He looks down, Christ sees what is happening in the places He had once known. The third return falls in the period when Islam was spreading its power over Jerusalem; the fourth in the period when humanity, split into countless sects, was quarrelling about the mission of Christ. All this is vividly and graphically described by Grün. Then there opens out the vista of a return of Christ on an Easter Day in the far distant future. Although the picture is dreamlike and Utopian, we cannot fail to discern—apart from the actual content of the poem—something of the blessing experienced by the soul when spiritual knowledge, especially as it has unfolded since the thirteenth century, opens up glimpses of a future when a spiritual culture will spread peace instead of wars and strife. Grün sees the blessings of peace in the culture of times to come and speaks of a future return of Christ to the Mount of Olives on an Easter Day, describing it as it appeared to his imagination. Children are playing on Golgotha; they have been digging in the ground and find a strange thing made of iron, not knowing at all what it can be; it proves, subsequently, to be a sword. And in the mood of exultation which comes upon him, Grün says that there will come a time when the very purpose of such an instrument as a sword will have been forgotten and the sword will be an object of amazement to men. Then he says that the iron will be used as a plough and describes the feeling which the rhythmic return of Christ to the Mount of Olives quickens in him. What has been forgotten and will again be revealed, is a Cross of Stone! It is raised again and Grün says that something happens to the Cross, indicating what part the Cross will play hereafter. In the following verses he describes what feelings arise in him when the children unearth a Cross and set it up for all the world to see—and he speaks, too, of the function and the power of the Cross in mankind:—

Ob sie's auch kennen nicht, doch steht's voll Segen,
Aufrecht in ihrer Brust, in ewigem Reiz.
Es blüht sein Name rings auf allen Wegen,
Denn, was sie nimmer kannten—war ein Kreuz!

Sie sahn den Kampf nicht und sein blutig Zeichen,
Sie sahn den Sieg allein und seinen Kranz!
Sie sahn den Sturm nicht mit den Wetterstreichen,
Sie sahn nur seines Regenbogens Glanz!—

Das Kreuz von Stein, sie stellen's auf im Garten,
Ein rätselhaft ehrwürdig Altertum,
Dran Rosen rings und Blumen aller Arten
Empor sich ranken, kletternd um und um.

So steht das Kreuz inmitten Glanz und Fülle
Auf Golgotha, glorreich, bedeutungschwer:
Verdeckt ist's ganz von seiner Rosen Hülle,
Längst sieht vor Rosen man das Kreuz nicht mehr!

(The following rendering is by “C.F.B.”)

Though yet they knew, or knew it not, full-fraught
With blessing and upreared within their breast
It stands and ceaseless calls, while all around
Its Name lies blazoned upon every path.
For what they knew no longer was—a Cross!
The strife they knew not, nor th'ensanguined Sign;
They saw but victory, and the victor's crown.
'Twas but the Rainbow-Glory filled their soul.
In garden fair they set the Cross of Stone—
Relic of bygone ages, strange, and venerable,
Roses entwine and flowers of every hue
Lay their soft arms about Its Stem.
Thus stands the Cross of Golgotha, resplendent,
Glorious—Its meaning heard to find,
Its form all hidden 'neath a rosy veil!
Men see no more the Cross, for roses there.

• 1. See: Turning Points in Sprirtual History, by Rudolf Steiner.
• 2. See: On the Meaning of Life, by Rudolf Steiner.
• 3. See also: The Art of Recitation and Declamation. Lecture IX. Not yet published in English.

As the last time we were able to meet together here, we put forward certain considerations connected mainly with special experiences,¹ we will turn our attention today to a more general outlook of spiritual science. I should like to start from something which you have all known fundamentally for a long time: that all spiritual-scientific observation is won by acquiring knowledge, not with the help of the instrument of the Physical body, but by liberating the soul and spirit from the physical instrument, so that, as soul and spirit they enter into direct union with the spiritual worlds.

Direct union with the spiritual worlds is broken in ordinary life and knowledge, because we must always employ the instrument of our physical body in the waking state whenever we wish to enter into relationship with the world, and in the sleeping state all our will is concentrated on our connection with the body, so that desire for the body spreads like a cloud in our soul and spirit during sleep, and hinders us in this state, and in ordinary life - from experiencing anything in the spiritual worlds, in which we indeed are.

Now it is essential that anyone occupying himself with spiritual science should recognise exactly the value of spiritual scientific activity as such, and its relation to the personal strivings, which through meditation and concentration of thought, feeling, and will-impulses, or in any other manner, lead man into the spiritual world. We must be clear about this above all for it is a deep and significant truth: that the unity which surrounds us in the ordinary world, does not exist in the same way in the spiritual world. I have already pointed out that this unity is founded within the whole structure of the psycho-spiritual human being. How most people strive again and again after this, asking: What is the unity of the world? How they only find satisfaction when they can lead everything back to one Principle!

As a matter of fact, the external world meets us most eminently as a whole, as a unified formation; and those people who to a certain degree are dominated by the ‘craze’ for unity, arrive at all possible abstractions in thought, while seeking the unitary principle of the world.

Such personalities are typical, they are like an old gentleman who met me one evening, and told me with the intense pleasure of a discoverer: At last he had found a unitary principle by which he could explain all the phenomena in the world. He was of the opinion, in his pleasure, that this unitary principle could be uttered in ten to twelve words, and he was so joyful over the matter, that he said: Now I can explain the whole cosmos. He would explain heaven, earth, and hell out of this unitary principle.

A little while ago, I was forced to recall this episode which occurred many years ago, when someone wrote to me urgently requesting a talk with me, because he had made the acquaintance of a man who was able to bring forward another such completely satisfactory view of the world in five minutes. I need hardly mention that a really earnest spiritual movement can have no time for such talks. But people who are thus possessed by this Unity-Demon, which is at the same time a kind of Easy-going Demon, are especially numerous in our day.

Because of this, we must put first, and take in the deepest sense, what is expressed in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: that as soon as we cross the threshold of the spiritual world, we are really led into a threefold experience. I have especially emphasised in this book, that the soul is as if split into three, and when the soul crosses the threshold of the spiritual world, nothing is left which makes it possible for one to believe in this Unity-demon, this comfort-loving Unity-demon.

Indeed, we feel, as soon as the threshold of the spiritual world is crossed, that we really enter with the whole of our being into three worlds. And we must not lose sight of the fact that after crossing this threshold, we have distinctly the experience of three worlds. In reality, we already belong to three worlds through the whole formation of our physical body. I might say that the co-operation of three worlds, which are relatively strongly independent of one another, is necessary for this wonderful structure ‘man’ which we encounter in the physical world. And if we consider the formation of our head, the formation of everything that belongs to the head, we must, even if we are merely speaking of the physical head, be clear that the formative forces of our head, and also the beings active and creative in these formative forces, belong to suite another world from that of the formative forces of our breast, for instance, and the formative forces of everything belonging to our heart, inclusive of the arms and hands. It is to a certain extent as if the formative forces of these material parts of man belonged to quite another world than the formative forces of his head. And again, the organs of the lower body and the legs belong to quite another world than the two other members we have named.

Now you can ask: What significance has all this? It has a great significance, for fundamentally speaking, in our present cycle of humanity, one only gets the pure, true and real results from spiritual science if the soul and spirit-nature is raised out of the head. So that this (c.f. diagram) is to some extent the clairvoyant aspect of a man, which, seen from the spiritual-scientific point of view has to be so regarded, that the spirit-soul part is here seen to be especially lifted out, and is at the same time, joined to the forces of the cosmos, as if by a spiritual electric attraction.

Thus all the parts a man—the ego and astral body down to the etheric body, must be drawn out. This withdrawal is of course connected with the evolution of the so-called Lotus-flowers. But the forces which set the lotus-flowers in motion lie in this part of the spirit-soul nature of man which is, or can be withdrawn.

The clairvoyance thus attained is a HEAD-CLAIRVOYANCE, and this can be a result of spiritual science in our time, for the revelations of head-clairvoyance are of service to humanity. Of a quite other kind is the clairvoyant results attained by raising the spirit-soul nature of the organ of the heart, arms and hands. This raising or up-lifting of these organs distinguishes itself inwardly and significantly from what takes place through what I might call “HEAD-CLAIRVOYANCE”. The up-lifting of the material heart-organ is brought about more through meditation which is related to the life of will; it is effected through humble surrender to the march of events. Whereas head-clairvoyance is effected more through thoughts, but also through ideas having an imaginative character, tinged with feeling.

It is generally the case that with reference to these two kinds of clairvoyance, the heart—or breast-clairvoyance—develops along with head-clairvoyance in the degree to which it should. Breast-clairvoyance leads more to the development of the will, to a connection with the actions of spiritual beings of the lower hierarchies, such as those incorporated in the various kingdoms of the earth; whereas head-clairvoyance leads more to vision, knowledge, perception in those higher worlds, in the sense that knowledge of these higher powers is necessary for the satisfaction of certain needs of knowledge, which must appear ever more and more in present humanity. The more we approach the future of our evolution on earth, the less will humanity be able to live, without their soul-life drying up, if they do not receive into their cognition the results of this clairvoyance.

Again a third kind of clairvoyance is that which arises, when what we call the spiritual-psychic part of man is loosened, and thus raised out of the rest of his being. Here in the lower part of the diagram I indicate the outward thrusting tendency. Even if the expression is not altogether aesthetic, yet I may perhaps venture to call this kind of clairvoyance, ‘Stomach clairvoyance.’

Whereas head-clairvoyance, for our cycle of humanity, leads in the most eminent sense to the attainment of results independent of man, stomach-clairvoyance leads to results connected especially with What transpires in man himself. That which takes place in man himself must naturally also be an object of investigation. In the sphere of physical investigation, there are also men who occupy themselves with anatomy and physiology. We should not think that this stomach-clairvoyance has not a certain value, in the highest sense of the word. It naturally has a value. But one must realize, that stomach clairvoyance can inform man but little of that which occurs impersonally in cosmic events; but that it informs him essentially about what man is, of what goes on—I might say—inside his skin.

With reference to what is moral and ethical, head-clairvoyance is relatively the most important. Hence I must ever speak of its opposites. Between the two stands breast-clairvoyance; between that of the head and of the stomach. As regards what is ethical, these two can be inwardly quite well distinguished. People who strive to come to a perception of higher worlds, in an impersonal way, as indicated in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, those who are not daunted at traveling this uncomfortable but secure path, will develop something impersonal in themselves, with reference to their clairvoyance, above all they will develop a high interest for objective world-knowledge, for what occurs in the world of cosmic and of historical events.

This head-clairvoyance speaks preferably of man himself, especially in that it draws attention to how he is placed within the process of cosmic and historical development, it notes what man himself is in the entirety of this cosmic process: What arises as head-clairvoyance will always have what I must call a universal scientific character; it will contain information which has importance—I beg you to note this word—for all mankind, not merely for one man or another.

Stomach-clairvoyance will be permeated especially with all kinds of human egoism, and will very easily mislead the clairvoyant in question to occupy himself much with the occult bases of his own destiny, of his personal worth and character. This results as a self-understood tendency from what is called stomach-clairvoyance.

Now a clear distinction has to be made between these two kinds of clairvoyance with reference to their intuitive nature. Whoever strives in the sense of what is given in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds to become free in soul and spirit from the perceptive-apparatus of the head, who can thus to a certain extent loosen the spiritual-psychic part of the head from the physical instrument, and is able to place himself with this spiritual-psychic head-part in the spiritual world, will have extreme difficulty in getting beyond shadowy-clairvoyant experiences. Such a passing out from the head is at first bound up with experiences which really have not even the colour, the substantiality of vivid memories, therefore they seem inwardly to be very colourless, and only after one goes ever further and further in the efforts which lie on this path, does the shadowy character of these experiences disappear, and their colourless, shadowy experiences become tinged with colour and sound, for the process carried out is this, that we first move out of our head, and are then really in a world which we have difficulty in perceiving.

For while we gradually and slowly acquire the possibility of living outside our head, these inner forces of life grow stronger, and the consequence is, that the forces streaming in from the whole orbit of the cosmos are drawn together. Picture to yourselves that forces must be drawn together from out the whole orbit of the cosmos—and when we draw together all the forces from the entirety of the orbit of the cosmos, we get that tinging with colour and sound I have mentioned. Think how we might picture this. You have here a surface (a), highly coloured, a spherical surface. Now think of this spherical surface as extended over a larger surface (b.c.). The colour will then become paler—and if we extend it still further, the colour will become ever paler and paler, if we contract this surface, then supposing it to be a pale yellow here (at the extremity,) it would become a strong, saturated yellow, because the colour is then more concentrated.

Now head-clairvoyance confronts the whole cosmos. And, spread out over the whole cosmos is that which man mast first concentrate and unite by means of his life-forces into what he himself is clairvoyantly, as being; so that only by a laborious process of inner development he gradually gives a tinge of colour to the shadowy nature of his experiences. And when for a long, long time he has taken the trouble to experience that general experience which only gives him the sensation of being outside the body; and when he has been aware of this general experience for a long time, and has gained the feeling more and more of a more intense, though not yet a coloured and resounding inner experience, then the regions of the cosmos gradually draw near to this head-clairvoyance.

This is a matter for slow, selfless development. It must be especially stated, that a STUDY OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE is indispensable to this development. It must be emphasised again and again, that when it is given out, spiritual science, can indeed be understood. It cannot be emphasised often enough that one need not be a clairvoyant to understand spiritual science. One must of course be clairvoyant to arrive at results, but once they are there, one need not be clairvoyant. UNDERSTANDING of spiritual science must precede personal vision. Here one can say: the opposite path is correct to that which is correct in the physical-sensible world. In the physical-sensible world, we first have correct perceptions, then we pass over to a thoughtful consideration of these, and we then form our scientific judgments. This must be reversed in the ascent to the spiritual world. There, we must first develop ideas—we must make every effort to live into spiritual science objectively; otherwise we can never be certain that any observation we make in the spiritual world is interpreted by us in the right sense. Hence knowledge must precede vision, and this is what is so infinitely disagreeable to many; the fact that they have to study spiritual science. Many consider this an incomprehensible demand. For it is relatively easy to have perceptions; but to interpret them aright—for this it is necessary that one enters rightly,—objectively, selflessly—into spiritual science.

Now just the opposite is the case in what we have called: stomach-clairvoyance. In this, we start from that spiritual-psychic principle which first worked on the bodily, physical nature; for spirit lies at the basis of everything that exists in the world. If we have eaten let us say a piece of cabbage—we are mostly vegetarians here—and it is then worked over in our organism, one has then not merely to do with the physical-chemical process, carried out by the stomach with its forces and juices, but behind all these the etheric body, astral body, and ego are active. All these processes have spiritual processes behind them. It would be quite false to believe that any material processes exist which have not a spiritual process behind them. Picture this to yourselves: Suppose you lie down after a more or less opulent mid-day meal, and become clairvoyant, but clairvoyant in such a way, that the spiritual-psychic part of the digestive organs rise up especially out of the organs of digestion. Then, while your stomach and the other organs digest correctly, you live with your spiritual-psychic nature in the spiritual-psychic realm, and whereas you usually remain unconscious of the spiritual process carried out in your etheric body, astral body, and ego, this enters your consciousness if you are clairvoyant and then, because you experience yourself in this spiritual-psychic realm, you can see all this working, constructing, and creating of the spiritual-psychic force during digestion; you see it as it projects itself out into the world, and it appears to you reflected in pictures in the external ether. Then you get the most beautiful clairvoyant forms, because you have not now to draw the colours so much out of the cosmos, but because you have the whole process concentrated within your own skin. So that something wonderful takes place around you in the most glorious most magnificent sequences of colour and form, which need be nothing else than the process of digestion or some other bodily process transpiring in the spiritual organs of man.

This kind of clairvoyance is distinguished from the other, especially through the fact, that whereas the other clairvoyance starts from shadow forms, and only laboriously acquires a tinge of colour and tone, this starts off with the most magnificent grandeur possible. One can equally well express it as a law: if clairvoyance begins with magnificent forms, especially with coloured forms, then it is a clairvoyance that relates to processes which transpire within the personality. I emphasise this, because it can be of value for the investigation of the spiritual world. Just as anatomy and physiology investigate the digestive and other processes, so clairvoyance is also of great value to investigate in this way the spiritual nature standing behind human processes. But it would be bad, if one gave oneself up to any deceptions, if one cherished illusions, and did not interpret things in a right manner.

If one believed that such a clairvoyance, appearing without the necessary preparation, could give more than what takes place in man and is projected into the objective world, if one believed that through such a clairvoyance, one could approach the creative world-powers, the dominant spiritual forces, one would greatly err. Just as little as the riddles of the world can be solved by the investigation of human digestion, just so little can the riddles and secrets of the cosmos be approached by developing this stomach clairvoyance.

Thus you see how much belongs necessarily to our gaining a really right orientation to the world we enter through the freeing of our spiritual-psychic powers. No one need have any aversion to stomach-clairvoyance through the observations which have been made. But each one should be quite clear how such clairvoyance is related to what real spiritual clairvoyance can become, and how one should hold oneself far removed from any over valuation of what is gained through a clairvoyance that can only have a personal content. Only when in things which have a personal content, we look away from what is personal, and observe them in the way the anatomist or physiologist considers, the objects he studies with the help of the microscope, or learns through his investigations,—only then have these things a special value. In any case no religious feelings should be connected with these things even in the remotest degree; they can only be connected with the results of head-clairvoyance. Man becomes ever more correct in regard to the other clairvoyance, the more he fulfills the demand, that it should be dealt with in every case only in an objectively scientific sense, as are the results of anatomy or physiology.

Not everything which is found along the path of clairvoyance, is—I venture to use this radical expression—worthy of veneration; but all is worthy of being learnt. That is what we must keep in mind. I have already said: that for our cycle, it is especially important to incorporate the results of head-clairvoyance with the general spiritual civilisation of man; this is really important. Today, I will mention one side of the matter with reference to this. We are living at a time, in which humanity must prepare gradually to transcend mere philosophical Idealism, and pass on to a true consciousness of the spiritual worlds, of the general spiritual world in which we live just as we live in the physical world.

Now let us start from an experience of head-clairvoyance, which we shall easily understand if we have entered but a little into the things said in the Munich Cycle (footnote, Secrets of the Threshold;) held recently and which were dealt with further in my book The Threshold of the Spiritual World. I especially mentioned there, that our thinking undergoes a transformation the moment we make ourselves free; especially when with reference to our thoughts we free ourselves from the physical instrument of the head. I expressed it grotesquely at the time by saying, if we became free in this manner, our thoughts have no longer the character which they have in ordinary, everyday life. In ordinary, everyday life we must have the feeling—unless we are demented—that we are Master of our thought-world, that if we have two thoughts, it is WE OURSELVES who unite or separate these thoughts.

When we remember something, we are conscious: we pass over with our inner life from a present experience to a past experience. We always have the feeling; it is we ourselves who stand behind the web and woof of our thoughts. ... This ceases the moment we make the spiritual psychic principle free in our head, when we develop a thinking freed from the body. On that occasion, I put it as follows, I said: It is as if we put our head in an ant's nest, and a peculiar whirling then arises. This is how thoughts begin to play one into the other. If in ordinary life, we have two thoughts, and unite them, as for example, the thoughts ‘rose’ and ‘red’, we know that we are master in our own thought-world, able to unite the two ideas: the rose is red. This is not the case when we are outside our bodies. Life enters our thoughts, the thought's own life. Each thought becomes a being. One thought runs towards another, the other runs away from it.

So the thought-world acquires a life of its own. Why does it acquire a life of its own? What we experience in the ordinary thoughts of the everyday are only images, shadows of thoughts. You can read this in my book Theosophy. As soon as we develop body free thoughts, each thought becomes like a husk, and an elemental being slips into the husk. The thought is no longer in our power; we put it out, like a feeler, it goes forth into the world, and an elemental being slips into it ... Our thoughts are filled in this way with elemental beings ... and these whirl and struggle in us. So that we can say: If we stretch the spiritual-psychic part of our head into the spiritual world, (it is outside us only, because we are situated within the physical head), if we thus stretch it into the spiritual world, we no longer experience such thoughts as we experience in the physical world, but we experience the LIFE OF BEINGS. We plunge our head just as I have said into an ant's nest—We experience the life of beings.

This is fundamentally the case right up to the highest hierarchies, and if we wish to experience angel, archangel, or even archai, it must be the same, we must live in our thoughts in the way described and in the beings in them. We send our thoughts out, and a being slips in, and is active in them. If we perceive the beings of Venus, or Saturn, it is as I have said, we let our thoughts slip our, and the Venus, and Saturn beings slip in. We ought not to be the least afraid of having thoughts of the Hierarchies in us, but twist accustom ourselves to live with our heads in the higher Hierarchies. We must say to ourselves: Our thinking ceases, and our head becomes the stage for the activities of the higher hierarchies.

Now, in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel thought has been developed up to the purest thought-clarity. In this philosophy is really contained that to which thought could rise at the beginning of the 19th Century. The task of raising thought to this height was then fulfilled. The next task is however that man should go beyond this, and really enter into this whirling, weaving life of thought. We are living at a time when man is called to do this: to perceive the higher Hierarchies. We have to be taken up by the world of the higher Hierarchies, and we must strip off the fear of thus living and weaving in the higher Hierarchies.

The life of the 19th Century was quite filled by this fear, this horror of life in the higher Hierarchies. Human beings carried this so far, they did not know it, but fundamentally they carried it so far, that they prayed: O, my dear Ahriman, guard me lest my life in thought is claimed by the activity and life of the higher Hierarchies; otherwise, some devilish Saturn or Sun-being might enter into them:—You say: Surely no one thought like this in the 19th Century; but I can prove to you that people did think like this.

Ludwig Feuerbach, a philosopher of the 19th Century who especially combated the idea of immortality, opposed all belief in a super-sensible world, because he held this to be the belief of phantastic, mystical dreamers, and considered it harmful for the whole of mankind. Ludwig Feuerbach wrote the following sentences; I beg you to inscribe them particularly well in your souls;

“The active man, busy with the affairs of human life, has no time to think of death, and hence, no need for immortality; if he thinks of death, he only sees in it the warning to arrange wisely his allotted span of life, not to waste precious time on unworthy objects, but to apply it to the fulfillment of the tasks he has set himself to do.”—

“If far from the earth in heaven, on Uranus, or Saturn, or elsewhere, man first found his fulfillment, then there would be no science, or philosophy at all. Instead of what is generally deduced, abstract truths and beings would form the content of our spirit, instead of thoughts, cognitions and ideas, these pure spiritual entities and objects which would then inhabit our head would be our heavenly brothers, Saturn and Uranus-beings would then be the inhabitants of our head. Instead of mathematics, logic metaphysics, we should have in us the most exact likeness of these heavenly inhabitants. These heavenly beings would insert themselves especially between us and the subjects of our knowledge and thought, they would obstruct our vision of every object, and bring about an eternal, complete eclipse of the sun in our spirit.”

The ‘Sun’ for Feuerbach is: his thought.

Thus he has a complete picture of what would happen. He has however such an unholy horror of it, that he prays to the good Ahriman to reserve him from Saturn and Uranus dwellers becoming inhabitants of his head.

“They would be nearer and more closely related to us than thoughts, ideas, and concepts, for they are not purely spiritual or abstract entities like these, but sense-like spiritual beings, beings who merely express the nature of the force of imagination. Our whole spirit would then be but a dream, a vision of a more beautiful future. Therefore those whom the gravity of understanding hinders from floating around on the surface of the unlimited ocean of imagination will realise that in the depths of our spirit, the living light of the Angels and of all similar heavenly beings is extinguished, as in an atmosphere, un breathable by them.”

If these beings then were to enter into our thoughts, our spirit would be a dream—thus writes Feuerbach. He only feels secure when in the region of thoughts, and if the life of the Angels, or other heavenly Entities were to enter these thoughts, he would feel insecure. This is the prayer to Ahriman: that he might guard man from a knowledge of the spiritual worlds. This happened in the forties of the nineteenth century through Ludwig Feuerbach, the enemy of any spiritual view of the world. What does this signify? It signifies nothing else than that the time is ripe for us to raise ourselves to the spiritual worlds; we have but to take in earnest what this man puts before us, we have then found the way into the spiritual worlds. We only need not fight it by a union with Ahriman. Thus you see: It is not the fault of heaven that spiritual science has not penetrated the culture of our time, for it has penetrated the heads of its opponents. Spiritual science wants to enter the world; The fault therefore does not lie with the heavens. The Gods are giving wisdom to man: Spiritual science has come. As human beings under the leadership of Ahriman has resisted it, it is now up to us not to resist any longer, but to have the courage to accept spiritual science, with full, true, earnestness.

One must say this to oneself as regards this development of the 19th Century; One must say: It is as if laid down afore time in the spiritual world, that a spiritual age would come after a materialistic age, and it is for humanity now to open its mind, and its feeling, to receive this spiritual world into itself. That point of view which is so eminent a materialistic view and found in Ludwig Feuerbach, its characteristic, clever, and infinitely philosophically-endowed advocate, is like an attack, a revolt against what is to enter humanity. Spiritual forces come down from above, the forces of understanding, of knowledge have really to rise up from below. The expression which Ludwig Feuerbach discovered for himself is a most characteristic one, that: the solar eclipse of the soul would have to follow, if thoughts ceased to be thoughts, if the beings of Uranus, Venus and Saturn, and so on, played into them ... that is if the higher Hierarchies played into them. A solar-eclipse of the spirit would then take place; these people have an unholy fear of this. This solar eclipse of the spirit is not brought about however by heavenly Beings, who desire especially to bring their light to man. The darkness has been caused by human beings, by their uniting with Ahriman; and because they have spread a cloud of fear around them like an aura, they have sought to bring off their attacks against the penetration of the spiritual world. It is clear from this, that the darkening has proceeded from man, and we must acknowledge that darkness has laid hold of humanity more and more—a darkening of a free knowledge, an opposition to the light of the spirit.

This is something humanity has itself prepared, and one can see how in the course of the 19th Century, a certain love of all short-sighted, inconsequent thoughts appeared, and a love for everything that did not have to be thought out to an end. A preference and sympathy arose for all those things for which man will not have finally to give account. People loved ever less and less an unprejudiced, impartial, knowledge and thinking, and it is therefore not surprising when this love of the nebulous, of the unclear, of the unfinished in thought gradually assumed an ever more morally assailable character in public life. In so far as this character was countenanced, sympathy for the life of thought became dull; and then passed over into a general attitude. Through this an opposing force in chief was installed more especially against a spiritual science which strove for clarity on all sides.

Spiritual science has true sympathy and love above all for consequent, finished, thoughts, not for half-thoughts; it never holds with what is unclear and dark, but must ever reach out to that which spreads light widely, not to that which sends an apparent light into narrow places only. In this connection, we have still to fight our way through many things.

These are points I wished to bring forward in our studies today, in order to show how in the course of the century, thoughts through Ahriman gave occasion for the denial of the spiritual worlds, but how these worlds have themselves worked within the thoughts of him who denied them because—the time had come ‘The time has come’: this saying from Goethe's Fairy Tale is here in its right place.

It must be substantiated in the near future.

• 1. “The Problem of Death in Connection with the Artistic grasp of Life” February 5–7, 1915

In the preceding lectures, I have been calling attention to the fact that there will still be a great deal to say about a certain problem or question, even though it has already been the subject of discussion here from a great variety of viewpoints. That is the question of the alternating states of waking and sleeping in human beings. I have repeatedly spoken in public lectures of how this problem of sleep has occupied a more materialistically oriented science also, and how it is being handled. On several occasions I have referred to some of the various attempts that have been made to solve it. There is the so-called exhaustion theory, which is only one of the many that have been advanced in recent decades. This theory holds that we secrete substances resulting from the wear and tear of work and of our other activities during waking life, and that the sleeping state somehow eliminates these exhaustion products, which are then formed anew in the following period of waking consciousness.

Now we must always take the position that such a theory—I mean, what it describes—does not have to be wrong from the standpoint of spiritual science just because of its purely materialistic origin. The materialistic rightness of this particular theory need not now be gone into at any further length; other theories have been advanced in the same matter, as I have just mentioned. But from the standpoint of spiritual science no question will be raised as to whether such a process can take place, whether exhaustion products are really secreted during day-waking consciousness and destroyed again at night. This actual process will not be brought into question or further discussed. It must be a main concern of spiritual science to examine a problem, to study life's riddles, in a way that really relates the standpoint from which they are studied to the insights that can be gained in a particular age. That will provide the right basis for bringing the right light to bear on facts such as the secretion of exhaustion products. In most of life's problems—indeed, in all of them—the point is to know what questions to ask, to avoid pursuing a mistaken line of questioning.

In the case of the alternation between sleeping and waking the development of a viewpoint from which to study these two human states is all-important. And the proper light can be brought to bear upon certain phenomena of human life only if matters introduced in a very early phase of our spiritual scientific efforts are kept in mind. In the very early days I called attention to the fact that if we want to get an overview of world evolution we have mainly to consider seven stages of consciousness, seven life-conditions and seven form- states. Certain life-questions can be answered simply by considering changes in form; other questions can be illuminated by studying life-metamorphoses. But certain phenomena in life, certain facts of life cannot be illuminated any other way than by rising to a consideration of the various states of consciousness involved.

It is quite natural, in considering the problem of waking and sleeping, to concern ourselves with questions of the difference involved in the two states of consciousness. For we have certainly learned from a great variety of studies that we are here dealing with different states of consciousness, so that the question of consciousness is the all-important one here. We must realize that our most important concern in dealing with this question is to base it on the matter of consciousness. We will have to ask ourselves what the real difference is between the waking and the sleeping states.

And this is what we find: When we are awake—we need only to register what each one of us is conscious of—we look at the world around us and perceive it. And we will be able to say that when we are in the day- waking state, we cannot observe our own inner life as we do our surroundings. I have often called your attention to the fact of what a crude illusion it would be if we were to conceive of the study of anatomy as leading to observation of the inner man. Only what is external in us, though it lies beneath our skin, can be studied by material anatomy; our inner aspect cannot be studied during ordinary waking consciousness. Even what a person comes to know of himself while he is awake is the world's outer aspect, or, more exactly, that aspect of him that belongs to the external world.

But if we now observe the human being from the contrasting aspect of the sleeping state, its essential characteristic, as you can see from the various discussions that have previously taken place here, is that he is observing himself. While we are in that condition, the object of our attention is the human being; our consciousness is occupied with ourselves. If you examine some of the most commonplace phenomena from this standpoint, you will find them readily comprehensible.

Now if what materialistic science states on the subject of sleeping and waking were all that could be said about it, it would seem to contradict an observation I once made here, namely, that an independently wealthy person who hasn't made any particular effort is more often seen to fall asleep at lectures than someone who has been exerting himself at work. This observation would have to be wrong if tiredness were the real cause of sleep. What we have to consider here is that the coupon clipper who listens to a lecture is not focusing his day- waking interest on it, is perhaps not particularly interested in it, may even find it impossible to take an interest in it because he doesn't understand it and is therefore justified in his apathy. He is much more interested in himself. So he withdraws his attention from the lecture to concentrate upon himself. One could, of course, ask: why particularly upon himself? That too can easily be explained. There are certain reasons why the lecture doesn't interest him, and they are usually that he is more interested in other aspects of life than in those under discussion in the lecture, or, at least, in their relevance. But the lecture keeps him from occupying himself with what would otherwise be interesting him. A person who has no interest in hearing a lecture might conceivably prefer to spend the time eating oysters instead of attending the lecture. Perhaps he is more interested in the experience of eating oysters than in that provided by the lecture. But the lecture disturbs him; there is no way for him to eat oysters if he attends it. He behaves as though he wanted to hear it, but it keeps him from eating oysters. Since he can't be eating them, he settles for the only thing available besides the lecture that is disturbing him. The hour ahead is taken up with something that he can only hear, something without interest for him. So he turns his attention to the only other available interest: his own inner being, and enjoys himself! For his falling asleep is self-enjoyment.

You can gather from what we have studied that sleeping consciousness is still at the stage that prevailed in man during the ancient sun period. It is the same consciousness we share with plants. We know both these facts from previous lectures.

Now our sleeping man at the lecture is not in the same state of consciousness in which we would find him if he were enjoying the external world. He is working his way back into sub-consciousness as it were. But that doesn't matter; he enjoys himself anyhow. And his enjoyment comes from his interest in himself. So we must find it understandable that sleep takes over, not as a result of inner weariness but because his interest moves away from the outer scene, the lecture or the concert or whatever, to what does interest him. This is always the fact of the matter if one studies the alternation between sleeping and waking with thoroughness, and in its inner aspect.

When we are awake, we may look upon our condition as one in which we turn our attention outward, to the world around us. We withdraw our interest from our inner life.

The opposite is true of the sleeping state. Attention is directed inward to the self and withdrawn from what lies outside it. Since we have left our bodies during sleep, we actually see them from outside.

We can, as you see, trace the alternation between sleeping and waking to another cause, and say that we live in successive cycles, in one of which our interest is awake to the world outside us, and in the other to our inner world. This alternation between outer and inner is one that belongs every bit as much to our life as the fact that the sun shines on the earth and then goes down, leaving it in darkness, belongs to the earth's life. In the latter case the spatial constellation is the factor involved in the alternation between light and darkness, bringing about the cycle of daytime and nighttime.

Now you can easily see how mistaken it would be to say that the day is the cause of the night, and the night of the day. That would be what I have described to you in preceding lectures as a worm's philosophy. It is simply nonsense to call the day the cause of the night and vice versa; both result from the regular alternation in the spatial relationship between sun and earth. It makes just as little sense to say that sleep is the cause of waking, and waking the cause of sleep. Just as in the earth's case the only thing that makes sense is to say that it undergoes an alternation between day and night because of its position in space, so human life undergoes an alternation between interest for the inner and interest for the outer scene. These conditions have to succeed each other; anything else is out of the question. Life decrees that human beings must focus their attention on their surroundings for awhile, and then turn it inward, just as the sun, descending in the west, has no choice about what its further course will be.

But we enter a realm here where the following must always be kept in mind: The sun has to make a certain period of hours into daytime, and another period into night. But human beings are in a position to vary things and upset routines, like the coupon clipper who sleeps even though he isn't tired, voluntarily turning his attention inward, enjoying himself, really enjoying his body, or like a student cramming for examinations who, to some extent, overcomes his need for normal sleep. Many students sleep very little before examinations. But this brings up the big questions we will be concerning ourselves with, questions about necessity in outer nature, questions about the frequently discussed subject of chance, both in nature and in human life, questions about providence that apply to the entire universe.

As soon as we touch on the sphere of human life we come upon an element that belongs in the field of necessity, something necessary to man if he is to live and have his being in the world. There is much that we will be discussing in regard to this.

What I've been telling you has been said not only—and please note the “not only” as well as a “partly”—to call your attention to the fact that we must try to get a proper perspective on the alternation between sleeping and waking. This means asking what sort of consciousness we have when we are awake. The answer is that the outer world rather than the human being is its object, that we forget ourselves and turn our attention to the surrounding world. Conversely, consciousness in sleep is such that we forget the world outside us and observe ourselves. But we return first to the state of consciousness we had on the sun; the fact that we enjoy ourselves is of secondary importance.

But that is not the only reason why I have referred to this perspective; it was also to call attention to the importance of noting the ways consciousness is related to the world and to the fact that we can come to know the essential nature of certain things only by inquiring into the kind of consciousness involved. It is, for example, quite impossible to know anything of importance about the structure of the hierarchical order of higher spiritual beings unless we concern ourselves with their consciousness. If you go through the various lecture cycles, you will see what trouble was taken to characterize the consciousness of angels, archangels, and so on. For it is essential in any study to give careful thought to what constitutes the right approach. A person might say that he is quite familiar with the hierarchical order: first comes the human being, then the higher rank of angels, then the still higher archangels, then the archai, and so on. He writes them down in ascending order and claims to understand: each hierarchy is one step above the one before it. But if that were all one knew about these beings, one would know as little about the hierarchical order as one knows about the levels of a house from the fact that each higher story is superimposed upon the one below it; one could make a drawing that would fit both cases. What really matters is to note the salient facts in the case under study. We only know something about these higher beings if we are familiar with the state of consciousness in which the various hierarchies live and if we can describe it. This must form the basis of a study of them.

The same thing holds true in the study of human beings. We know very little indeed about our inner being if we can say nothing further on the subject of the sleeping state than that our ego and astral body are outside our physical and etheric bodies. Though that is true, it is a totally abstract pronouncement, since it conveys no more information about the difference between sleeping and waking than one possesses in the case of a full and an empty beer glass; in the one case there is beer in it, and in the other the beer is elsewhere. It is true enough that the ego and the astral body have left the physical and etheric bodies of a sleeping person, but we must be of a will to go on to ever further and more inclusive concrete insights. We try to do this, for example, when we describe the alternation of interest in the two states of consciousness.

I once made you a light red drawing of man, and then a blue one in illustration of my statements to the effect that, for the clairvoyant, the human being is in the hollow part shown in the drawings. If a person falls asleep and possesses a higher consciousness (it can be just the beginning of it; but even then we can really perceive, for we begin by observing ourselves), he sees this hollow part. At such moments we see clearly how mistaken the belief is that we are made of compact matter, that what seems to day-waking consciousness to be substantial is actually empty space. Of course, we must keep in mind that human beings are really outside their bodies during sleep. So they see the empty space surrounded by this aura. They are not in their bodies; they are looking on from outside them, so they see the empty space within the aura. It is a shaped yet hollow space. Looked at from outside, other kinds of spaces are of course filled with something. Therefore a person naturally appears in the shape he has when looked at with day-waking consciousness, but he is seen surrounded by what might be described as an auric cloud, an aura. We don't see him entirely clearly at first, but rather in an auric cloud that we must first penetrate: we see an auric cloud, outlining a shadowy form. It is as though we see the person in a more or less brilliant aura; viewed from outside, the space occupied by his physical form is left empty. I will resort to a trivial comparison to convey an adequate impression of this phenomenon, perceived when we become conscious during sleep. We have all had the experience of going about in a city when it is foggy or misty and have seen how the lights there appeared as though in a rainbow aura, without sharp outlines. This impression of lights like empty spaces in the surrounding fog is an experience everyone has had, and it is very similar to what I have been describing. The area imaginatively perceived is seen as though in a fog or mist, and the physical human beings are the empty dark spaces there inside it.

We may say, then, that we see human beings through an aura when we attain to clairvoyance in our sleep. We became materialists when we learned to look directly at our fellow human beings instead of seeing their auras. That was brought about as a result of luciferic developments that made it possible to begin to see ourselves with day-waking consciousness. And this helps us to understand an important passage in the Old Testament, the one that says that people went about naked prior to the seduction by Lucifer. This is not to be taken as meaning that their state of awareness in their nakedness at all resembled what yours would be if you were to do the same thing now; it means that they previously saw the surrounding aura. So they had no such awareness of the human being as we would have now if people were to run about in the nude, for they perceived human beings spiritually clothed; the aura was the clothing. And when that innocence was lost and human beings were condemned to a materialistic way of life, meaning that they could no longer perceive auras, they saw what they had not seen while the aura was still perceptible, and they began to replace auras with clothing. That is the origin of clothing; garments replaced auras.

And it is actually a good thing in our materialistic age to know that people clothed themselves for no other reason than to emulate their aura with what they wore. That is especially the case with rituals, for everything that is worn on such occasions represents some part of the aura. You can see for yourselves, too, that Mary and Joseph and Mary Magdalene wear quite different garments. One wears a rose-colored dress with a blue mantle, the other a blue robe with a red mantle. Mary Magdalene is often portrayed in a yellow garment by those who were still familiar with the old tradition or who still retained remnants of clairvoyance. An attempt was always made to reproduce the aura of the individual in question, for people were aware that the aura ought to be indicated, ought to find expression in the clothing worn.

An aberration typical of our materialistic age afflicts certain circles who see an ideal in doing away with clothing and who regard the so-called nudity cult as extremely wholesome; materialism can always be counted upon to draw the practical conclusions of its thinking. There is actually a magazine devoted to this cause that calls itself Beauty. A misunderstanding is at the root of this; the magazine believes itself to be serving something other than the crassest, coarsest materialism. But that is all that can be served when reality is seen exclusively in what external, sense-perceptible nature has brought forth.

The wearing of clothes originated as a means of preserving in ordinary life the state of consciousness that sees human beings surrounded by an aura. We should therefore find out where the contemporary tendency to do away with clothing comes from. It comes from a total absence of any imagination in clothing ourselves. No idealism is involved, but rather a lack of any imagination where beauty is concerned. For clothes are intended to beautify the wearer, and to see beauty only in unclothed human beings would, for our time, reveal an instinct for materialism. I intend at a later date to contrast this with the situation existing in Greek civilization. That civilization provides us with the best means of studying this matter in the light of what has just been said.

Now it becomes more and more important for people to learn how various conditions of consciousness provide insights for a study of life. Sleeping and waking are alternations in states of consciousness. But while sleeping and waking bring about sharply marked changes in our state of consciousness, smaller changes occur as well. Day-waking consciousness also has its nuances, some of which tend more toward sleep, others more toward the waking state. We are all aware that there are individuals given to spending a large part of their lives not actually asleep, but drowsing. We say of them that they are “asleep,” meaning that they go through life as though in a dream. You can tell them something, and in no time at all they have forgotten it. We can't call it real dreaming, but things flit by them as though in a dream and are instantly forgotten. This drowsiness is a nuance of consciousness bordering on sleep. But if somebody beats another up, that is a nuance that goes beyond the state of ordinary sleep and doesn't remain just a mental image. Life presents a variety of nuances of consciousness; we could set up a whole scale of them. But they all have their own rightness.

A lot depends on our developing a feeling for these nuances. A person occasionally has such a sense if he is born healthy and grows up in a healthy state. It is important to have a certain sensitivity for how seriously to take this or that in life, how much or how little attention to pay to it, what matters to take a stand on and what to keep to oneself. All this has to do with the asserting of consciousness, and such nuances do indeed exist. And it is very important to know, as we go through life, that life can develop in us the delicate sensitivity that tells us how much consciousness to focus on any particular matter, how strongly to stress something. We really make important progress both in leading a healthy life and in the possibility of contributing to orderly conditions in our environment if we pay attention to how strongly we should focus our consciousness on this or that. The state of consciousness we are in when we are among people and talking with them in an ordinary way about various matters is different from the state of consciousness in which a sense of delicacy forbids our discussing certain other subjects. These are two distinctly differing nuances of consciousness. But the presence of a sense of the fitness of things is simply another state of consciousness, and it is endlessly important in life to have an awareness of such considerations. I'd like to show you at hand of an example that there are indeed individuals who possess understanding for such nuances of consciousness.

Today is the 27th of August, Hegel's birthday, and tomorrow, the 28th, is Goethe's; they follow on one another's heels. Now Hegel wrote an Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences among other works, and a first edition of it was published.^1: This book is noteworthy in a certain respect. There would be absolutely no point in opening it at random and reading this or that page; you could make exactly as much sense out of it as out of Chinese. A statement taken at random from a page of Hegel would convey nothing whatsoever. In a lecture in Berlin last winter I explained how little sense it made to divorce one of Hegel's sentences from its context. For sentences in Hegel's encyclopedia make sense only when one has skipped over everything that poses riddles for the human mind and arrived at the place where Hegel says, “Considered in and of itself, being is the concept,” and so on. If one begins there and exposes oneself to all the rest of it, then and only then does every sentence make sense at the place where it stands; each sentence owes its meaning to its place in the whole.

Well, so Hegel had his encyclopedia published. In the preface to the first edition he explained why he arranged it as he did. When there had to be a second edition, Hegel wrote a preface to that. Now an author can sometimes have quite an experience of life between two editions of a book. For even if one has already become acquainted with one's fellow men, one feels oneself duty bound not to see them entirely in the light in which they sometimes reveal themselves; and besides, one can tell quite a bit about them from the reception the book is given. That was true in Hegel's case also. So then he wrote a preface to the second edition, and there are important passages in it. I am going to read you two such, one the very first sentence; the second, sentences from the second page. The preface to the second edition begins as follows: “The well-disposed reader will find that several sections have been revised and developed in sharper definition. I have taken pains therein to make my presentation a less formal one and to bring abstract concepts closer to the layman's understanding, making them more concrete by using more extensive exoteric annotations.” He was concerned, you see, to explain esoteric matters exoterically. The book continues:

The extreme brevity necessitated by a summarization of material quite sufficiently abstruse to begin with nevertheless leaves this second edition with the same goal as the first, namely, to serve as a preliminary text requiring further exegesis in the form of lectures. The title “encyclopedia” usually presupposes a less rigid adherence to scientific method and a more general structuring. But it lies in the nature of the subject matter that logical aspects must remain the basis of the presentation.

There were all too many occasions and provocations that seemed to require me to clarify my philosophical position with respect to the spiritual and the insipid concerns of contemporary culture, a thing to be undertaken only exoterically and only in a preface; for even if these concerns claim a relationship to philosophy, they do not do so scientifically, which means not at all; they approach it from without, and remain outside it. It is uncongenial and mistaken to involve oneself in a situation so alien to science. All the clarifying and explaining one might do fails to further that insight which can alone form the object of true knowledge. But it may be useful or necessary to comment on various phenomena.

This is proof that Hegel tried to shape the first edition in what was for him an esoteric manner, and that it was only in the second edition that he added what seemed to him exoteric aspects. Our time often possesses no understanding for these exoteric and esoteric elements; it doesn't so easily embark on the course Hegel travelled, who wanted to keep to himself everything originating in his own subjective view of a matter. And it was only after he had built up a complete organismic structure and freed it from any subjective aspects that he was willing to present this objective material in his book; he remained of the opinion that one's own path in achieving an insight was something that should be kept a private matter. In this, he evidenced sensitive feeling for the difference between two states of consciousness: that into which he wanted to enter when addressing the public, and that other developed for communing with himself. And then the world urged him, as the world so often does, in creating undesirable outcomes, to overcome this embarrassment of his for a certain period. For what lay at the bottom of his feeling was embarrassment, impelling him to silence about the way he had arrived at his concepts. As you know, embarrassment usually makes people blush. We would have to say, meaning something spiritual thereby, that Hegel blushed spiritually when he had to write a thing like his preface to the second edition. Here you see one of those nuances of consciousness over which embarrassment extends.

I wanted to demonstrate with an example how nuances of consciousness show up in life, including nuances in actions of the will and in what we do. We need to become ever more fully aware that life really must consist of such nuances, that we have to relate differences in states of consciousness to everything we do. Sleeping and waking involve very marked differences. But there can also be a nuance of consciousness in which we are aware that a matter concerns not just ourselves but the surrounding world as well; another, in which we confront the world with awareness that we must tread gently; and still another in which we know that what we do must be done with ourselves alone, or only in the most intimate circle.

The concepts and ideas we garner from spiritual science really make a difference in life. They teach us to recognize subtle subjective differences, provided we aren't disposed to know them only from the usual standpoint, realizing instead that a serious concern with spiritual science makes us a gift of this capacity for practical tact. But that serious concern with spiritual science must be present. It is of course absent if we project into spiritual science the sensations, desires, and instincts that ordinarily prevail. If that is the case, what is derived from spiritual science amounts to little more than can be garnered from any other indifferent source of learning. I've been speaking of nuances of consciousness and saying that there are nuances within the waking states very close to sleep. But it can happen that a person lacks the inclination to concern himself with certain details and subtleties, as in the case of the coupon clipper in yesterday's lecture. One may enjoy reading books or lecture cycles, but experience a dwindling consciousness at certain places in the text, and drowsiness sets in; the conscientiousness required to overcome such a condition is simply not there to call upon.

That is why I have continued to stress that things should not be made too easy for people desiring to involve themselves with spiritual science. We hear again and again that books should be written in a popular style, that Theosophy is not popular enough.^2: I discern behind such comments a wish for books that people could drowse through in a way they can't with Theosophy. It is vitally necessary to have sufficient interest for objective facts to rid ourselves of certain feelings and sensations we have had in the past; if we allow ourselves to drowse as we confront this or that theme in spiritual science that ought to engage our interest, we would stay awake only in the case of those matters most easily absorbed. And such a lack of objective interest leads to an inevitable development. The coupon cutter feels obligated to listen to the lecture, for lecture-going is part of a proper lifestyle, but he suffers tortures because of his total lack of interest. But he is gradually relieved; he enjoys himself, and sometimes even falls soundly asleep, a condition he doesn't have to guard against unless he starts snoring. All of this is a perfectly natural development.

Now let us picture this process transferred to another kind of consciousness. Let us imagine a person who lacks the needed full interest in the concrete details of spiritual science. He feels that he is listening best when he is not paying attention to details. I have even heard the comment, “Oh, what he is saying isn't the important thing; it's the ‘vibrations,’ ‘the way it's said.’” The lecturer can often discern this type of drowsy listening in the listener's appearance. This is exactly the same situation on the soul level as that of the coupon clipper in external life. For if attention is being given to “vibrations” instead of to what spiritual science is offering, it turns the hearer's interest inward, as happens when the coupon clipper is enjoying himself. It may be that such a person describes himself between lectures as taking an interest in what the lecture offered, and claims interest in this or that theme. But he is really gossiping about his or someone else's previous incarnations. He has, in other words, shifted everything to an interest in himself in an identical internalizing process. We really see the same process here that goes on in the external life of the coupon clipper, who falls asleep at every lecture, in the case of those who feel that details are not important, but who claim an interest in spiritual science they really lack. So they fall asleep as to details, and their interest is transferred to their own personalities.

Things of this sort have to be made clear. If we were to see them clearly, much that happens would not occur.

I would like to see you make a study of the nuance levels of consciousness as I have tried to describe them. The last example given should perhaps not be taken amiss now or at any other time. There is no question that the movement of spiritual science is met with a good deal of sleepiness, while a strong tendency to self-enjoyment gets the upper hand, with the result that spiritual science is used only as a means of indulging in self-enjoyment. But we want to concentrate on nuances of consciousness, for unless we do so we will not be able to achieve an understanding of necessity, chance, and providence.

• 1:. Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, 1770–1831, German philosopher. Published Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in 1817.
• 2:. Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man, (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1986).

Today I would like to make a few aphoristic remarks on various pedagogical questions which we discussed in our first course and which I have since added to as I feel necessary at the present time. The Christmas course that I gave in Dornach, which in many ways complements the other explanations on pedagogy, I have not yet been able to print after the postscripts. I hope that this will happen some day. But for the time being it has been appearing continuously in the lectures of Steffen at the "Goetheanum". This reprint in the "Goetheanum" will now also be published in book form, so that at least these lectures by Steffen on this Christmas course, which I consider to be especially important for study by those interested in pedagogy, will be available.

Today I would like to point out some feelings that the teacher, the educator, should always have, and that he should also repeatedly, I would like to say meditatively, call into consciousness. The basic feeling must be what I have expressed in various ways: respect for the individuality of the child. We must be aware that there is a spiritual individuality embodied in every child, and that what we have before us as a physical child is not actually a true expression of the child's individuality. The regularity, the structure of the human organism, as you have seen from much that has come before our souls since the first Teacher's Course, is an extraordinarily complicated one. And for a variety of reasons, that which is the true individuality of a child is prevented from fully expressing itself by obstacles in the physical and also in the etheric organism, so that we actually always have before us in the child the more or less unknown true individuality and that which is actually concealed by the physical of the child. It is also possible to express the same truth in the other form that I tried to say in the public lectures in Vienna: We must be aware that in a certain individuality of a child, if we characterize it radically, there could be a genius, and it could also be that we ourselves as teachers and educators would not be a genius. If this relationship exists, that the child is a genius and the teacher is not a genius, it is a completely justified relationship, because not all teachers can be geniuses, and pedagogy has to deal with the general laws. But, of course, it would be quite wrong if the teacher then wanted to inculcate his own individuality or even his own sympathies and antipathies into the child, if he wanted to teach the child as right, as desirable, etc., what he himself thinks is right and desirable. Of course, he would hold the child back on his level, and we must not do that under any circumstances. We can help ourselves tremendously if we, I would say, once again meditate and become very deeply aware that all education basically has nothing to do with the real individuality of the human being, that we, as educators and teachers, actually have the main task, It is our duty as educators and teachers to stand before individuality with reverence, to offer it the possibility to follow its own laws of development, and to remove only those obstacles to development which lie in the physical-emotional and in the body-emotional, that is, in the physical body and in the etheric body. We are only called upon to remove those inhibitions which lie in the physical-emotional and in the body-emotional and to let the individuality develop freely; so that we should basically use what we teach the child in terms of knowledge only to bring the body, both the physical-emotional and the etheric-emotional, so far forward that the human being can just develop freely.

My dear friends, this seems abstract, but it is the most concrete thing in education, and at the same time it points to where one makes the most mistakes. Many people say that it is necessary to develop the individuality of the child. This is as true as it is empty. For if the physical and etheric inhibitions were not there, the individuality of each child would develop properly in life. But we have to remove these physical and etheric inhibitions. Just think of the terrible things we do when we teach six, seven, eight year old children to read and write. It is not often enough that this is brought home to us in all its gravity. For when the child grows up to be six, seven, eight years old, he really brings nothing with him to point out or even to imitate those little demonic things that appear before him on paper. There is no human relationship to the letter forms of today. Therefore, we must be aware of the fact that there is a terrible gap between what has developed in the later course of human civilization and what the child in his 7th year is. Today we have to teach the child something that it certainly does not want, so that it can grow into today's civilization. And if we don't want to spoil the child, we have to proceed in such a way that we treat the child in these years as it needs to be treated, so that the obstacles to its development are removed and it is gradually led, after the obstacles to its development are removed, to the point of view of the soul, to the state of the soul, where the adult people stood in that period of culture when the present forms of writing came into being. The nature of the child itself gives cause for this, of course.

You see, today experiments are being conducted on the tiredness of children. The fact that such figures have been found should not be the end of the research, but the beginning. We should ask ourselves: Why are children so tired? - We are looking at a system, we are looking at the head system, and probably also at the metabolic system and the limb system, which are tired, while the rhythmic system, which is in the highest flower of its development from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, is not really tired. For the heart beats even when it is tired, and the respiratory rhythm and all rhythms go on unharmed by any fatigue, so that the present figures of experimental psychology say something different from what is usually assumed today. They say that the rhythmic system is not taken into account enough in the education of children. But the rhythmic system is stimulated directly from the soul when the whole teaching is artistic, plastic-artistic or musical-artistic. Then you will find that the child will hardly get tired to a great extent because of this kind of teaching. And the teacher should indeed acquire a watchful eye to see whether his children tire too much; he should acquire a certain instinct to see whether the fatigue is much greater than it should be according to the mere external conditions, whether the air in the classroom is somewhat worse than it should be, whether the children have to sit for hours on end, that is, the purely physical things that occupy the metabolic-limb organism. On the other hand, the child has to think. If the thoughts echo in a quiet rhythm, they are not too tired. They get a little tired, but not too tired. The rhythmic system is the physical organ of education and teaching that must be used especially by the child. Now, in the subjects that are not directly artistic, we must try to make the teaching as artistic as possible. This must be taken very seriously, for this is the only real means of education: the artistic between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.

Yesterday I said that what is very important for this age of life is that we transform everything into the image, either into the musical image or into the plastic image. Now, of course, you may find how extraordinarily difficult it is in some subjects to work through the image. It will be relatively easy to work through the image in history, where you can make an image of what you are describing; it will be relatively easy in this or that subject, for example, in natural history, where you should also make an image of what you want to teach the child. In other subjects it will be more difficult. In languages, for example, it will not be so difficult to bring things into the picture, if one attaches any importance at all to taking the pictorial aspect of language into account in teaching. One should not miss any opportunity to look at how sentences are structured, for example, a three-part sentence structure consisting of the main clause, the relative clause and the conditional clause, even with ten, eleven, twelve-year-old children. Not true, the grammatical aspect is not the main thing; it should be treated by us only as a means to get the picture, but we should not neglect to give the child, I would say, even a spatial-visual idea of a main clause and a relative clause. Of course, this can be done in many different ways. You can make the main proposition a large circle, the relative proposition a small circle, perhaps placed eccentrically - without theorizing, by staying in the picture - and you can make the conditional proposition, the if proposition, so vivid that you introduce, say, rays against the circle as the conditional factors. It is not necessary to exaggerate these things, but it is really necessary to come back to these things again and again after a good preparation of the subject. And even with ten-, eleven-, twelve-year-old children, one should pay attention to what I would call the moral-characterological aspects of pictorial style. Not that you should have style lessons at that age. We discussed yesterday where that should be in the class. Rather, the matter should be grasped more from the inner intuitive. You can go very far. For example, you can treat the individual reading piece, not the pedantic reading pieces that are in our reading books, but what you really prepare carefully, you can treat it according to your temperament. You can talk about a melancholic style or a choleric style, not about the content. So please leave out the content completely, even the poetic content, I mean the sentence structure. There is no need to take things apart, which should be avoided; but the transformation into the image, which should be cultivated, when I say: into the moral-characterological. One can find the possibility to have a stimulating effect on the children already in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th years, if one restrains oneself in an appropriate way to make the necessary studies..

You see, my dear friends, I do not want to mend anybody's things, I only want to characterize something. Again, at our Vienna Congress, I was able to make quite meaningful studies, meaningful for me, when I compared the attitude, the stylistic attitude of those who spoke, let us say, from Northern Germany, and those who spoke as our Viennese, who were called here. I always thought to myself, when Baravalle or Stein or another Viennese comes again, will he again begin his lecture with "if"? That is so characteristic of the Austrian, it is infinitely meaningful to begin with a conditional sentence, it immediately leads into the moral-characterological. I think you yourself are hardly aware of how you begin your lectures with "If"! The North Germans and the Swiss do not begin with "if," they immediately blurt out an unconditional, affirmative sentence. This is so characteristic, and this is how one should learn to approach things, first of all, so that one can become free, if I may say so, from one's own conditions, and so that in this becoming free one can also achieve an artistic treatment, which is not pedantic, an artistic treatment of any teaching material. If you learn to pay attention to such things, you can achieve an artistic treatment of any subject. And I would like to point out that it is extremely important to feel oneself in artistic things in such a way that one pays attention to details in artistic things, if one wants to be a good teacher for children from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. Again, look at the photographs*; look at how Dr. Kolisko and Walleen are standing, and do not look at them with an interpretive, commenting sense, but look at them with an artistic sense, and you will see how much they give you. It is very important not to force things like that; of course, if you make a judgment with your mind, that someone always holds a folder in a certain hand position and things like that, it comes out immediately as nonsense. But if you grasp it with an artistic sense, something comes out that cannot be completely put into words, but which pours the artistic into your limbs in a tremendously significant way, which is exactly what you need as an educator. It is very important to be able to transform things into a picture, because the picture brings the things that we want to teach the child closer to the human being.

With what we, after our own scientific education, what we have taken up and what we are always confronted with when we prepare ourselves - the books we prepare ourselves from contain nothing but abominations - we burden ourselves with something that is scientific systematics, and when we do not have enough time to get rid of the whole thing - when we prepare ourselves for a lesson, we have to take a contemporary book in which things are arranged scientifically - then this haunts our minds. When we bring this to the children, it is something that is not possible. And we have to realize that this causes us great difficulties, that today scientific systematics, not human systematics, have crept into the preparation books that we can use. So we have to get rid of it absolutely. We have to get everything that we bring into the school for this age absolutely free of all scientific systematics.

And here it is good to remember times when older children, older young people were taught in such a way that it was taken for granted that the appeal was not to the head, but to the whole person. One only has to remember the medieval education: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, where it was not important to teach this or that, but to get the child to be able to express himself in a sentence that was grammatically correct. There, grammar was not taught, but the child was given the opportunity to think in such a pictorial way that his sentences had a pictorial character. Then, not true, rhetoric: the child should be accustomed to feel the beauty of the word in its formation; dialectic: the child should be accustomed to let the thought free in itself, and so on; there it was a matter of ability. And basically it must also come to ability in the most spiritual things, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. But the ability is reached only at that age when everything is brought into the picture.

Well, that's where the trivialities sometimes play an extraordinarily large role. For example, when presenting mathematics, it really makes a difference whether you put one line of letters that is wider and then another that is shorter, whether you put it at the beginning or in the middle. You can make a picture out of what is an arithmetic operation at the end, which the students have in front of them, and put a certain value on something like that, so that even what you write on the blackboard becomes a picture; that even in the trivialities these things are thoroughly taken into account. Sometimes there are opportunities to bring out the picture from a very special corner of life, I would say. Mathematical formulas or sequences of formulas can sometimes be described by figures that are immediately perceived as beautiful. We should not miss such opportunities. It would be a sin and a pity if we missed such an opportunity to make something descriptive, which might be a kind of unnecessary tendril for those who can only think in a philistine way. We should gradually inoculate the philistro-logical way out of our souls for this age, if I may say so. Today we inoculate it much too much more and more. We should inoculate it out; we should work with all our might towards the imaginative or towards the musical, and then actually come close to rhythm for this age of life.

And now we should not close our minds to the realization that truly imponderables play a great role in the totality of teaching. You see, in our very first pedagogical courses, we spoke of a pedagogical relationship between the four temperaments. The task of the educator is to study these four temperaments in the child continuously, to study them in such a way that he can take them into account continuously. This is because, as I say, the right karma of a class is created through the right treatment of the temperaments of the children in the class. After all, such a class is together; they are souls that are together. As they work with the teacher and with each other, a part of their life karma is played out. All kinds of threads of life are being spun, but a piece of karma is being played out; especially between the 7th and 14th years, a piece of karma is being played out very strongly. And how the individual temperaments work into that karma is what we should look at. In this respect, the class can be a constant subject of inner apercus, if we let this be the quiet undertone of our pedagogical work. And above all, one should not let it happen that in any class there are sleeping, co-sleeping students. By sleeping students I mean those who, during the course of the lesson, give only half or three-quarters or a quarter of their whole being. It can happen that the few gifted ones, as they are usually called - they are not always - show up and the others remain asleep. Then the lesson will be really lively with a few, and the others will always be a kind of extras, and this is what must be avoided at all costs. Because, of course, this becoming an extra or being a chatterbox - I don't mean that in a bad way - is also based on other moments. But it is also based on the contrast of temperaments. Of course, among the students there are those who have, let's say, a sanguine or even a choleric temperament, and they will always show off, and you will always have to deal with them if you don't pay special pedagogical attention to them; and there are others, the more melancholic, phlegmatic ones, who then become the extras. This must be avoided at all costs, because the best thing we can do for the students who think more quickly and speak more easily is to make those who think more slowly and do not open their mouths so readily take part in everything, speak, cooperate, and so on. It is absolutely necessary that we go along with this inconvenience. Then we will feel that for a short time we may make less progress than if we left the extras to themselves, but in the long run it will be different. In the long run it will turn out that we have a tremendous effect on the memory retention of the children by not allowing the extras. What is justified in memory is essentially supported by the fact that we do not allow extras.

And so I would say that the possibility of working quite pictorially depends also on the effectiveness of these imponderables. We will see from experience that if we allow all the temperaments, all the possible dispositions of a class to really live themselves out, that for the age from the change of teeth to sexual maturity we are much more likely to arrive at a pictoriality seated in the soul than if we do not. Of course, a certain, I would say, strong devotion to the lesson is necessary if the things to be taught are really always to be taught with the consideration that they will become pictorial; but nevertheless, one should never end a lesson for this age without giving the child something pictorial. Those who are able to draw with the children from the very beginning have an easier time in this respect; but those who, let us say, give the children something pictorial, for example in languages or arithmetic, have all the more effect on them. And, in fact, there is no other real preparation for the educator for this pictorial work than that which I have indicated: to sharpen our sense of observation of life in such a way that we can respond objectively to what life reveals, especially in the human being. A healthy artistic physiognomics, not only human physiognomics, but also, for example, animal physiognomics, should indeed be revived among educators, a healthy, not the sentimental physiognomics of Lavater and the like, but a healthy physiognomics in which the pictorial is sought, without going so far as to close the concept, staying in the picture, being satisfied with it, when one has brought things into the picture, such a healthy physiognomy should be revived, and it will then pass over of itself into all kinds of actions, into all kinds of processes that the teacher develops during the lesson. Nowhere should we pay so much attention to the how and not so much to the what as in teaching and education. It is not the what that is important, but the fact that the what appears in a certain way, in a certain way in the lesson. And there is no greater enemy for the teacher than an incomplete preparation, because it always makes him stop at the "what," whereas a complete preparation always makes him go from the "what" to the "how," makes him rejoice to see how he can prepare it for the child, how he can form it before the child, because the forming itself has become like an inspiration and the like. We should not shrink back when we ourselves often bring incomprehensible things to the children in this respect. Incomprehensible things which the children accept on our authority - and for the children, between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, authority decides - are better taught to the children than trivial things which are comprehensible to them and which they grasp out of their own intellect.

These are quite, I would say, finer nuances of what the teacher, the educator, should do with his own soul life. You will notice, if you perhaps look again at the Christmas course on education, that there is actually everywhere an emphasis on answering the question: How do we form the shell of the human being, the physical body, the etheric body? - Not, how do we form the individuality? That will form itself. If you say, "How do we form the physical body? -...people today, in this materialistic age, have no idea that it is only through the spiritual-mental processes, the spiritual-mental processes that you develop during the teaching, that you form the physical body.

For example, suppose a child stumbles over its own words, cannot find the next word. You see, in the child, before he has reached sexual maturity, this stumbling over his own words is a trait that is still based in physical corporeality in the Upper Man. The upper man is the man in physical relationship, who undergoes his main development in the first and even in the infantile period of life. If you find the possibility to find out the right tempo for what you make the child sing, tell, to get the right tempo for such a person who makes us wait there when he has to look for the transition from one word to the other, then you are in a position to cure this in the child up to sexual maturity absolutely from the spiritual. You are removing a physical inhibition. If you have not removed it from the physical up to sexual maturity, then you have formed its counterpart in the metabolic limb system, then it has become a property of the intestines, then you cannot get it out. Then whatever you do in the ordinary sense as spiritual practices will not help you. They have to be done in such a way that they affect the digestive system, and of course it is not always possible to introduce this, I would say, in a general way. That would lead to the abuse of certain exercises. But with the child, we have to watch carefully to see if he goes from one word to another, from one thought to another, subnormally slowly. And in the child we can still make the body healthy. We make the digestive system sick if we do not cure such waiting from one word to another in youth. This is our duty, and it is more important than any content - which we need, because we have to teach, and therefore we have to have content - to teach the child. This is simply how the mind works in the whole physical organism. In order to learn to control the physical organism in the right way, we have to know the spiritual science, because it is the spirit that works in the physical organism. Therefore, we need to bring healthy medical thinking closer to educational thinking in a certain way. So that we really know how to take such a thing seriously, let us say that when it is said in the Old Testament that someone was tormented by bad dreams, the expression is not used: My brain has done something special, God has afflicted me through my brain. - No one who was active in the Old Testament would have said that. But he said: God is afflicting me through my kidneys. - And why? For the simple reason that it is true. People today are proud to know that spiritual things come from the brain, and they arrogantly disregard what is written in the Old Testament. Not only the brain is spiritualized, but the whole organism is spiritualized. Dreams, for example, come from the kidneys; the expression in the Old Testament is very serious. Just as it is clever in the modern sense to say that compassion also comes from the brain; but in the deeper sense it is nonsense, and the Old Testament form, that compassion comes from the bowels, is the correct one.

And so we must know that when we approach the child with the soul-spiritual, we are treating its whole body. We are the very ones who, with medical wisdom, take care of the physical-spiritual of the child when we do this or that in the construction of sentences, in the treatment of colors, in the treatment of sounds, in the treatment of this or that object. We are influencing the whole physical; for in the physical is the spirit, and we are influencing this spirit, not only the spirit which is only directly in the brain, for there, strangely enough, is the most ineffective thing. And so we must see ourselves as educators, either as people who are constantly bringing up in children something that nourishes and shapes life, or something that is poisonous and destroys the body. If we exaggerate a little in the direction of formalism, if we make the children think until they are tired, then we condemn them between the ages of 7 and 14 to relatively early sclerosis. We just have to be aware that we are working on the whole life when we develop this or that in the child's environment in education and teaching. And if we are not aware of this, we will certainly not approach pedagogical issues in the right way: We are really entitled to remove only the obstacles and hindrances that arise from the physical and etheric nature of man.

As for the rest, today's man, who is much more selfish than he thinks, will naturally say - this seems right to me, that seems wrong to me - and will then bring up the child to feel and think as much as possible like himself. That, of course, is wrong. What is right in all matters is life - not the individual teacher - whom we must ask. Today, of course, we have to teach a child to write. I must confess that I cannot find in myself any judgment of taste that would give me an answer directly from human nature as to whether a child should learn to write or not; it arises only from consideration of the development of civilization. Mankind has now come to the point where a certain content of civilization has an effect on the way of writing and reading. In order to educate the child not for another world but for this world, we must teach him to read and write. This is something we must accept as a condition of civilization, and we must remove the obstacles to development that come with living in a certain age. We have an enormous amount of work to do if we want to answer the question: How can we make the objects that are already given for the human development of the child as harmless as possible? - Because we can always assume that by giving the child a certain material, we are doing the child more harm than good. So we must always ask ourselves: How can we avoid the harm that must always be done when we teach the child something? Well, of course, this is all the less true the more artistic the material is, and all the more true the more cognitive the material is. But this fact must always be before our minds. And now we should be very clear about this: the right authoritative relationship that should exist between the change of teeth and sexual maturity between the educator and the child, this right authoritative relationship is brought about under no other circumstances than when we make an effort to make the teaching artistic-pictorial. If we can do that, then the authoritative relationship will certainly develop. You see, what undermines the authoritative relationship is one-sided intellectuality. Of course, it is easiest to cultivate one-sided intellectuality in the fields of arithmetic, science, and so on. But it is there that we should work into the pictorial. Often we are too unimaginative in language teaching. Let us be clear about this: when we create figuratively, there is a certain selflessness involved. It is much easier to think cleverly, it is much more selfish to think cleverly, than to create pictorially; and we face the child unselfishly when we create pictorially in our teaching. When the child has reached sexual maturity, and knowledge is to pass into cognition, then, because its intellect is now awakened, it simply rejects the judgment of the teacher, the educator, of its own accord. Then nothing is achieved by mere authority, then we have to be able to compete, then we really have to compete with the child, because actually at the age of 17 one is as clever as at the age of 35 in terms of the ability to judge. There are certain nuances, but basically you are as smart at 17 as you are at 35 in terms of formal logic. So you really have to compete with the child as soon as they reach sexual maturity. And therefore, what I said yesterday, that one must not show oneself in any way, must come true. Of course, this will be easy for the younger child if you devote yourself to an artistic organization of the lessons. And a great deal will be achieved if one gets a feeling for how different parts of one or the other can be formed artistically in different ways. Let's say you take the children through a series of plants. You talk about the blossoms; now you try to describe the blossoms in the whole tone, I would say, up to the tone of voice, in such a way that the whole words and ideas are something flowing, that they are light. Now, when you develop this, you try to appeal to the sanguine children in particular, so that the sanguine children contribute to the whole class what they have especially in the ability to perceive, in the easy ability to perceive, let us say, for such ideas as an artistic person develops when he describes blossoms. If you turn to the leaves, you may find that you strike such a tone that the melancholy children are more interested in the leaves; the dialog with the class now passes to the melancholy children. If you describe the roots, which are not usually seen, but which you can describe in such a way that their power can be felt in the flowers, if you describe what is usually invisible, then you must no longer describe statically, but dynamically, and then the choleric children help you to have a real dialog. In this way the whole class can be used for mutual stimulation, if only one develops the sense for it, which can become instinctive. Only, isn't it, it is necessary to pay attention to such things.

Well, actually the thing is that you imagine it to be much more difficult than it actually is. Because once you have brought yourself a quarter in such a direction, then you yourself have the need to bring yourself in 'such a direction'. But there is a catch. You start with great desire. You say to yourself: I want to do this now, I really want to create a picture, I want to create a picture for the lessons, tomorrow I will start. - Now it goes on for eight days, but after that you get lazy, and that is the catch. You have to persevere for a quarter of a year, and then you have to persevere longer. Eight days won't do it, but a quarter of a year will do it, if you are serious about training yourself for a quarter of a year.

And now today, my dear friends, I do not want to have given you one rule or another for one thing or another in class. Perhaps we will always organize pedagogical lectures at future meetings, so that we always move forward. But I would have liked to give you something today that would have made you meditate and put you in a pedagogical and pedagogical mood. I would have liked to see an arm move differently here and there in a class, so that it would create a different image in front of the students. Sometimes I wish that the always unimaginative bumpiness, for example, would not be one of the first things in the classroom. Sometimes I wish that this or that ungraceful wiping of the blackboard would be replaced by a more graceful one. All this comes naturally. It is worked out from the unartistic to the artistic when the general sense for it is there, and the general sense is actually much more important for the pedagogue than the individual dogmatic rule. I would like you to have taken up this today, which draws your attention to the importance of the heartbeat with which one is in pedagogy.

Goethe's “Faust” undoubtedly belongs to one of those works in world literature to which one can, decade after decade, return to and find within it ever again, something new. This ever fresh insight may bring about the belief that we can benefit fundamentally ever more from the work than had been obtained on a previous occasion. Maturing with age this experience is indeed possible involving other works of world literature—however, with Goethe's “Faust” one has the impression, that ever new experiences of life are needed, as are offered by approaching age, in order to fully absorb certain secrets and inner aspects found within these works.

Discoveries made by delving ever deeper into Goethe's “Faust,” within the work itself, prompting a decisive wish to turn to Goethe's biography, to explore his life ever anew, because through the observation of Goethe's “Faust” one realizes that these rightful insights will enlighten this work. An objection is only natural that such a reference of the poet to his work begs incompletion. One may say a work of art must be grasped, as it stands, independent of the personality of its creator. One can also put aside some more or less pedantic tendencies and through the observation of Goethe's relation to his work hold him to it, that out of such a flood of power something higher must appear, more significant than each impression and suchlike. These are the thoughts from which this theme of today's lecture has grown.

I wish to speak now about the personal relationship of Goethe to his “Faust,” not in the narrow personal sense but regarding the relationship of the spiritual character of Goethe to his “Faust.” One could easily come to the conclusion, that by studying these relationships of Goethe's personality to his “Faust”—what Goethe mentioned about himself, regarding his life, his striving, his manner and way, his attitude to knowledge and questions about art—that these details could be particularly useful. Yet as one enters deeper and deeper into Goethe's life, one notices this is actually not so. Here exactly lie difficulties within the observation regarding Goethe's spiritual character. On the other hand there is something which penetrates not only into peculiarities of Goethe, but within one's soul life itself. One goes along with the idea of being convinced, through Goethe's statements, as expressed in letters directed to one or other individual, that these are useless in relation to the consideration just mentioned. One discovers, on looking at the way Goethe considered himself, that one can't really get the key to exactly that which had depth in the most meaningful work of Goethe, in “Faust.” When clearly stated riddles need truthful answers out of Goethe's work, from observation of his life, about that which lived in his soul, which he expressed in his work and particularly in his “Faust,” one realises that there was something so huge, so all-encompassing and with expansive enlightenment that Goethe himself, in his personal consciousness, within his knowledge, couldn't grasp what really was working in his soul. If not so much misuse of the expression “unconscious—subconscious” has been used during the last decades, I wish to apply it to Goethe with the eminent sense that that which is found within Goethe's creation, streams so gradually into our soul, that it becomes larger than all which Goethe can utter about it prosaically.

Exactly that which I express now, applies in a particular degree to the relationship of Goethe to his “Faust.” I can't allow myself, due to a time constraint, to closely discuss Goethe's relationship within the folk tradition in which appears the “Puppet Show” and such-like. I wish to restrict myself to the discussion regarding the relationship of Goethe to his “Faust” itself.

Before all else, it is necessary to enter into Faust as boldly as possible. Precisely out of Faust himself the insight is revealed related to Goethe and his “Faust.” What is most admirably Goetheanistic within this which is revealed through a lengthy observation of Goethe within it? What is Goethean in “Faust”? When looking at Faust—we see from the Prologue a tendency which doesn't exist at first—starting with the Monologue: “Philosophy—I have digested ...” the contemplation of “Faust,” then one usually gets involved in the following: within this lives Goethe's attitude against outer knowledge, against the drive for external knowledge. One sees the larger reference within the opening which leads Faust towards despair in the power of his four faculties and so on; it is noticeable then, how Faust, doubtful in the power of all four faculties, gropes towards magic, and so forth. However, working at length with “Faust,” one doesn't get the feeling that already within this Monologue specific Goetheanistic ideas are presented. That begins at a specific point. In this rebellion against the four faculties, this grope towards magic, Goethe opposes the Faust-tradition; it was not in this which Goethe's soul, in essence, wanted to reveal himself through Faust. The part of Goethe's soul revealing itself for the first time in “Faust,” encounters an opposition, where Faust, after he opened the Nostradamus book and the sign of the macrocosm, turns away towards the other sign which brings him to conjuring up of the Earth Spirit. Here unfolds, as Goethe writes this scene in his “Faust,” that which lives in Goethe's soul in a quite unique form, the world riddle. What is this, however? Goethe allows his Faust to open up a book on magic, called the Book of Nostradamus, at the sign of the macrocosm—expressing the connection between humanity and the almighty world powers. The sign of the macrocosm expresses the world as three-fold; that the earthly and heavenly separations are threefold, and that within the threefold world stands the occult connection with the threefold human being of body soul and spirit.

Upon this relationship Goethe arrived momentarily in his life. It dawned on him in such a way, that he allowed Faust to strive towards the revelation, and through the images of these signs, find the connection between humanity and the entire world. During this time Goethe was not tempted to consider that something acquired in this manner from spiritual knowledge, was satisfactory. Deeply, decisively we heard Goethe's words as he turned away from the sign of the macrocosm: “What spectacle! But oh! Only a spectacle, no more!” Within this lies Goethe's entire withdrawal during the seventies of the 18^th century, from what was generally recognised as the connection of humanity with the entire world, the universe. Goethe believed he had reached clarity in the thought that everything within imagination—acquired through ideas—was nothing other than a mirror-image of reality. Thus Faust turned away from the symbol and its revelation to another sign, which directed him to reveal the Earth Spirit. Look closely now within the depths of Goethe to understand why he turned away from the macrocosm and towards the microcosm. Goethe already belonged to the world view of those who didn't in the ordinary sense relate to the history of specific knowledge, constructed from an accumulation of ideas about the laws of nature and of humanity. No, in fact Goethe didn't strive in this sense for knowledge, he strived for knowledge in so far as the result of this knowledge would empower the human soul, in order that each human being's striving in his becoming, may result in crystallization. Goethe also belonged to those in spirit who, to a certain sense, I might say, in order not to be misunderstood, harbour a particular nervousness, a fear for that which is taken up by the soul in the form of conceptual knowledge. By this is meant: whoever has really struggled once with conceptual knowledge, with an idea through which one in reality can penetrate into the world, would know how unsatisfactory the result can be, that one can't thus, through this idea, express everything which has been thus penetrated and which had been revealed in the depths. One wants to always, when one has acquired knowledge, say to oneself: yes, you have brought about this or that in your thoughts, you know however, what lives in the soul and is revealed from the depth of the soul world is only partly incorporated in these ideas. There is a worry that something had been lost along the way between life and this knowledge. One has a constricted feeling in this situation. Once a conceptual idea is taken up, there is the possibility to regain, later, through the spirit, that which had been lost. One must doubt, when one has once had an idea which was not fully expressed, to once again bring it into a lively representation. This worry lay in Goethe's soul. With this he was always occupied—with world riddles rather than expressing riddles in a pure and strong way and thereby giving a superficial elucidation and satisfaction. He had a shyness, a respect for knowledge. He said to himself: that which you entreat as knowledge to the human soul, can only be a spectacle, only a spectacle ... oh, only a spectacle!—thus Goethe turned away from that which the universe revealed to him, and allowed himself to turn to the sign which is not revealed by the universe but that which rises from the depths of the soul itself.

Thus Goethe allows Faust to doubt that within the immense universe he may perceive the manifestation of reality, and thus turns him to search for a revelation from the depths. Goethe's Faust encounters the Earth Spirit in such a form as it appears in the hidden depths of the human being, in the subsoil of the human soul as the case may be. Approaching the great All, we approach the spirit of revelation, and so we come to that which lives in the soul's depths, and arrive closer to spiritual revelation. In this moment however we discover the danger which accompanies every approach to knowledge. This danger within the striving human being's soul during earthly life is what Goethe now confronts and this he mystifies into his “Faust.” Before Goethe's Faust stands the direct revelation of his individual inner being. Faust has to turn away from it. That which lives in consciousness, which expresses itself clearly within Faust's soul, cannot grasp what lies in the depths of his very own being. For most of humanity, that which is unknown, that in us which we could lightly deny, scares Faust and he falls back, dazed. He has to turn away. “Not you? Who then? I, replica of the image of God! Not even you!” The Spirit responds: “You match the spirit you comprehend, not me!” Who then is this spirit Faust understands? Towards whom must Faust turn at this moment?

Right here is one of the dramatic moments in Goethe's “Faust.” One need relinquish all revelations of ideas which one usually seeks to interpret “Faust”; one needs to look at the drama, at the artistic elements themselves, at the presentation. Giving oneself over to this without comment, explanations or considerations, one steps into this place of a real mighty opposition. Who is his match? Here Wagner steps in. “You match the spirit ...”—which spirit? Wagner matches him. That is the dramatic knot. One is not allowed to see the traditional interpretation which is always given, where Faust is presented as the higher striving, spiritual idealist and Wagner hobbles in on the stage as insignificant, even gesturing a bit in Faust's manner. Wagner may be allowed to appear as Faust's mask, because it is self-knowledge which Goethe wants to represent: You are no more than what resides in Wagner's soul. Whoever explores the dialogue between the two, discovers a certain philistine air in Wagner; he has a locked personality, a character which has brought a conclusion to his striving. One only sees him once as unabashed, which happens in this scene when Faust meets Wagner and reveals that he doesn't go searching for rain worms and suchlike. In this scene, considered as dramatic, artistic and not philistine, self knowledge appears to Faust. What was it then ultimately, which Goethe made his Faust recoil from, and to what did he turn?

Goethe's soul stands in a time, when this scene was written, during the seventies, when a duality existed between—which I wish to phrase as—“world knowledge” and “self knowledge.” Faust turns away from world knowledge as he does from the sign of the macrocosm. Goethe didn't desire world knowledge. He believed everything can be found within self knowledge acquired through striving for a worthy existence. This is the route to self knowledge. In this Faust-Wagner scene we encounter in Goethe's striving something quite extraordinary, bringing self knowledge of human fulfilment into expression and to revelation. When both impulses, world knowledge and self-knowledge are considered, it must be pointed out that in both, specific human dangers are connected.

With world knowledge it is thus: trying to penetrate ever more into world knowledge, demanding human imaginative capabilities to penetrate ever more into what is offered in a spiritual sense perception, one arrives at a percept which can be called the “temptation of illusion.”

There exists for instance in human culture, and Goethe felt it, such diversity in world knowledge, that it offered, through the tangling of its laws, an illusion, (which the Indians term Maya) ever accompanying us in life, insofar as it forces itself into life and so places the personality in the wide world. We are, in our search for a relationship to things, subject to illusion. Only through this, that we strain with all our all power to protect our consciousness, disallowing it to be charmed, as Faust does after his oath with the Earth Spirit—only in this way can we work our way through illusion. It can appear to one with the deepest discernment in this form before the soul, as Goethe describes later, calling it the Mephistophelean force. Danger in this world knowledge exists in such a secretive way precisely so we don't notice it, in all our worldly thoughts and every experience, in simple indications of life, emotionally intertwined, that it finally does not originate within us. Closer observation shows that, that which is so emotionally inter-mixed does not come from within us, but from other forces. What the human being can conclude in the illusion of a Mephistophelean danger comes down to the so-called intermixing of instinct, of a kind of willing and of desire into this outer knowledge. We often believe we have objective knowledge, but we only have it when we admit to giving in to no illusion, that the aforementioned is mixed into outer knowledge.

When we, however, try to throw out all we have as knowledge, derived from feeling, willing, from passion, the remainder is what Goethe allows Faust to call: “A spectacle! Oh, only a spectacle!” No one needs to search for other ways to discover reality. What we are led to believe is suffused with illusion. As Faust stands before the sign which calls his soul to awaken to such a observation of the world, where everything connected to the will and passion is thrown out, he finds a mere spectacle, a show. This he doesn't want. He wants to dive into self knowledge. He believes the human being can be driven down to the core of the world. Here another danger threatens. While illusion acts as a threat towards world knowledge, due to us delving into the depths of the soul, so another threat finds us in as much as so-called knowledge leads us to wishes, feelings, affectations, towards world riddles, yet they do not allow separation from wishes and will.

It keeps pace with our constitution. We seek in us, through a false mysticism, the everlasting and only find the most recent with a vague mix of the everlasting within it. Acknowledging that, we know that every moment we dive into ourselves, we are confronted with a vision threatened by a void, appearing more as a facade than mere fantasy, which merely drives us into wasted error. Goethe was well known regarding these secrets of human existence, that we, when we don't constantly correct ourselves with common sense and dive into the mystical and encounter deep contemplation, we may get involved in visions. We don't need disease to be a visionary, we enter into a life which becomes a visionary life when it turns ill.

Thus these two elements which are found in life stand out in another way. Goethe didn't proclaim it. It stood before his soul, when we keep everything in mind, which appears as illusion in world knowledge. What does it come to when one considers these illusionary things in a philistine or pedantic manner? To what are we continuously led, away from reality? This illusion is linked with everything which we grasped during our quite normal development. Not continuously coming to terms with the danger of illusion in our soul-life, we may not be defeated by that underlying development which we allow in growing, sprouting, prospering not only during child development, but also in mature development. This however connects to that which, from the age of thirty five, indicates the descending human existence.

This backward directed development is connected to all which lives in our soul. We couldn't become wise or clever through life's experiences if we didn't develop from birth, that which during the descending development brings in an extraordinary existence. We actually live from forces which direct us towards death, not towards growth. We die from birth onwards, and at the moment of death everything is drawn together which worked through our entire life. It works in such a way that that which develops forwards carries that which withdraws, bringing our soul qualities to the fore. If the Mephistophelean, the life of illusions, weren't bedded into world knowledge, we couldn't develop as human beings; these descending forces couldn't live in us. Through this illusion, everything is connected to that which we bring as disturbances into the world, which leads some individuals to destruction and which is connected to the origins of our forces.

It's different with elements arising out of self-knowledge. As we descend into our inner soul, we certainly reach into the spiritual part of our being. We seize hold of ourselves in our personal kernel which connects to the kernel of the world where, in an unconscious way, we forcefully experience will forces and desires living within us. As a result we can develop a specific influence on those around us; we just tend not to study this properly. This disturbance influencing our contemporaries, those we are living with, causing impairment, originates in fact from the descending forces, out of which we could only have grown, if we had grasped them in a proper, spiritual manner. These forces are Luciferic. It is extraordinary that Goethe had within his feelings this duality, the Ahrimanic-Mephistophelean and the Luciferic. Originating within a western spiritual development and western tradition he did not manage to make a clear distinction between the Mephistophelean and the Luciferic. Out of this Goethe unfortunately created the single Mephistopheles. When commentators frequently emphasized that Mephistopheles was an actual character, Goethe continued to sense, subconsciously, that Mephistopheles had to be presented as a duality, as ahrimanic and luciferic. Therefore it is a given that, the moment Faust must turn away from the Earth Spirit, where he doesn't show himself mature in his knowledge, that which moves within his own soul, be it in the soul of man as a whole, Mephistopheles appears as Lucifer to Faust. This results in the merger linking our wishes, feelings and desires within our depths. This follows in other words in the totally wonderful, magnificent, vivid tragedy of Margaret. It also makes it possible for Faust to explore the connection between wishes and will; it results in the most part to that which we go through in the first part of Goethe's “Faust.” Here we experience everything which appears as a luciferic element. However, everything originates from what Goethe actually explored during the seventies and eighties as carrier of human knowledge: people didn't want to know anything about the relationship between themselves and the wider world. However, the feeling remained in him, prompting him to find a solution.

It is interesting that everything which turns towards the luciferic element, results in dissatisfaction. We can only reach satisfaction when we try to find the relationship with the luciferic on the one side and ahrimanic on the other side of the Mephistophelean, which rises from world knowledge. It is interesting that from the beginning of the combination of Mephistopheles with Faust, Goethe left this unresolved. He felt that there had to live a deeper level which flowed between Mephistopheles and Faust, which he however didn't know through his everyday consciousness. Later he wanted to bring it out in a disputing scene. That is the ahrimanic character which lived in Mephistopheles and came to expression when Mephistopheles installed himself and argued about world riddles. In this very discussion, actually, lives illusion. In this way Goethe wanted to introduce something which had brought out another element before his spiritual eye.

Now we observe something extraordinary in Goethe's personal development. He had treated Mephistopheles as an individual character, bringing Faust to a poetic expression. In 1790 he offered “Faust” as a fragment. Schiller stimulated him to continue and what is remarkable, is the manner in which Goethe declined. He saw himself as old, finished and done, couldn't go any further. What actually happened there? The personal relationship Goethe had to his “Faust” became something quite different.

This change can only be understood through insight into the world view Goethe had built for himself during the nineties. What did this knowledge of nature become? It was much spoken about; here and there even justice was done but really penetrating the moving target was hardly achieved. In essence, Goethe wanted to build a bridge, with the help of the knowledge of nature, between self knowledge and world knowledge. When one looks at Goethe's method of nature observation, one discovers that singular results and their discoveries are hardly the main issue. The manner and method, how thoughts unfold, is what matters. How was this? It was so, that Goethe searched for a complete different kind of comprehension and types of ideas to which we are accustomed. When we don't want to focus on this point, we will never understand Goethe's nature observation. Right into the colour teachings we can't understand Goethe, if we fail to focus on what Goethe wanted. He wanted to reach such concepts with his metaphysical teachings, which did not follow one imagination to another, from one idea to the next idea in an outer way, no, by contrast, he wanted us to dive into the reality itself in order for the idea to unfold itself in our soul life, which is actually sufficiently unselfish to share in world experience at the same time. He wanted, in this way, to reach, though his nature observation, what really lies behind reality; he wanted to join self knowledge and world knowledge. Goethe couldn't, because of that which scientifically confronted him, deepen a satisfactory nature observational method, according to him; he had to bring forth a world view from within his being; this he had to achieve honestly and only then the possibility would be given to connect self knowledge with world knowledge. Earlier he had believed that through self knowledge something could be accomplished. But only, diving so deeply down into self knowledge, that the depth of the world is understood in the same manner as we understand Goethe's nature ideas, then the bridge can be built, to find the illusionary element of the world.

So Goethe was stimulated by Schiller to take “Faust” up again.

Here self knowledge could come to its full right. However, now it was one-sided and had to be linked to world knowledge, to the macrocosm. Faust had to turn again to the sign of the macrocosm, from which he had turned away earlier. It had to be placed within the universe of good and evil forces. The forward and backward moving forces had to take up the striving of Faust from the fields of world knowledge. This was what came to him as a necessity. Mephistopheles had to accept the ahrimanic character. That is why Goethe developed his Mephistopheles more and more in this manner. That is why there's such a contradiction in this characterization. Goethe placed Faust in the universe through writing the Prologue in Heaven. The good and the evil forces are at war, and Faust stands in the middle of it.

Occult scientific development had not advanced to such a degree that Goethe could be clear about this. From his single Mephistopheles he could not have created two characters. In his sub-consciousness however, they lived. From this Goethe became ill during the nineties. This is what made Faust so difficult, so heavy. Frequently the second part of “Faust” is left unrecognised, while within this second part only allegory is looked for. When really searching for insight, the second part presents nothing more full of life, nothing more direct and more lively than all the characters! Why do they appear as allegorical? We, as single individuals, place ourselves in the world with our life's work and our individual ideas—we are urged to withdraw somewhat from this reality as an abstraction—but this is what we should surely learn from, in the present! We live in a present time, in which we should ponder the relationship of human beings who are so taken with reality, giving us the most fruitful illusions. Right within ideas, be it in social or political fields, lives abstractions, the allegorical. We live with them. It is the very manner in which the Mephistophelean element enters into our worldly experience in our own lives.

This is depicted vividly and with endless humour in the Emperor scene of the second part, where outer associations of reality with illusion are presented in a grandiose and humoristic way: stupidity and cleverness, as they appear side-by-side in life. In a wonderful, clear way they come to meet us. We then see how Faust, in the thorough way in which he has positioned himself in the world where illusionary elements exist and where they combine with stupidity, he finds it necessary to once again delve down into his own soul.

Now self knowledge is expressed in a yet higher sense. It links to the moment when Faust bows to the mothers with: “The mother! Mother! It sounds so wondrous!” Quite wonderful it sounds when we shift into our own depths, as Faust delves into himself. Now Goethe needs to give Mephistopheles, while he has two figures within him—Lucifer and Mephistopheles—a kind of minor role. In order to understand him fully, Faust sinks down into the worlds where Lucifer's power grips one in loneliness. That which he had experienced in the depth of soul, lived out in a dream, he goes through in such a way that we see: from it flows whatever he has brought up from the depths of his soul and out of self knowledge, and now self knowledge within world knowledge is transformed. There had to be something here regarding science, which links to self-awareness. That which we discover in the depths of our souls, numbs us, only allows us to dream, when we can't bring it out of our depths.

Had we had the chance in Goethe's time, or do we have an opportunity in our time, to develop such spiritual knowledge? What Faust took from the mothers, no, that wouldn't have made it. Human knowledge appeared to be an artificial product, understood like a mechanism. No Homunculus bulges forth out of lively reality. Now comes that towards which Goethe strives for within the entire depth of his soul. That which has grown out of world knowledge, must now unite itself with self knowledge. They had to become so blended together that they become one. This is what Goethe achieved: his wonderful knowledge of nature, biological and other metamorphosis-knowledge, brought together in a bond, equally including what Faust brought from the mothers on the one side, and on the other side, what could be given to him in his time as outer world knowledge.

Through this striving Goethe steered into the Greek era. His quest wasn't towards a one-sided spiritual abstraction or life abstraction—but to the consummation of the soul. This exact perfection, living in the Greek soul, cannot be restored, yet some vestige must have been left which can be won again, something similar to Hellenism which can be experienced again in later times. In Italy Goethe had experienced this in Greek art. He regarded the Greek artist as one who had solved nature's mysteries. As he observed the Greek civilization, perfection dawned on him. In his time they hadn't reached as far as solving the split between world knowledge and self knowledge. Faust had to, through that which incorporates an inner becoming within Hellenism, take up this power and use this to amalgamate self- and world knowledge. Now Goethe tried, towards the end of the second part of his “Faust,” to depict, as much as modern art allowed at that time, Faust as he appears amid all that had been brought from the mothers, towards that which the great universe revealed to humanity. Precisely from this basis, because he wasn't split within his consciousness in the depth of his soul, he had to—what he justifies in his way—adapt traditional form. He places Faust into the traditional form of the Christian church, in order to, after he had brought forth the deep elements in his soul derived from the mothers, direct him again towards that which he had turned away from in the beginning: the possible revelation in the sign of the macrocosm. We see Goethe at the close overcome what he as younger man had rejected: one-sided self knowledge. Faust is introduced into the universe, in the steams of the world-all, into secrets, where the ahrimanic world combines with the physical.

This is the great tableau at the closing of “Faust,” where Goethe strove to introduce Faust into the macrocosm. We can't understand Goethe's “Faust” when we fail to have this insight into the work which had accompanied Goethe during nearly sixty years of his life and had shared his own destiny, but in a higher form, as is usually meant. Goethe had as a younger man turned to mere self knowledge and refused to be bothered by world knowledge. His struggles with nature's manifestations and nature's powers expressed in his nature observation, led Faust into the wide world. At the end Faust stood there, saying: “A spectacle, oh, but not only a spectacle, but an element which man lives through and through into which every human life flows in all the streaming which courses through the macrocosm, through the universe!”—Faust turns back to that which the sign of the macrocosm had wanted to reveal to him.

It looks bad when we only quote “Faust” in one or the other facet. We have to admit, Goethe had conquered what he had mixed up in his youth. I don't believe that Goethe, due to a gradual contradiction in his advancing age, belittled that part of “Faust” which he created in his youth. Precisely as a result of this, he stands there largely because he is so honest in his personal relationship to “Faust” while he shows how he had struggled and strived to find the way, from self knowledge to world knowledge.

Whosoever participates in these steps, really penetrating into the single elements in which “Faust” lives, will judge him differently.

To descend into his own soul, Faust again turned to Bible translating. He didn't stick to the traditional translation: “In the beginning was the Word,” but tried: Sense, power, deed. “In the beginning was the deed!” Just this manner of translation invites Mephistopheles to enter; he is the diminutive of superficiality in which Faust, at this point of his development arrives at the trivial: “In the beginning was the Deed” from the deeper: “In the beginning was the Word.” However, through this, because Faust finds himself within all the illusions of world knowledge, through this he can overcome Mephistopheles. It is a great work in world literature which allows us to lay our eyes on a relationship so close to the bone.

“Faust” has become no lesser work of art. It is more accomplished through the fact that great power flowed into a single soul, a person of the highest ranks, who strives and struggles with the spiritual riddles of mankind. This I believe anyway, that in Goethe's “Faust” stands a work towards which mankind must return, repeatedly.

It made an extraordinary impression on me when I read a critique written in English, translated from a French work by a Spaniard, a harsh criticism, exercised on Goethe's “Faust” from the standpoint of taking everything within it as that which must be combated against within by central European people. I believe, that all man's weaknesses, all that which doesn't allow one to get along, wherever one is, be recognised, that in Goethe's “Faust” not only the central Europeans but the entire world has appeared in a work, containing specific meaning, which shouldn't only be given to mankind, but is continuously being sought by mankind. While Goethe's own search is so closely connected with the search in mankind, I also believe that Goethe, through his “Faust” has given mankind a most precious gift, because the greatest good is that towards which mankind should come, because when you really understand yourself, you have to search for this good, without end.

WE have yet to speak today of the principle of Initiation, or esoteric training. And we will speak of the two methods of training which take into special consideration what has been explained here concerning human evolution. For we must be clear that in a certain way we find the truth by retracing our steps to earlier stages of humanity.

It has been said that the inhabitants of old Atlantis could perceive wisdom in all that surrounded them. The further we go back into the far past, the more we find states of consciousness through which men were able to perceive the creative powers which pervade the world, the spiritual beings which surround us. All that surrounds us has arisen through these creative beings and to see them is indeed the meaning of “knowledge.”

When mankind had developed to our present stage of consciousness (and this has only come about during our fifth post-Atlantean epoch) a longing was left in the soul to penetrate again into the spiritual realms. I have told you how in the ancient Indian people there lived from the beginning that deep longing to know the real spirit behind all that surrounds us in the world. We have seen how they had a feeling that all that surrounded them was a dream, an illusion; how their only task was to evolve upwards to the ancient wisdom that had worked creatively in early times. The pupils of the ancient Rishis strove to tread the path which led them through Yoga to look up into the realms from which they had themselves come down. They strove away from Maya to these spiritual realms above.

That is one way which man can take. The most recent way of attaining to wisdom is the Rosicrucian path. This path does not point man to the past but to the future, to those conditions which he will further live through. Through definite methods the pupil is taught to develop in himself the wisdom which exists in germ in every human being.

This is the way which was given through the Founder of the Rosicrucian esoteric stream, known to the outer world as Christian Rosenkreuz. It is not an unchristian way, rather is it a Christian path adapted to modern conditions, and lies between the actual Christian path and the Yoga path.

This path had been partially prepared long before the time of Christianity. It took on a special form through that great initiate, Dionysius the Areopagite, who in the esoteric school of Paul at Athens inaugurated the training from which all later esoteric wisdom and training have been derived.

These are the two paths of esoteric training particularly fitted for the West. All that is connected with our culture and the life we lead and must lead, is lifted up, raised into the principle of initiation through the Christian and through the Rosicrucian training. The purely Christian way is somewhat difficult for modern man, hence the Rosicrucian path has been introduced for those who have to live in the present age. If someone would take the old purely Christian path in the midst of modern life he must be able to cut himself off for a time from the world outside, in order to enter it again later all the more intensively. On the other hand the Rosicrucian path can be followed by all, no matter in what occupation or sphere of life they may be placed.

We will describe the purely Christian way. It is prescribed as to method in the most profound Christian book least understood by the representatives of Christian theology, the Gospel of St. John, and as to contents, in the Apocalypse or Secret Revelation.

The Gospel of St. John is a miraculous book: one must live it, not merely read it. One can live it if one understands that its utterances are precepts for the inner life, and that one must observe them in the right way. The Christian path demands of its disciple that he considers the St. John Gospel a book of meditation. A fundamental assumption, which is more or less absent in the Rosicrucian training, is that one possesses the most steadfast belief in the personality of Christ Jesus. The pupil must at least find it possible to believe that the most lofty Being, the Leader of the Fire-Spirits of the Sun evolution, was physically incorporated as Jesus of Nazareth; that Christ Jesus was not merely the “Simple Man of Nazareth,” not an individual like Socrates, Plato or Pythagoras. One must see his fundamental difference from all others. If one would undergo a purely Christian training one must be sure that in him lived a God-man of a unique nature, otherwise one has not the right basic feeling that enters the soul and awakens it. Therefore one must have an actual belief in the first words of the beginning of St. John's Gospel: “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and a God was the Logos “to the words” And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.” Thus the same Spirit who was the ruler of the Fire-Spirits, who was linked with the transforming of the Earth, whom we also call the Spirit of the Earth, has actually dwelt among us in a garment of flesh, he was actually in a physical body. That must be recognised! If one cannot do this then it is better to undertake another method of training. One, however, who has accepted this basic condition and calls before his soul in meditation every morning through weeks and months the Gospel words down to the passage “full of grace and truth,” and moreover in such a way that he not only understands them, but lives within them, will experience them as an awakening force in the soul. For these are not ordinary words, but awakening forces which call forth other forces in the soul. The pupil must only have the patience to bring them before his soul continuously, every day, then they become the forces which the Christian training needs, aroused through the awakening of quite definite feelings. The Christian path is more an inner one, whereas in Rosicrucian training the experiences are kindled by the outer world.

The Christian path is pursued by an awakening of the feelings. There are seven stages of feeling which must be aroused. In addition are other exercises which are only given personally to the pupil, and suited to his special character. It is, however, indispensable to experience the 13th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, so to experience it as I will now describe. The teacher says to the pupil: You must develop quite definite feelings. Imagine the following: the plant grows from the soil, but is of a higher order than the mineral soil from which it grows. Nevertheless the plant needs it, the higher could not exist without the lower, and if the plant could think, it would have to say to the earth: It is true that I am higher than thou, yet without thee I cannot live. And it must incline itself to the earth in gratitude. Likewise must the animal bear itself to the plant, for it could not exist without plant life, and even so must the human being bear himself with regard to the animal. And if man has ascended higher, he must say to himself: I could never stand where I do without the lower. He must bow thankfully before them, for they have made it possible for him to exist. No creature in the world could subsist without the lower, to which it must feel gratitude. So even Christ, the very highest, could not exist without the twelve, and the feeling of his inclination to them in gratitude is powerfully portrayed in this 13th chapter. He, the highest of all, washes his disciples' feet.

If this is thought of in full wakefulness as a basic feeling in the human soul, if the pupil lives for weeks and months in reflection and contemplation which deepen this fundamental feeling—the gratitude with which the higher should look down to the lower to which it really owes its existence, then one awakens the first basic feeling. The pupil will have entered deeply enough into the experience when certain symptoms appear, an external symptom and an inner vision. The external symptom is that one feels the feet to be laved by water; in an inner vision one sees oneself as the Christ washing the feet of the twelve. This is the first stage, that of the Washing of the Feet. The event in the 13th Chapter of St. John's Gospel is not only an historical event, it can be experienced by all. It is an external symptomatic expression of the fact that the pupil has raised himself thus far in his life of feeling, nor does this sign fail to appear when he has progressed to this point in the enhancement of his feeling-life.

The second stage, the Scourging, is passed through if one deepens oneself in the following: How would it fare with you if the sufferings and blows of life broke in on you from every side? You should stand upright, you should make yourself strong to meet all the sorrows that life offers, and should bear them. This is the second fundamental feeling which must be experienced. The outer feeling of it is an irritation on the whole surface of the body, and a more inner expression is a vision in which one sees oneself scourged, at first in dream, and then in vision.

Then comes the third, which is the Crowning with Thorns. Here week-long, month-long one must live in the feeling: How would it fare with you, if you must not only undergo the sorrows and sufferings of life, but if even the holiest, your spiritual being, should be subjected to scorn and derision? And again, there must be no lamenting, it must be clear to the pupil that he must stand upright in spite of all. His inwardly developed strength must make him able to stand erect despite mockery and scorn. Whatever threatens to overthrow his soul he must stand erect! Then in an inner astral vision he sees himself with the crown of thorns and is sensible of an external pain on the head. This is the sign that he has advanced far enough in his life of feeling to be able to make this experience.

The fourth is the Crucifixion. Here the pupil must again develop a quite definite feeling. Today man identifies his body with his ego. One who would go through the Christian initiation must accustom himself to carry his body through the world as if it were a foreign object, a table, for instance. His body must become foreign to him, he bears it in and out of the doorway as something external, not himself. When a man has advanced far enough in this fundamental feeling, there is revealed to him what is called the “Ordeal of the Blood.” Certain reddenings of the skin appear on certain places in such a way that he can call forth the wounds of Christ, on the hands, the feet and on the right side of the breast. When the pupil by his depth of feeling is able to develop in himself the Blood Ordeal, the external symptom, then appears likewise the inner, the astral, in which he sees himself crucified.

The fifth is the Mystic Death. The pupil raises himself ever higher to the feeling: I belong to the whole world; I am as little an independent being as the finger on my hand. He feels himself embedded in the whole world, as if a part of it. Then he experiences the feeling that all around him grows dark, as if a black darkness envelops him, like a pall that becomes dense around him. During this time, the pupil of the Christian initiation learns to know all the sorrow and all the pain, all the evil and wickedness that attaches itself to mortal man. That is the Descent into Hell; each one must live through it. Then something comes to pass as if the veil were torn asunder, and the pupil sees into the spiritual worlds. This is called the Rending of the Veil.

The sixth is the Burial and Resurrection. When the pupil has advanced so far he must say: I have already accustomed myself to look on my body as something foreign, but now I see everything in the world as standing as near to me as my own body, which indeed is only taken from these substances. Every blossom, every stone, is as near to me as my body. Then the pupil is buried in the earthly planet. This stage is significantly linked with a new life, with the feeling of being united to the deepest Soul of the planet, with the soul of the Christ, who says, “those who eat my bread tread me underfoot.”

The seventh, the Ascension, cannot be described; one must have a soul that is no longer dependent on thinking through the instrument of the brain. In order to be sensible of what the pupil undergoes in what is called the Ascension, it is necessary to have a soul which can live through this feeling.

This passing through states of humility and deep devotion represents the nature of the Christian initiation, and he who earnestly goes through it experiences his resurrection in the spiritual worlds. Today it is not possible for all to undertake this path, and so the existence of another method leading to the higher worlds has become a necessity. That is the Rosicrucian method.

Here again I must refer to seven stages which will give a picture of the content of this training. Much of it has already been described in Lucifer-Gnosis,¹ much can only be given from teacher to pupil within the school, and yet an idea must be formed of what the training provides. It has seven stages, though not consecutive, it is a question of the pupil's own individuality. The teacher prescribes what seems to him adapted to his pupil, and much else forms a part that cannot be made public.

The seven stages are the following:

1. Study
2. Imaginative knowledge
3. Inspired knowledge, or reading the Occult Script
4. Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone
5. Correspondence between Macrocosm and Microcosm
6. Living into the Macrocosm
7. Divine Bliss

Study in the Rosicrucian sense is the ability to immerse oneself in a content of thought not taken from physical reality but from the higher worlds. This is called the life in pure thought. Modern philosophers for the most part deny this; they say that every thinking must have a certain vestige remaining from sense perception. This, however, is not the case, for no one, for example, can see a true circle; a circle must be seen in the mind; on the blackboard it is only a collection of tiny particles of chalk. One can only attain to a real circle if one leaves aside all examples, all actual things. Thus thinking in Mathematics is a super-sensible activity. But one must also learn to think supersensibly in other fields.

Initiates have always exercised this kind of thinking in regard to the being of man. Rosicrucian theosophy is such super-sensible knowledge, and its study, with which we are now occupied, is the first stage of the Rosicrucian training itself. I am not bringing forward Rosicrucian theosophy for any external reason, but because it is the first stage of the Rosicrucian Initiation. People think often enough that it is unnecessary to talk about the principles of man's being, or the evolution of humanity or the different planetary evolutions, they would rather acquire beautiful feelings, they do not want to study earnestly. Nevertheless, however many beautiful feelings one acquires in one's soul it is impossible to rise into the spiritual worlds by that alone. Rosicrucian theosophy does not try to arouse the feelings, but through the stupendous facts of the spiritual worlds to let the feelings themselves begin to resound. The Rosicrucian feels it a kind of impertinence to take people by storm with feelings. He leads them along the path of mankind's evolution in the belief that feelings will then arise of themselves. He calls up before them the planet journeying in universal space, knowing that when the soul experiences this fact it will be powerfully gripped in feeling. It is only an empty phrase to say one should address oneself direct to the feelings, that is just indolence. Rosicrucian theosophy lets the facts speak, and if these thoughts flow into the feeling nature and overpower it, then that is the right way. Only what the human being feels of his own accord can fill him with bliss or blessedness. The Rosicrucian lets the facts in the cosmos speak, for that is the most impersonal kind of teaching. It is a matter of indifference who stands before you; you must not be affected by a personality, but by what he tells you of the facts of world-becoming. Thus in the Rosicrucian training that direct veneration for the teacher is struck out, he does not claim it nor require it. He wishes to speak to the pupil of what exists, quite apart from himself. One who will press forward into the higher worlds must accustom himself to the kind of thinking in which one thought proceeds from another. A thinking of this nature is developed in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Truth and Science. These books are not written in such a way that one can take a thought and put it in another place; much more are they written as an organism arises, one thought grows out of another. These books have nothing at all to do with the one who wrote them; he gave himself up to what the thoughts themselves worked out in him, how they linked themselves one to another.

Study, then, for one desiring to make a somewhat elementary approach means acquiring a certain knowledge of the elementary facts of spiritual science itself, whereas for one who wishes to go further it means an inner meditation in a thought-structure which lets one thought grow out of another, out of itself.

The second stage is Imaginative Knowledge, the knowledge which unites with what is given to the pupil in the study-stage. The study is the basis, it must be perfected through individual imaginative knowledge. If you think over various things that I have touched upon in the last lectures, you will find traces—in the echo for instance—of what were everyday occurrences on Saturn. It is possible to look on all around us as a physiognomy of an inner spiritual element. People walk over the earth and it is a conglomeration of rocks and stones to them, but men must learn to grasp that all surrounding them is the true physical expression for the Spirit of the Earth. Just as the body is ensouled, so is the earth planet the external expression for an indwelling spirit. When men look on the earth as possessing body and soul as man does, then only they have an idea of what Goethe meant when he said “All things corruptible are but a semblance.” When you see tears run down the human countenance you do not examine by the laws of physics how quickly or how slowly the tears roll down; they express to you the inner sadness of the soul, just as the smiling cheek is the expression for the soul's inner joy. The pupil must educate himself to see in each single flower in the meadow he crosses, the outer expression of a living being, the expression of the Spirit dwelling in the Earth. Some flowers seem to be tears, others are the joyful expression of the earth's Spirit. Every stone, every plant, every flower, all is for him the outer expression of the indwelling Earth Spirit, its physiognomy that speaks to him. And everything “corruptible” or transitory becomes a “semblance” of an eternal, expressing itself through it. Feelings like these had to be attained by the disciple of the Grail, and by the Rosicrucian. The teacher would say: Behold the flower chalice which receives the ray of the sun, the sun calls forth the pure productive forces which slumber in the plant and hence the sun's ray was called the “holy lance of love.” Look now at man; he stands higher than the plant, he has the same organs within him, but all that the plant harbours in itself, perfectly pure and chaste, is in him steeped in lust and impure desire. The future of human evolution consists in this: man will again be chaste and pure, and speak forth his likeness into the world through another organ which will be the transformed organ of generation. Chaste and pure without desire, without passion, man's generative organ will be; and as the calyx of the blossom turns upward to the holy love lance, it will turn to the spiritual ray of wisdom, and fructified by this will bring forth its own image. This organ will be the larynx.

The Grail pupil was shown: the plant on its lower stage has this pure chalice, man has lost it; he has degenerated to impure desires. Out of the spiritualised sun ray he must let this chalice come again, in chastity he must develop that which forms the Holy Grail of the future.

Thus the pupil looks up to the great Ideal. What comes to pass in the slow evolution of the whole human race is experienced earlier by the initiate. He shows us mankind's evolution in pictures and these pictures work quite differently from the abstract thoughts which have been produced by the modern materialistic age. If you picture evolution in such lofty and powerful pictures as the Grail, then the effect is different from that of ordinary knowledge, which is unable to exercise any deep influence on your organism. Imaginative knowledge works down on the etheric body and thence on to the blood and this is the medium which acts formatively on the organism. Man will become increasingly more able to work on his organism through his etheric body. All imaginative knowledge based on truth is at the same time healing and health giving, it makes the blood healthy in its circulation. The best educator is imaginative knowledge, if man is only strong and devoted enough for it to be able to work on him.

The third stage is Reading in the Occult Script, that is, not only seeing isolated pictures but letting the relationship of these pictures work upon one. This becomes what is called occult script. One begins to coordinate the lines of force which stream creatively through the world forming them into definite figures and colour-forms through the imagination. One learns to discover an inner connection which is expressed in these figures and this acts as spiritual tone, as the sphere-harmony, for the figures are founded on true cosmic proportions. Our script is a last decadent relic of this old occult writing and is modeled on it.

One comes to the fourth, Preparing the Philosopher's Stone, through exercises of the breathing process. If man breathes as ordained by nature he needs the plant-world for his breathing.

If the plant were not there he could not live, for it gives him oxygen and assimilates the carbon which he himself breathes out. The plant builds its own organism from this and gives back oxygen, thus through the plant world oxygen is continually renewed for man. Humanity could not exist by itself; eliminate the plant world and mankind would in a short time die out. So you see the cycle: you breathe in oxygen which the plant breathes out, you breathe out carbon which the plant inhales and from which it builds up its own bodily nature. Thus the plant belongs to me, it is the instrument by which my life is sustained. You may see in the coal how the plant builds its body from carbon, for coal is nothing else than the dead remains of plants.

Rosicrucian training guides the pupil through a definitely regulated breathing process to form that organ that can within himself effect the transformation of carbon into oxygen. What is today done by the plant externally, will later on, through a future organ which the pupil is already developing through his training, be effected in man himself This is slowly being prepared. Through the regulated breathing process man will bear in himself the instrument for the preparation of oxygen; he will have become akin to the plant, whereas now he is of a mineral nature. He will retain the carbon in himself and build his body from it, and hence his body will later on be more plant-like, then he can turn towards the holy love lance. The whole of humanity will then possess a consciousness like that gained by the initiate today when he raises himself into the higher worlds.

This is called the transmutation of human substance into that substance of which carbon itself is the basis. This is the Alchemy which leads man to build up his own body as does the plant today. One calls this the preparation of the “Philosopher's Stone” and carbon is its outer symbol. But it is not the Philosopher's Stone until the pupil can create it himself through his regulated breathing process. The teaching can only be given from teacher to pupil, it is wrapped in deep secrecy, and only after he is completely purified and made ready can the pupil receive this mystery. If it were to be made public today, then men in their egoism would gratify their lowest needs through the misuse of this highest mystery.

The fifth is the Correspondence of Microcosm and Macrocosm. When we survey the path of human evolution we see that what lies within man today has gradually entered from without—for instance, the glands were an external growth on the Sun, like our modern fungi; all that today lies within the human skin was once outside. The human body is, as it were, pieced together from what was spread outside it, each separate member of your physical body, etheric body and astral body was somewhere outside in the universe. This is the macrocosm in the microcosm. Your very soul was outside in the Godhead. Whatever is within us corresponds to something which is outside, and we must learn to know the true correspondences in ourselves.

You know the spot on the brow just above the root of the nose; it expresses the fact that a certain something which was formerly outside has drawn into man. If you penetrate this organ in meditation, sink yourself into it, this denotes more than a mere brooding in this point, you learn to know then the part of the outer world which corresponds to it. The larynx, too, you get to know and the forces which build it. Thus you learn about the macrocosm through sinking yourself into your own body. This is no mere brooding within yourself! You should not say: God is within and I will seek Him. You would only find the puny human being whom you yourself magnify into God! One who only speaks of this inward brooding never comes to real knowledge. To reach this by the path of Rosicrucian Theosophy is less comfortable and demands real work. The universe is full of beautiful and marvelous things, one must be absorbed in these, one must seek God in his individual expressions, then one can find him in oneself and then only does one learn to know God as One. The world is like a great book. We find its letters in created things, we must read these from beginning to end, and then we learn to read the book microcosm and the book macrocosm from beginning to end.

This is no longer a mere understanding, it lives over into feeling, it fuses the human being with the whole universe and he feels all things to be the expression of the divine Spirit of the Earth. If a man has reached this point, he voluntarily performs all his deeds in accordance with the will of the whole cosmos and this is what is known as Divine Bliss.

When we are able to think thus, we are treading the Rosicrucian path. The Christian school is based more on the development of inner feelings, in the Rosicrucian school all that is spread out in physical reality as the divine nature of the earth is allowed to work upon us and reverberate in us as feeling. These are two ways which are open to all. If you think in the manner of modern thought then you can take the Rosicrucian path, no matter how scientific you may be. Modern science is an assistance if you do not merely study cosmic evolution, reading the letters, as it were, but carry your research into what is concealed behind, just as in a book one does not consider the letters but reads the meaning by their aid. You must seek the spirit behind science, then science becomes to you but the letter for the spirit.

What has been said is not meant to be a comprehensive account of the Rosicrucian training, it is only meant to serve as an indication of what can be found in it. It is a path for present day man, it makes him capable of working into the future. These are only the elementary stages, to give some idea of the way. We can thus realise how through the Rosicrucian method one may oneself penetrate into the higher mysteries.

Spiritual Science is necessary to humanity for its further progress. What is to take place for the transforming of mankind must be brought about through men themselves. He who accepts the truth in his present incarnation will mould for himself in later incarnations the outer form for the deeper truths.

Thus what we have discussed in this lecture course is coordinated to a whole. It is the instrument which is to work creatively for future civilisation. It is taught today because the man of the future needs these teachings, because they must be directed into the evolutionary path of mankind. Everyone who will not accept this truth of the future, lives at the cost of other men. But he who accepts it lives for others, even if at first he is impelled by an egoistic longing for the higher worlds. If the path is the right one then it is of itself the destroyer of self seeking and the best educator of selflessness.

Occult development is now needed by mankind and must be implanted into it. An earnest, true striving for truth, step by step, this alone leads to genuine brotherliness, this is the magician which can best bring about the uniting of humanity. This will serve as the means to bring about humanity's great goal, unity; and we shall reach this goal when we develop the means to it in ourselves, when we seek to acquire these means in the noblest, purest way, for it is a matter of hallowing humanity through these means.

Thus Spiritual Science appears to us not only as a great ideal, but as a force with which we permeate ourselves and out of which knowledge wells up for us. Spiritual Science will become increasingly more widespread, it will penetrate more and more all the religious and practical aspects of life, just as the great law of existence penetrates all beings; it is a factor in humanity's evolution.

This is the sense in which these lectures on Rosicrucian Theosophy have been given. If it has been understood, not only abstractly, but so that feelings have been evoked through knowledge of facts, then it can work directly into life. When this knowledge flows into all our members, from head to heart and thence into the hand, into all that we do and create, then we have grasped the foundations of spiritual science. Then we have grasped the great task of civilisation which is laid in our hands, and then from this knowledge feelings, too, are developed which one who likes to take things easily would prefer to develop direct.

Rosicrucian Theosophy does not wish to revel in feelings, it wishes to bring the facts of the spirit before your eyes. The pupil must take part, must let himself be stimulated by the facts which have been described, feelings and sensations must be aroused in him through them. In this sense Spiritual Science should become a powerful impulse for the sphere of feeling, but at the same time be that which leads us direct into the facts of super-sensible perceptions, which lets them first arise as thoughts and then leads the seeker upward into the higher worlds.

This was intended to be the significance of these lectures.

• 1. Dr. Steiner refers to the articles in Lucifer-Gnosis afterwards published as Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.

I am very happy to be speaking to you today—among these peaceful mountains and within view of the wonderful lake about matters appealing to our deepest interests, that is, revelations, realities of the life of the spirit. And the most obvious fact that strikes those of us who have gathered here today to visit our Alpine friends, is this: that a number of our friends have withdrawn up here, not necessarily for the sake of solitude, but at least for the peace and charm of the mountains. And if we then ask ourselves what our hearts are looking for, we might find that it is something very similar to man's present-day longing for the spirit. And perhaps it is no illusion to assume that in the world outside the same impulse is at work as the one that spurred you on to come up here into the solitude of the mountains.

Man knows, or senses dimly, that there is spirituality in all that surrounds us in nature, in forest and crag, wind and storm; the kind of spirituality which, according to a well-known figure in the West, is more ‘Consistent than man's activities’, and his feeling and thinking. We cannot help sensing that in everything that surrounds us as forest and crag, mountain and lake, the spirit is coming to expression. And in Spiritual Science we become more and more aware that there is spirit in everything that expresses itself in nature round about us and in the firm earth beneath us. Looking back into the ancient past we can tell ourselves that we descend from a spiritual past and are the children of ancient times. Just as we create our works of art, exploring what we can make of the material to hand, in just such a way did our ancestors create their implements and tools. And the phenomena of nature are the product of the work of the ancient gods in times long past. And if we permeate ourselves with such a feeling, the whole of nature will gradually become for us what it has always been for Spiritual Science. Even though it will seem a maya, it will become the kind of maya that is beautiful and great, for the very reason that it is the creation of the divine-spiritual. So when we go out into nature we are among memorials reminding us of the spiritual activity that took place in ancient pre-earthly times. Then we are filled with that tremendous enthusiasm that deepens our feeling for nature and can fill us with warmth.

When we can enhance our feeling for nature through Spiritual Science we should also feel that it is in a certain respect a privilege to have the good fortune to be within the spirit of nature. And it is a privilege. For we can and ought to bear in mind how many people there are who are unable to get close to the creations of nature in their present incarnation. How many people there are today, especially in cities, who no longer have the chance of feeling the uplifting quality of the divine in nature! And when we look at nature with a power of observation that has been enhanced by spiritual science, then we know the intimate connection that exists between what we feel for nature and what we call morality—moral life being the highest thing we can strive for in this life.

It is a paradox perhaps, but it is true to say that those people who live in towns and have to forget what oats, wheat and barley look like, unfortunately get separated in their hearts, too, from the deepest moral sources of their existence.

If we bear this in mind, then we will certainly regard it as a privilege to be able to be close to the sources of nature's spirit, for a feeling like this of itself leads to another which, supported by Spiritual Science, must become known in the world: that is, the truth of reincarnation. To begin with we take it on trust, this truth concerning man's repeated earth lives. But how can a soul stand firm at the present time, when it sees what very different paths of life people tread, and experiences all the glaring but inevitable inequalities in the world. Then the human being who is privileged to be near the well-springs of nature, not only feels that he has every reason to be happy in knowing the truths of Spiritual Science, but he also feels a great responsibility, a great obligation towards this knowledge of the spiritual life. For what is the greatest thing that these souls will be able to bring to the gate of death, these souls who today have the privilege of enjoying peace and health in nature? What will be their finest contribution?

If we look for a moment at what is taught us by the spiritual powers that are closer to us now than they were in the nineteenth century, what can we learn? We can learn, without any doubt, that we can take something different with us into our following incarnations, in our deepest soul, in our deepest feeling, if we imbue ourselves with Spiritual Science, than we could if we kept aloof from it. Nowadays we are certainly not expected to take in as an abstract theory what Spiritual Science can give us. What your souls receive, what enters into you like a theory, is there so that it can come alive in you. And this happens with some people in this incarnation and with others in the next. It will become real, immediate life, the life we cannot conceive of unless we devote ourselves to that prophetic vision which prompts us to ask: where does this development lead? With all its fruits it leads straight into outer life. And what we can only express in the form of words today, will become vision, vision in the young, vision in the old, vision that brings blessing.

All those people who have not yet been able to approach the warmth and light of Spiritual Science and to acquire the fruits of Spiritual Science for themselves, will feel the blessing of such vision! Everything that can exist in the way of outer personality will in the future have that fire in it for which our present-day theories are the fuel. It is just a handful of people who have the will to be the real bearers of what, in the future, will have to reach all those who are in need of it, that is the real, genuine fruits of human love and human compassion. We do not study Spiritual Science for the sake of our own satisfaction but so that we can acquire gentle hands that have the power to bless, and gentle eyes from which power can shine forth, so that we can give out all that springs forth from the eyes, all that we call spiritual vision. Those people in particular who have this attitude, and who have the good fortune to live so close to nature should pay heed right now to the way everything is changing at the present time! It is changing, in fact it is changing throughout the cosmos.

It is wrong to say nature makes no leaps. Nature is perpetually making leaps, from leaf to blossom, from blossom to fruit. When the chick develops out of the egg, that is a leap. To say that nature makes no leaps could not be further from the truth. There are leaps everywhere, sudden transitions. And we are living in such a time of transition. During our lifetime there has been a year of great importance:¹¹ the year 1899. The turn of the twentieth century is significant for the whole of cultural development because it is the time when the stream that came from the East and mingled with Western culture ceased in order to make way for what can be drawn from the life of nature to enliven the deepest levels of our life of soul.

Those men whose spirit is awakened will be able to see beings of a new order in the processes of nature. Whilst the human being who has not yet become clairvoyant will increasingly be able to experience that despite all his melancholy feelings concerning the continual death process, there is something of a rejuvenating quality in nature, the human being whose clairvoyant faculties have awakened will see new elemental beings issuing out of dying nature. Whilst in outer physical nature relatively little will be seen of the great change at the turn of the twentieth century, the spiritually awakened soul will feel: times are changing, and we human beings have the task of preparing spirit knowledge. It will become more and more important to observe such things and carry them in our consciousness. For men are free either to take up such things for the salvation of humanity or to let them pass them by, which will lead to disaster.

That is to say, at the turn of the century a relatively new kingdom of nature-beings will come into being, arising from nature like a spiritual spring, and human beings will be able to see and experience this. And further: though it would show great apathy of soul if a person were unable to perceive the sprouting forth of springtime, there is more to come. Those people who will grow able to experience as a fact of nature what has just been described, will preserve these impressions in quite a different way than through ordinary memory. They will carry beyond the threshold the new elemental spirits that stream towards them, as the seeds carry their life through the winter into spring. What was experienced in spring and what was experienced in autumn, this bursting forth of nature in the spring and this melancholy in autumn, had no connection one with the other in the past. What the cosmos gives out from its memory enables us to carry over something of what we have experienced in the autumn into the spring. If we let the elemental forces of autumn work in us, then we can feel in a new way what will be given us in the future. Everything will acquire something new in the future, and it is our duty to prepare ourselves through our knowledge of the spiritual to understand it. For Spiritual Science has not come into the world through the personal whims of men, but because new things are happening in the heavens, that can only be perceived when men take up the results of spiritual research. This is why the theosophical movement has come into being.

In the life of morality it is the same as it is in nature: the life of the soul will experience a transformation. Certain things will happen of which men have as yet no idea. I would just like to mention one example. There will be more and more people, especially children, who will have the experience that when they intend doing something or other in the future, a voice will speak in their souls urging them to refrain from action and listen to what is to be told them from the spiritual world. Something will come to meet them, appearing before their eyes like a vision. First of all they will be strangely touched by these visions. When they have made a greater contact with Spiritual Science they will then realise that they are seeing the karmic counterpart of the deeds they have just done. The soul is being shown: you must strive to take yourself in hand so that you can take part in the evolution of the future. And it is also being shown that there is no such thing as a deed without an after-effect. And this will be a driving force bringing order into our moral life. Moral impulses will be put into our souls like a karma, in the course of time, if we prepare ourselves to open our spiritual eyes and our spiritual ears to what can speak to us from the spiritual world.

We know that it will take a long time before men learn to see in the spirit. But it will begin in the twentieth century, and a greater and greater number of people will acquire this capacity in the course of three thousand years. Humanity will devote itself to such things during the next three millennia. In order that these things can happen, however, the main streams of development—again under the direction of the spiritual guidance of humanity—will take their course in such a way that human beings will be able to come to an understanding of occult life as I have described it today.

There are two main streams. The first is known through the fact that there is a so-called Western philosophy, and that the most elementary concepts of the spiritual world arise out of the purest depths of philosophy. And it is remarkable what we see when we make a survey of what has gradually taken place within the science of Western culture. We see how some people become purely intellectual, whilst others are rooted in the religious life, yet at the same time are filled with what can only be given by the vision of the spiritual world that is behind all existence. On all sides we see spiritual life flowing out of Western philosophy. I will only mention Vladimir Soloviev,¹² the Russian philosopher and thinker, a real clairvoyant, though he only saw into the spiritual world three times in his life: once when he was a boy of nine, the second time in the British Museum, and the third time in the Egyptian desert under the starry heavens of Egypt. On these occasions there was revealed to him what can only be seen by clairvoyant vision. He had a prevision of the evolution of humanity.—there welled up in him what Schelling¹³ and Hegel¹⁴ also achieved through sheer spiritual effort. As they stood alone on the heights of thinking, we may now place them on the summit which all educated people will eventually reach. All this was said in the course of previous centuries, particularly the last four centuries. When we survey this and work on it with the methods of practical occultism, as has been done recently, in order to make a special investigation into what the purely intellectual thinkers from Hegel to Haeckel¹⁵ have worked out, we can see occult forces at work here too. And a very remarkable thing comes to light: we can speak of pure inspiration in the case of just those people who appear to have least of it. Who inspired all the thinkers who are rooted in pure intellectualism? Who gave the stimulus for this life of thought that speaks out of every book to be found even in the lowliest cottage? Where does all this abstract thought life in Europe come from, that has had such a curious outcome?

We all know, of course, how the great event took place. It happened that an important individuality in the evolution of mankind, one of the individualities that we call a Bodhisattva, incarnated in the royal house of Suddhodana. We all know that this individuality was destined to ascend to the next rank that follows after that of Bodhisattva. Each human being who progresses and reaches the rank of Bodhisattva must become a Buddha in his final incarnation. What does this rank of Buddha signify? What does it signify in the case of the particular Bodhisattva who attained the rank of Buddha as Gautama Buddha? It signifies that Buddha—as with every other Buddha—does not need to incarnate on earth any more in a body of flesh. And therefore Gautama Buddha was destined, like every Buddha, to work henceforth from the spiritual world. He must not appear again on the earth in physical form, but his achievements in the course of incarnations enabled him henceforth to send his influence into our civilisation.

The first great deed that the Buddha had to accomplish as a purely spiritual being was, as I indicated in Basle,¹⁶ to send his forces down into the astral body of the Jesus boy described in the Luke Gospel, which came to significant expression in the Christmas message: Divine beings are revealing themselves in the heights, and peace shall come to men on earth who have goodwill.

If our souls are stirred by this message that angel beings hovered in the aureole above the angelic child, we should know that in this aura around Jesus the forces of the Nirmanakaya¹⁷ of the Buddha were active. Since then, the spiritual forces of the Buddha have been incorporated in the events connected with the highest individualities concerned with the Mystery of Golgotha. His forces work also in the world conception stream of the philosophers of the West. He himself is the driving force working out of the spiritual world into that life that has penetrated as far as intelligence and has then gone astray.

If we read Leibniz,¹⁸ Schelling and Soloviev today, and ask ourselves how they have been inspired, we find that it was by the individuality who was born in the place of Suddhodana, ascended from Bodhisattva to Buddha and then continued to work selflessly. In fact he continued to work in such a selfless way that we can go back in time today to a point when not even the name of Buddha was mentioned in the West. You do not find the name of the Bodhisattva who became Buddha, not even in Goethe! You know, though, that he lives in everything. He has met with so much understanding that he works on unnamed in Western literature. The Middle Ages knew about this, too, but they did not speak about it in this way then. They tell us something different.

In the eighth century there lived a man called John of Damascus¹⁹ who wrote a book in the form of a narrative. What was it about? He relates that there once lived a great teacher who became the teacher of Josaphat, instructing Josaphat in the secret doctrine and the great Christian truths. And if you investigate all this you find truths concerning those things. You also find narratives from Buddhist literature. When we follow up our theme we come upon a legend, the one that relates that Buddha went on living, not in an earthly human form but in an animal form, that of a hare. And when a Brahman once happened to find a hare—which was the disguised Buddha—the Brahman complained to him about the misery of mankind outside in the world, and Buddha made a fire and roasted himself, in order to help mankind. The Brahman took him and transported him to the moon. When you know that the moon is the symbol of the wisdom that lasts forever, which lives in the human breast, then you see there is a consciousness of Buddha's sacrifice, which has been developed and presented in these old legends.

What is Buddha's task out there in the spiritual world? It is his task now and for ever-more to kindle those forces in our hearts that can give birth to great wisdom. This is how we must understand one force streaming through our world; it is the Buddha force. It is also represented in the form it has taken in our century, even though here it has been reduced to abstraction. We have to try however, to understand the occult significance of every spiritual form. To this force is added the other one whose source was the Mystery of Golgotha, and which combined with the Buddha force to make a necessary whole, in which we must also now partake in earthly life. This force, emanating from Golgotha, with which all men have to connect themselves, not only affects man's inner life but involves our whole earthly existence.

Whilst the Buddha stream, like any other stream, concerns all of us as human beings, in the case of the Christ Being we have a cosmic intervention. All Bodhisattvas are individualities who go through life here on earth, who belong to the earth. The Christ Individuality comes from the sun, and walked the earth for the first time at the baptism in the Jordan, dwelling in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth for only three years. The uniqueness of the Christ Individuality was that it was destined to work for only three years in the earthly world. He is the same Being to Whom Zarathustra referred when he called Him Ahura Mazdao, He Who is behind the visible sun, the same Whom the Holy Rishis announced, and Whom the Greeks spoke of as the Being behind the pleroma. It is the Being Who has gradually become the spirit of our earth, the aura of our earth, since His blood flowed on Golgotha. The first person permitted to see Him without witnessing the physical event, was Paul.

Thus through the Mystery of Golgotha something took place that has brought a completely new course of events into our earthly evolution. Before that time, the greatest variety of concepts could be assimilated through the many different religions. What crossed over from the Buddha religion, when the being of Buddha streamed into the astral aura of Jesus, and what I told you concerning the soul seeing and feeling new things in nature, means nothing short of this: that just as the Christ Being descended through the baptism into the physical body, dwelt within it until the Mystery of Golgotha, and was therefore here physically on the physical plane, He will now, in the same way, begin working in the etheric world. So we can speak of a physical incarnation from the event of the baptism by John until Golgotha, and now of an etheric reappearance.

The etheric Christ will be perceived through the development of the etheric body, and also through impressions of autumn which the human being weaves into himself. Why was Christ here in a physical body? It was so that man could develop higher in order to acquire the capacity to perceive the Christ more and more in the etheric.

To sum up: we began this lecture with the elemental spirits manifesting themselves in nature. We continued with those particular visions that impel us to pause in our actions and listen to the inner word. And in all these occurrences grouping themselves round a central point we see that those human beings who find the right path to the spiritual world—and this does not mean trained clairvoyants, who have always been able to find the Christ, but human beings through their natural development—will be able to see the Christ as an etheric vision: see Him Who will only take part in world events from out of the etheric. We see that all these occurrences group themselves around the future Christ event. And if we look at the whole of spiritual development in its progressive stages, we see that the Buddha who sacrificed himself in the fire of love is the inspirer of our Spiritual Science.

Those people who give careful thought to the reading of, for instance, The Soul's Probation,²⁰ which I was able to have performed in Munich, and who become aware of where all the mysterious forces are to be found that point to what is in surrounding nature, and who also pay heed to the wisdom of the future—even if the wisdom of the future is often the folly of the present, as the wisdom of the present is often the folly of the future—these people will become aware that there will be a kind of chemistry pervaded by the Christ Impulse, and a kind of botany pervaded by the Christ Impulse, and so on. The world does not consist of lifeless molecules. All that is spread out in nature comes from the spirit. Even a flower is an etheric being, and on the other hand the spirit has come into the earth from outside through this flower. In all the forms that spring forth out of the earth we can see meaning of the highest order. Then we shall not only know by faith, but we shall understand.

This has brought us to the second stream which has to unite with the first. The coming years will bring many surprises to the earth. In everything that will occur in this way we shall be able to see the Christ Principle, whilst we shall become aware of the Buddha impulse in a more inward way. This is why unless we have an understanding of these sublime measures taken by the spiritual guidance of the world we shall not see clearly how to seek the Christ Impulse, nor perceive that it is He Who, in the course of history, leads one individuality over into the other. What is there to offer the thinking man's thirst for knowledge in the sort of phenomenon that is to be found in the West, where all the thinking is expressed more in the style of—let us say Galileo, to name an example—or again, in the East, where it is expressed in the manner of Vladimir Soloviev? When we see this, we acknowledge how objectively the Christ works. Similarly, we can see the Christ Impulse in everything that happens outside in the world.

Great things will happen in the next epochs of culture. What only arose as a dream²¹ of the great martyr Socrates in the fourth epoch, will become reality. What was this mighty impulse of Socrates? He wanted it to come about that whoever experiences a moral precept and understands it so thoroughly that it becomes one with his feeling, should also be a moral person, carrying his morality into his actions. Consider what a long way from this we still are, what a lot of people can say: such and such must happen—but how few have the inner power, the moral strength to do it! Moral principles will have to be so clearly understood and moral feelings so positively developed that we cannot inwardly know something without having the impulse to carry it out with enthusiasm. For this really to mature in the human soul, so that a moral impulse does not stop at the stage of understanding, but has inevitably to become a deed, men will have to live their way into these two particular streams. Then, under the influence of the two streams, human beings will develop in increasing numbers who are capable of carrying the feeling for the acknowledgment of morality, through into action.

How does it come about that these two streams unite in humanity so that the Christ can be taken up from within through the Buddha? It is because the position of Bodhisattva has never been unfilled. As soon as the Bodhisattva became Buddha, another attained to the rank of Bodhisattva. And it was attained by the particular individuality who is known to have lived as an Essene about a hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth. This personality has been sadly slandered and misunderstood, by the writer Celsus,²² for example, and particularly by Haeckel in his Riddles of the World. He was the personality who carried out his task a full hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha, and he is known as Jeshu ben Pandira, one of the incarnations of the Bodhisattva who succeeded Gautama, the Bodhisattva who became Buddha. He will continue to work as a Bodhisattva until three thousand years have gone by, and then, when about five thousand years will have taken their course after the Buddha became enlightened under the bodhi tree, he will become a Buddha also. Every serious occultist knows that five thousand years after the enlightenment of Gautama Buddha under the bodhi tree that individuality who lives on as Bodhisattva will have become Maitreya Buddha. He will have incarnated frequently before that time comes. And then, when the five thousand years are over, a teaching will arise that will be the teaching of Maitreya Buddha, Buddha of the Good, where the spoken word works at the same time morally. Words are not powerful enough at the present time to describe the reality of this. It can only be perceived in the spiritual world, and human beings will first of all have to be mature enough to receive it. What will be special about the Maitreya Buddha is that he will have to repeat in a certain way what took place at the event of Golgotha.

We know that the Buddha individuality entered into Jesus of Nazareth and now only works into earth evolution from outside. All those individuals who live as Bodhisattvas and will later on become Buddhas have the particular destiny on earth, as every serious occultist can see, of being in a certain respect unknown in their youth. Those who do know something of them may see them as gifted people, but do not see that the being of the Bodhisattva is working in them. It has always been like this, and it will be like this in the twentieth century, too. It will only become recognisable during the time that lies between the thirtieth and the thirty-third year—the same span of time as there was between the baptism in Jordan and Golgotha. Then a change takes place in the human being, and to a certain degree he sacrifices his individuality and becomes the vehicle for another, as the Jesus individuality made way for the Christ.

The Bodhisattva incarnations, which are those of the future Maitreya Buddha, occur in unknown people. They work as individuals relying on their own inner strength. The Maitreya Buddha will also work out of his own inner strength, and against the stream of general opinion. He will remain unknown in his youth. And when in his thirtieth year he has sacrificed his individuality, he will appear in such a way that morality will work through his words. Five thousand years after the Buddha was enlightened beneath the bodhi tree his successor will ascend to the rank of Buddha, and will be the bringer of the word that works morally. We now say: ‘In the beginning was the Word’. We shall then be able to say: ‘In the Maitreya Buddha the greatest teacher has been given us, and he has appeared in order to make apparent to men the full extent of the Christ Event. His unique quality will be that he, the greatest of teachers, will be the bringer of the most exalted Word.’

As it happens so often that great things that should be brought into the world in the right way are so badly misunderstood, we must try to prepare ourselves for what should come. And if we want to approach the spirit at the point where the spirit of nature also speaks to us morally, then we may say to ourselves: all Spiritual Science is in a certain respect a preparation to help us understand what has been said about past events when we discussed the changes that take place in the course of time.

New times were dawning when John proclaimed the Christ. In a certain sense we can also speak today of new times, in preparation for which it is necessary for our hearts to change. Despite all the machinery of civilisation that will appear in the outside world, men's hearts must change in such a way that souls care about the spiritual world that will make itself known in a new way, just at this time in which we live. Whether a glimpse of it will become visible here in this life, or at the gate of death, or at a new birth—we shall not only see this new world but work from out of this new world. And the best that is often in us will come to realisation because, from beyond the gates of death, beings send these forces into us from the other world. And we shall also be able to send these forces, if we go through the gate of death having acquired what we recognise to be the necessary change for our time, about which I have permitted myself to speak to you today.

• 11. a year of great importance: the year 1899: 1899 marks the end of a period lasting from 3112 BC. to 1899 AD., which in Indian is called Kali Yuga, meaning ‘The Dark Age’.
• 12. mentioned
• 13. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling: 1775 – 1854.
• 14. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: 1770 – 1831.
• 15. Ernst Haeckel: 1834 – 1919.
  
  For above three notes, see Rudolf Steiner ‘The Riddles of Philosophy’, Anthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, New York, 1973.
• 16. as I indicated in Basle: Rudolf Steiner ‘The Gospel of St. Luke’, ten lectures, Basle, September, 1909; Rudolf Steiner Press 1975.
• 17. Nirmanakaya: terminology in Eastern science for the body of a Buddha after he has passed through perfection. See the Gospel of St. Luke lecture cycle, p. 73, where definition is given: ‘The body which such a Being assumes after he has passed through the stage of perfection’: ‘the Body of Transformation’.
• 18. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: 1646 – 1716. See Rudolf Steiner ‘The Riddles of Philosophy’; Anthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, New York, 1973.
• 19. John of Damascus who wrote a book in the form of a narrative: the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat.
• 20. ‘The Soul's Probation’, which I was able to have performed in Munich: the second of Rudolf Steiner's four mystery plays, first performed in Munich in the summer of 1911. See ‘Four Mystery Plays’ (1910 – 13); Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1983.
• 21. dream of ... Socrates: in the platonic dialogues ‘Menon’ and ‘Protagoras’.
• 22. Celsus: Roman philosopher. In the middle of the second century AD. he wrote ‘The True Word’, the first polemic against Christianity.

Today we shall deal with a subject that is connected with the vast far-reaching view into cosmic space that we entered upon in our last lecture. We shall go more closely into the spiritual evolution that lies within spatial and material evolution than we did before. In the last lecture we saw how spiritual beings guide those mighty evolutionary processes which ordinary physical science describes to us inaccurately, but Theosophy or spiritual science exactly and accurately.

We have seen how the separate planets, the separate bodies of our cosmic system, arise from a common original substance, and have recognized that spiritual beings of various kinds are active in all this evolution. We have pointed out too in former lectures how spiritual science does not see merely physical material objects in the bodies of our cosmic system, but linked with the physical and material, spiritual beings of various grades. These may be beings of the most exalted order who raise evolution, thus benefiting the whole system, or they may be spiritual beings of a lower kind who hinder and destroy. Yet we must be clear that what seems to be hindrance and destruction is in the long run again membered into the wisdom of the whole system. One might therefore say: When something apparently destructive, retarding and evil exists anywhere, then evolution in its whole course will be so wisely guided that even this evil, this destruction and hindrance will be reversed and changed into the good. Today however we want to bring about a living feeling of the existence of such spiritual beings as belong to the “creative beings”—considering first those of an exalted order. Man must work in evolution for a long time yet, before he ascends to the rank of a “creative” being. We will consider in particular those beings who participated in the structure of our cosmic system when the Earth began its evolution in our universe as Saturn.

The Earth began its evolution as Saturn and advanced through the Sun and Moon evolutions up to its present formation. Everything on that Saturn cosmic body was, however, quite different from the nature of our present earthly planet. On Saturn there were no solid rocky masses, what we call the mineral world in the modern sense, nor was there water in the modern sense, not even air; what was present at that time could only be compared with warmth among our elements today, with “fire,” as one says in occultism. You would certainly not get a right idea if you thought that this Saturn fire looked like the modern flame of gas or candle. To have the right conception you must call to mind what pulses up and down in your own body—you must recollect the fundamental difference existing between a lower creature of the animal world, which has preserved certain stages of evolution, and the human being. A lower creature has the warmth of its surroundings. An amphibian has no inner warmth of its own; it has the warmth of its surroundings. It is as cold or as warm as its surroundings. Man has his own internal, equable warmth, as indeed he must have. His organism must ensure that when it is cold outside, he can nevertheless maintain his warmth at a certain temperature, and you know that when disturbances such as fever etc. enter this warmth, the health of the whole body is disturbed as well. The point is that man has an inner degree of warmth and he must think of some underlying force that creates it. This force is not water, not the solid, not air, it is an element for itself, and this element alone was present on ancient Saturn, the first embodiment of our Earth. If you had gone for a walk at that time in universal space—naturally that is a phantasy but it helps to form an idea of the condition—you would not have seen Saturn, for in the earliest stage it sent out no light at all. To shed light the cosmic body must first become a sun, or be united with a sun and so become luminous. If you approached ancient Saturn you would have noticed in its neighborhood that there was warmth, you would think that there was a space filled with warmth, you would enter a space like an oven. The existence of ancient Saturn would have been realized through this force of warmth alone. It was a rarefied material sub-stance of which modern man can scarcely form a right idea—least of all a learned physicist—but it was present, a condition finer than gas, finer than air, and all that existed of man at that time, namely, the first rudiments of the physical body, consisted of this substance. If you could eliminate today everything except the warmth of your blood then you would have an idea of those first rudiments of the human being. That, however, could not be done, since one cannot live like that. Today with our mineral kingdom, fluid kingdom, etc., we cannot live as the human being lived on ancient Saturn. At that time one could do so. But today you must think away all that you have of juices, tissues, solid parts, even the air that you take in as oxygen. You must conceive solely and alone that which remains over—naturally in quite a different form—namely, the warmth contained in your blood: a physical body consisting only of warmth! It is a horrible idea for a modern natural scientist—but therefore one that is all the more correct and real.

Such was the rudimentary germ of man—his physical body. All the other beings which are on the earth today animals—plants—minerals—were not in existence on Saturn. Saturn at that time consisted solely of human germs which were clustered together like the tiny berries which form a blackberry. In this way the Saturn-globe was a great berry made up purely of tiny berries which were the human beings. If we were to examine the surroundings of Saturn somewhat as we test our earth's surroundings and find a mantle of air in which are structures of mist, clouds etc., we should find nothing of a material nature. We should find in the Saturn mantle spiritual substance, spiritual beings, and these were at a much higher level than man in his first rudiments.

We will now occupy ourselves with a definite order of beings who were linked with the Saturn existence. There we find the Spirits of Will, then the Spirits of Wisdom, Spirits of Movement, of Form, of Personality, and so forth. To-day we will turn our attention especially to the Spirits of Form for the reason that they have played an important role in the beginning of our evolution. From the whole ranks of spiritual beings who were present in the atmosphere and environment of Saturn, we will therefore select the Spirits of Form and be clear that they have gone through an evolution up to today, just as all beings go through an evolution. As man received his etheric body on the Sun, his astral body on the Moon, his ego on the Earth and has become more and more perfect, so have the Spirits of Form passed through their evolution.

These Spirits of Form had no physical body on Saturn, their lowest member was an etheric body which one can compare with the etheric body of man; thus we should have to think away completely the physical body in the Spirits of Form, and think of the lowest member of their being as the etheric body. Then these beings had an astral body, an ego, spirit-self or Manas, life spirit or Budhi, spirit man or Atma and an eighth member which is a stage higher than man can reach in the course of his evolution through the Earth's embodiments. These Spirits of Form therefore act externally on Saturn through their etheric body as man on Earth works externally through his physical body. They possess no hands through which they can work, no feet with which they can walk, for these are members of the physical body. But their etheric body manifests in such a way that they continuously ray in fructifying life-saps from the Saturn atmospheric mantle, which are of very rarefied matter. We can picture Saturn as we have described it, and from the environment—continuously and from all sides—fructifying life-saps streaming down like rain from the etheric bodies of the Spirits of Form. The nature of Saturn was such that it did not retain these fertilizing life-saps but rayed them back like a mirror. In this way arose the mirror pictures of Saturn of which I have spoken in earlier lectures, but now more exactly. You can picture the warmth sub-stance of Saturn perpetually receiving the rays of the etheric body of the Spirits of Form and raying these back again. We can form a rough picture of it, if we remember how the rain drips from the clouds down to earth, collects in the earth and rises up again as misty vapors. We must not however imagine this as having an interval of time, but picture the process as a continuous one; the rank luxuriant life-saps stream in and are reflected, so that the rudimentary physical bodies appear like mirror-pictures. They actually consist of mirror-pictures. You can form an idea of what was present on Saturn as the physical germ of man, if you imagine a person standing before you and you look into his eye; you send your light into the eye of the other, and your picture comes back to you rayed out of his eye. So it was with the Spirits of Form in the environment of ancient Saturn. They sent their life-bestowing saps down into the warmth masses of Saturn and their own form, their likeness, was reflected; this mirror likeness was the first rudiments of the human physical body. Man was thus, even on ancient Saturn, in the most literal sense a likeness of his Godhead.

If we now go on to the Sun which arose out of old Sat-urn, the advance was made through the fact that the Spirits of Form no longer have need of an etheric or life-body; they give up the etheric body. They no longer ray down the life-giving saps, they relinquish their etheric body and in this way the first physical germs of man were permeated with an etheric body. The etheric body which the human beings received on the Sun was formed, to begin with, from the etheric body of the Spirits of Form,—a portion of the etheric body of the Spirits of Form. These celestial beings mirrored themselves in the warm Saturn, and through the fact that they brought a sacrifice and created pictures, they have gradually grown more independent and capable of the greatest deed, namely, to lay aside their etheric body in sacrifice and to permeate with their own life-force that which they first formed as picture. If you could endow with life the reflection which rays to you from the eye of your fellow man, make it independent, so that it had its own life and could step out of the eye, then you would have a deed which the Spirits of Form accomplished in the transition from ancient Saturn to the Sun. This was a significant advance for our cosmic evolution.

You know of course—I will just mention this here—that all sagas and myths have a multiple meaning, and when we consider the true facts of world evolution in a spiritual sense, then the myths disclose their truth in a surprising way. This may be the case right here.

Let us look at the advance that took place from Saturn to Sun. On ancient Saturn the life-giving forces streamed in, were reflected and taken up again by the mantle, the atmosphere of Saturn. In the old Greek myth the warm globe of Saturn was called Gaea and the atmosphere Chronos. Now consider the myth: the life-giving forces of Chronos rayed in continually upon Gaea and were reflected and absorbed. It is Chronos continually swallowing his own children! One must feel the truth of such a myth; if it is not felt, one has not the right attitude to it. For just consider what it means: in hoary primitive ages of ancient Greece we find a myth that presents this truth to us in a wonderful picture. There is only one possible explanation of such a fact, namely, the most advanced individuals of mankind, who guided man's further development from the Mystery centres, had exactly the same knowledge of world evolution as we give out today in Theosophy. In the Ancient Mysteries they spoke of these things as we speak today; for the masses the truths were veiled in pictures and these pictures form what today we know as Mythology. In the face of such knowledge how extraordinary seem those people who believe that men have discovered truth only in the last forty years and that all knowledge possessed by men of earlier times is only childish fantasy. One must however describe it as a childish fantasy when it is emphasized again and again: “How marvellously advanced we are today!” That is the really childish picture!

So we advance from Saturn to Sun and consider the evolution of the Spirits of Form further. They have laid aside their etheric body, “exuded” it out of themselves and imparted it to the body of the Earth, inasmuch as the human bodies have permeated themselves with it. As the lowest member of their being they now have the astral body and their higher development means that they have not only one member above spirit-man or Atma, but a still further one. We must now describe their being as consisting of astral body, ego, spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man, an eighth and a ninth member which are beyond what man can attain in his completed seven-membered development. What do the Spirits of Form present as an “outside”?

The Spirits of Form have “trickled,” so to speak, the life-rain down on to Saturn. On the Sun they manifest through instincts, desires and passions raying into the Sun, through all that is anchored in the astral body. If someone had sat there and looked out into cosmic space, he would not have seen lightning flash or heard thunder pealing, but round him in the astral light he would have perceived the passions of spiritual beings—everywhere, all around him, passions, and you must not at all imagine only lower passions. These passions and emotions now worked creatively on the planet from without. If we consider the myths further we see the creative Titans within our earthly evolution, the creative passions which worked from out-side, from the spiritual airy circles of the Sun when this was a planet.

Now we advance to the Moon—the Sun is metamorphosed into the Moon. In the course of evolution this signifies that the Spirits of Form now lay aside their astral body also and that their lowest member is the ego. To describe their nature we should say: as the human being has the physical body for lowest member, so these Spirits of Form in the environment of the Moon have the ego as lowest member, then they have spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man, an eighth, ninth, and a tenth member. Thus they pre-sent their ego to the outer world. It is very remarkable, but so it is: they present externally pure ‘I’s, pure egos; they simply displayed sheer egos to the outside world. The whole activity in the surroundings of the Moon was as if one met with beings who revealed their whole character and individuality—and this was from the Moon's atmosphere inwards. Just imagine all your egos which are here in your physical bodies being suddenly freed from that and from etheric and astral body, imagine only your egos there as the lowest member, and that they could manifest them-selves through space. Think of yourselves on the old Moon and your egos outside in the universe, but in such a way that they were embedded in the spiritual substances, only the lowest members of the Spirits of Form working in out of the air, then you will have a picture of how the Spirits of Form express themselves as sheer egos out of space. They have given up to the human beings the astral body which they still had on the Sun, so that on the Moon man now consisted of physical body, etheric body and astral body.

We will now picture the human being of Saturn who has the first rudiments of the physical body. We must visualize hovering above him beings who are the Spirits of Form and have an etheric body, astral body, I, spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man, to the eighth member. Now we must think of the next stage. In the Sun-human-being we have the physical body and the etheric body. The etheric body had been instilled into man by the Spirits of Form, keeping their astral body, so that they had their astral body, their I, up to the ninth member. Then we pass on to the Moon.

We have man consisting of the physical, etheric, astral bodies. The astral body has been sacrificed to man by the Spirits of Form who then have as lowest member the I, and spirit-self, and so forth, up to the tenth member. All that we call ‘man’ has gradually flowed down out of the environment of the planet, has been put together, so to speak, from outside. All that is within was once outside, has entered into man from without.

Let us now follow evolution on the Earth itself: at the beginning man has the rudiments of his physical body, then his etheric, and astral bodies. The Spirits of Form came over from the Moon. Their lowest member is the I or ego. This they now sacrifice as well and with it fructify the human being in his rudimentary stage, so that the ego, as it appears on Earth, is a fertilizing force which streams out from the Spirits of Form, and these beings have now Spirit-Self or Manas as their lowest member.

If we wish to describe them we must say: Above us in the Earth's atmosphere there rule the Spirits of Form, their lowest member is Spirit-Self or Manas; in this they live and weave and they have sacrificed what they still possessed on the Moon—the ego working towards all sides, that ‘trickled’ down and fertilized the human being.

We will now follow the progress of man on the Earth itself. There one can point to the spot in man where the ego was trickled in, but today we will consider it only schematically. Man receives his ego. It comes in contact first of course with the astral body which surrounds him like an auric sheath, there the ego first flows in, interpenetrates the astral body. This takes place in what we call the Lemurian Age, in the middle of earthly evolution. In the Lemurian Age, in the course of long periods of time, different for each different human being, the ego drew into the astral body and fructified it. Let us picture this developing human being.

The physical body at that time did not consist of flesh and blood as it does today; it was a quite soft structure, even without cartilage, and was penetrated as if by magnetic currents. Then there was the etheric body and then the astral body which was fructified by the ego. We must imagine this fructification as being something like an indentation which occurred in the astral body, like a turned-in aperture. That is what actually took place, something like an opening arose at the top of the astral body through the inflowing of the ego, an opening as far as to the etheric body. (Fig. 1.) This was of great significance and produced an important result; the consequence was that the first dim perception of a physical outer world appeared. In earlier conditions man had perceived nothing but that which lived in him inwardly; he was as if hermetically sealed towards the outside. He was aware only of himself and what went on in him internally. Now for the first time there opened to him the sight of a physical outer world. But man was not yet quite independent, much was still regulated for him by other divine beings with whom he stood in connection. He could not immediately see all that was around him, as we do now; since only his astral body was opened he perceived only with that body. It was a quite dim clairvoyance, and when in this ancient primeval time the human being moved over the earth he perceived what was outside his body, he perceived if this were sympathetic or unsympathetic, beneficent or harmful. He perceived a color picture when he so moved about, a glaring-red, for instance, that arose as an auric color-picture, for it was his astral body that first opened. He knew that when a red picture appeared there was a being in the neighborhood that was dangerous to him. If a blue-red color met him, he knew that he could go towards it; thus he took his direction from these dim clairvoyant perceptions. He perceived only the soul elements, he could not perceive, for instance, what is present in the plants of today. He perceived only the soul-nature in the other human beings and in the animals, and the Group-souls, too. That was the first fertilizing with the ego.

The ego was gradually further developed and the fructifying element that entered the astral body began to permeate it more deeply so that the ego was increasingly present in the feelings of likes and dislikes. According as the ego expanded in this way in the astral body there arose what has been called in the book Theosophy the sentient soul. It is as if the fructifying ego spread its forces over the whole astral body, thereby producing the sentient soul. Here we still have to incorporate an important fact.

We have now seen a fairly normal advance of evolution. We have seen how the Spirits of Form on the Moon rayed in their lowest member, the ego, and how, when the Earth had arisen out of the Moon condition, they gave up the ego and fructified man with it. Now we know that certain beings on the Moon remained behind, beings who did not complete their development. What does that mean? It means that they had not advanced to the stage where they could let their ego stream out and fructify the human being. That they could not do. They still stood at the old Moon stage, when they worked with their ego into the atmosphere of the earth. There were laggard beings around man who worked on the earth as the Spirits of Form had done on the Moon. Man was surrounded in the earth's atmosphere by ego-beings who had not yet relinquished their egos. These beings now strove to accomplish on the earth what they had failed to do finally on the Moon. Man was thus exposed to influences that were not in the normal course of his evolution. These influences of the ego-spirits rayed into his astral body. While his astral body was molded through the in-trickling ego of the Spirits of Form, the ego-spirits, who were not at the stage of the Spirits of Form, rayed lower forces to him at the same time, lower than should have entered him in normal evolution. These lower forces brought it about that man divided into a higher and a lower part. Thus from the Spirits of Form an ego was instilled with the propensity to selflessness, whereas the laggard ego-spirits instilled into man the ego with the propensities towards selfishness, egotism. That is the ego which will still not free itself from instincts, desires, and passions. They press into the astral body and interpenetrate it—so that in man's astral body there is a twofold nature: selfless impulses that aspire to rise higher and those passions which are imbued with selfishness and have entered man through the influences of the ego-spirits and have anchored themselves in him.

Now we will further consider evolution itself. We have seen how the astral body has been entirely permeated by the force of the incoming ego. The next stage is when the etheric body too is seized by this force, so that here too a kind of aperture towards the outer world arises. To sketch this (Fig. 2) we must put in the middle a physical body, then an etheric body which is broken through and entirely filled with the force of the ego and then the astral body which is also entirely full of this force. So in the etheric body we now have a force desiring to expand; the etheric body opens to the outside world.

We have come in the formation of man practically into the first and second third of the Atlantean Age. There still existed an old clairvoyance which no longer saw in picture merely the beneficial and harmful, the sympathetic and unsympathetic, but a kind of living dream pictures arose before man which lasted a long time. For the etheric body is the bearer of memory and since these human beings had as yet no disturbance from the physical body, such pictures coming from outside were held for a long time. Memory at that time was an outstanding force of the soul. You can read in The Akashic Record¹ what man was at that time in respect of memory. There was not of course as yet complete observation of the external world, but a kind of dim clairvoyance. This was, however, more comprehensive than perception through the astral body. It caused everything to arise in mighty pictures, definitely formed, like a dream, but with a correspondence to the external objects, whereas formerly the pictures only served to guide man in taking his direction.

Now we advance to the last third of the Atlantean time. And now the physical body too is gripped by the force of the ego (Fig. 3). Rudiments of an indentation arise in the physical body, it becomes indented and around it we have the etheric and astral bodies. We will merely imagine the whole schematically now; in the course of succeeding lectures we shall get to know the realities. In a certain way, however, such a kind of indenting had appeared, the physical body took up the ego into itself. The point where the ego was taken in lies between the eyebrows, as I have often explained. The opening that comes about through the penetration of the ego into the physical body is to be thought of particularly as the opening of the physical senses. The ego presses through the eye, through the hearing—which is not merely an opening but a whole series of openings. All this takes place in the last third of Atlantean times and the human body was so transformed that it has become what it is today.

We call the etheric body as it was transformed at the beginning of the Atlantean Age the intellectual or mind soul and the transformed physical body we call the consciousness soul. So that what is described in my Theosophy as the position today, we have now followed as a consequence of evolution. You see here how things come about gradually.

After the physical body too is opened to the outside, man for the first time learnt to know the external world. And now begins the conscious transforming of the astral body. It was a more or less unconscious transformation before the beginnings of the consciousness soul. To picture this condition, we must think of it schematically like this: the astral body, etheric body and physical body opened, and through the fact that man comes in connection with the outside world he forms in himself an enclosure. This represents all that the ego develops in intercourse with the outer world, all that the ego “learns” through external contacts. Now imagine that the whole of what the ego develops in this way becomes greater and greater, and that this new structure, which has been gradually developed, lays itself round the astral body here. Although this is all schematic it corresponds to the actual process, and the new structure unites with man's astral body and in course of evolution transforms it into the human Manas or spirit-self. (Fig. 4.) Man is at work on this today, when through what he ac-quires in his intercourse with the external world he is transforming his astral body into Manas or spirit-self. We are in the midst of this process at the present time.

Since, however, the Spirits of Form have given up their ego, letting it trickle down into man, we are surrounded everywhere by these beings whose lowest member is of a Manasic nature, the spirit-self. If we want to seek in our surroundings for these Spirits of Form, for their lowest member, then we find it in that which we ourselves gradually develop as our fifth member. What we develop as human wisdom by which we must become wiser and wiser, that we should find manifested in our surroundings as the lowest member of the Spirits of Form. We have indeed often spoken of this. Let us look at what surrounds us, at what has been done by more exalted beings around us and in which we have taken no share. Let us look at what I have often mentioned, a piece of the thigh bone, in which the lattice work which goes to and fro is combined to such a wonderful scaffolding, that we must confess: Here with the minimum amount of material the maximum strength is attained! We see secreted in this structure what man will gradually learn—though it is impossible today—how to build bridge-scaffoldings through his engineering art that will be as wisely constructed as the thigh bones which carry the human upper body like pillars. The whole human body is thus wisely arranged, it is an expression of wisdom and when we go out into Nature this same wisdom meets us everywhere. Let us go, for example, to the dams which the beavers make. We see how the beavers collect at certain times of the year when the water has acquired a greater fall, in order to construct a dam in the water at a definite angle which will hold up the water and produce a new fall. Everywhere in our surroundings we find everything permeated with wisdom,—as we shall be permeated with it when we have developed Manas in full measure. The wisdom that we meet with everywhere belongs to the Spirits of Form. As the physical body is our lowest member so is the wisdom which we find all around us the lowest member of the Spirits of Form, then they have Budhi, Atma, where we have our etheric and astral bodies and then they have the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh members. We have to do here, as you see, with highly exalted beings to whom we look up; and when we see the wisdom in our surroundings, we see only the lowest member of these exalted beings. In comparison with these beings we are like a creature, a lower being, that creeps about on man and sees only the outside of his physical body. We creep about on the earth and see the wisdom, which for the Spirits of Form is what the physical body is for us. Such a being is a “creative spirit” as regards man, for this creative spirit has instilled his ego into him.

Precisely as we raise ourselves to Manas, so in the further course of evolution we shall someday acquire the life-spirit, Budhi, through the transforming of our etheric body. In our environment we have Manas or spirit-self as the wisdom impregnated into the world. That is the lowest member of the Spirits of Form, but there are also other beings linked with the earth whose lowest member is not our fifth, Manas, but our sixth, i.e. the life-spirit or Budhi. Around us is the atmosphere for beings whose lowest member—as member of higher beings—is equivalent to our life-spirit. And just as truly as at the beginning of the earthly evolution an external deed instilled the ego into man, so at a definite point of time there came the first impression and influence of the beings who little by little instil the full strength of Budhi. Two thousand years after the time in the ancient hoary past when the ego was poured down, there was still not much to be seen of such egos in the human bodies. That all came about gradually, only in the course of many millennia did the ego reach full manifestation. One must never imagine that the instilling of the ego was an event of which someone could say: “Nothing special happened; I do not acknowledge it, that is simply an event as others have been before!” If any particularly “enlightened” persons had lived on earth 2000 years after the instilling of the ego, and had perhaps represented the materialism of the time, they would have said: “Oh, there are certain among us who maintain that a special force has come down from heaven and brought all mankind forward. But that is a dualism of the worst kind, as Monists we must explain that that is something which was already there long ago!” These things appeared slowly and gradually.

Just as at the beginning of the Lemurian Age a powerful impulse forwards was given through the inflowing of the ego, which has later made possible the development of spirit-self or Manas, even so there has been an event of fundamental importance through which man will become capable with his whole being of developing not only Manas, but life-spirit or Budhi. And this event is the Deed on Golgotha. This event is the appearance of Christ on earth! It may be that some people will deny that to-day, but this event was just as much a force coming out of the environment as that other was. Thus we see that we grasp the evolution of the world from its spiritual aspect when we look into the depths of the world. We learn gradually not to look merely to a material existence, but we discover, wherever we look into cosmic space, spiritual beings and their deeds. Through what we call Theosophy we learn to know of these deeds, we live and weave and have our being within the spiritual beings and their deeds.

In our next lecture we will go more exactly into the human organism and indicate how the development has taken place, after today having dealt with it more schematically.

• 1. See: Rudolf Steiner, Cosmic Memory, Rudolf Steiner Publications, Englewood, N.J.

During the whole course of our lectures, you have seen what our position is in relation to the document called the Gospel of St. John, standing as we do upon the foundation of Spiritual Science. You have seen that it is not a question of gaining out of this document some particular truths about the spiritual world, but of showing that, independent of all human and other documents, it is possible to penetrate into that world, just as anyone wishing to learn mathematics at present does so independent of every original document by means of which, in the course of human evolution, different branches of mathematics have first been communicated. What, for example, do those students know who begin to study elementary geometry, acquiring it by means of their own faculties from geometry itself, what do they know of the geometry of Euclid, of the original document in which this elementary geometry was presented to the world for the first time? If the student has first learned geometry by means of his own faculties, he can judge and appreciate better the nature and meaning of the original documents. This should show us more and more that those truths which deal with this spiritual life can be gained out of the life of the spirit itself. If a person has found these truths for himself and then is directed to the historical documents, he finds in them again what he already knows. In this way he acquires a right and true human valuation of them. We have seen in the course of these lectures, that the Gospel of St. John really loses nothing in value by this method; we have seen that the respect for and appreciation of documents do not become less for anyone standing upon the foundation of Spiritual Science than for those who have stood entirely upon the foundation of such documents. Indeed, we have seen that we find again in the Gospel of St. John the most profound teaching concerning Christianity, a teaching which we can also call the teaching of Universal Wisdom. We have also seen that only when we have grasped this profound meaning of the Christian teaching, can we understand why the Christ had to enter into human evolution just at a definite time at the beginning of our era.

We have seen how humanity developed in the post-Atlantean age. It has been pointed out that the original Indian civilization was the first great post-Atlantean cultural epoch after the Atlantean Flood; that the characteristic of this original Indian civilization was that the souls of men were filled with longing and memory. We have characterized memory and longing by saying that they consisted in the preservation of living traditions from an epoch of human evolution ante-dating the Atlantean Flood. At that time, quite in conformity with their nature and inner being, men existed in a kind of nebulous, clairvoyant state in which they could gaze into the spiritual world, thus becoming acquainted with it through personal experience and knowledge, just as men of the present time are acquainted with the four kingdoms of nature, the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms. We have seen that prior to the Atlantean Flood, there existed as yet no such sharp distinction as we have today between the states of consciousness during the day and the night. At that time, when the human being sank into sleep at night, his inner experiences were not so unconscious and dark as they are now, for when the images of day life submerged, those of the spiritual life emerged, and he was then in the midst of the things of the spirit world. In the morning, when he again dipped down into his physical body, the experiences and realities of the divine-spiritual world sank into darkness, and around him arose the images of present reality, images of the present mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. The sharp distinction between the unconsciousness of the night and day waking-consciousness appeared only after the Atlantean Flood, that is to say, in our post-Atlantean age. Then, in a certain sense, as far as direct perception is concerned, men were cut off from spiritual reality and were more and more placed outside in purely physical reality. All that remained was the memory of the existence of another kingdom, a kingdom of spiritual beings, and united with this memory was the soul's longing to rise again by means of some exceptional condition into the regions out of which it had descended. Those exceptional conditions were only granted to a few chosen people—the initiates—whose inner faculties had been awakened in the Mystery Places enabling them to gaze into the spiritual world; to those others who were not able to do this, these initiates were able to give information about that world and testify to its reality. In the original Indian cultural period, Yoga was the process by which men were able to revert to the ancient nebulous, clairvoyant state of consciousness. When certain exceptional natures were initiated, they became, as a result, the leaders of mankind, witnesses of the spiritual world.

Under the effect of this longing and memory within this original Indian, pre-Vedic civilization, that soul-mood was particularly developed which regarded physical reality as Maya or illusion. These primitive Indian people said that actual reality exists alone in the spiritual world into which we can be reinstated only by means of an exceptional condition, through Yoga. This world of spiritual beings and processes is the true one. What is seen with the eyes, is unreal, is illusion, Maya. That was the first religious fundamental experience of the post-Atlantean age, and Yoga was the first form of initiation of this period. In fact there was yet no comprehension of the true mission of the post-Atlantean age. For it was not the mission of humanity to consider the reality, which we call physical existence, as Maya or illusion and then to flee from it and become foreign to it. Post-Atlantean humanity had another mission, that of conquering more and more the physical reality, of becoming master of the world of physical phenomena. But it is also quite comprehensible that men, now for the first time transferred to this physical plane, should in the beginning consider as Maya or illusion what previously had hardly emerged within the spiritual reality, but what was now all that they were able to perceive. This attitude toward reality could never have continued. This understanding of the physical reality as an illusion could not remain the vital nerve of the post-Atlantean period. And we have seen that postAtlantean humanity, in the different cultural epochs, conquered bit by bit the connection with the physical reality.

In that period of civilization which we designate the ancient Persian—the periods which history knows as the Persian and Zarathustrian periods are the last echoes of what is meant here—in that second period, we saw mankind taking the first step toward growing out of the ancient Indian principle and conquering physical reality. Still nowhere was there a fondness for sinking into the physical reality, also there existed nowhere anything like a study of the physical world. There was, however, more of this in the Persian period than in the ancient Indian period. We get a reverberation of the mood that looks upon physical reality as illusion in what has survived in later epochs of ancient Indian civilization. Yet our present civilization could never have arisen out of that Indian culture. All the wisdom of that period turned its gaze away from the physical world and directed it upward toward spiritual worlds which existed as a memory. The study of physical reality and its elaboration seemed to them futile, therefore the actual Indian principle could never have brought forth a science serviceable to our earthly world; it could never have produced that mastery of the laws of nature which forms the foundation of our present civilization. This could never have sprung from ancient India, for why should one seek to learn to know the forces of a world resting only upon illusion! If this was changed in the Indian cultural period also, it was not because of something flowing out of itself, but was due to subsequent foreign influences.

For the ancient Persian civilization, the external, physical reality exists as a sphere of activity. It was looked upon as the expression of a hostile Deity, but the hope arose that with the aid of the God of Light this substantial field of reality might be penetrated, that it might be changed into something permeated by spiritual powers and good divinities. Thus the adherents of the Persian civilization already sensed somewhat the reality of the physical world. It is true they still considered it the realm of the God of Darkness, but for all that, they always hoped that they might be able to incorporate within it the forces of the good gods.

Humanity then passed over into that period of civilization which found its historical expression in the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldaic-Egyptian culture and we have seen how it happened that the starry heavens were no longer Maya to these people of the third epoch, but something whose written characters could be read. In all that still seemed a Maya to the Indians in the course and splendour of the stars, the Persian saw an expression of the resolutions and purposes of divine-spiritual beings. They gradually accustomed themselves to the idea that outer reality is not illusion but a revelation, a manifestation of divine-spiritual beings. Then in the Egyptian civilization, men began to apply what they read in the stars to the divisions of the earth. Why was it the Egyptians became the masters of Geometry? It was because they believed that through thought, which subdivides the earth, matter can also be controlled, and that matter, which can be grasped by the human spirit, is easily transformed. Thus gradually a later humanity permeated this material world—looked upon at first as only Maya—with the spirit, and this spirit also gradually emerged within the inner soul life of the human being.

We have seen, in fact, that only in the later Atlantean age, humanity had reached the point where it could experience the ego or the “I AM.” For as long as men beheld spiritual images, they knew that they themselves belonged to the spiritual world, that they were themselves images among other images. Then came a comprehension of the spirit within the depths of the human being. Let us now consider, in connection with what we have partially reviewed today, the evolution of the inner nature of men.

As long as the human being of the Atlantean period looked outward with a kind of dream-like, clairvoyant consciousness he did not really give much attention to his own inner nature. The inner world, which is encompassed by the ego or the “I AM,” was not yet delineated in sharp contours. In proportion as the outer spiritual world disappeared, men became conscious of their own inner world of the spirit. In the ancient Indian civilization there still existed in the individual an extraordinary attitude of soul toward his own spiritual life. People said: If we wish to penetrate into the spiritual world, to raise ourselves above illusion, we must lose ourselves in the spiritual world, we must obliterate as much as possible the “I AM” and become absorbed into the All-Spirit, into Brahman. Thus especially in ancient initiation, it was a matter of a loss of personality. An impersonal absorption into the spiritual world is what distinguished the most ancient form of initiation. This was no longer so, for example, in the third epoch of civilization, for right up to that time the human self-consciousness had by degrees been developing stronger and stronger. The human being became continually more and more conscious within the inner part of his ego being. By developing a fondness for the physical matter about him, by deepening his knowledge of it by means of the laws which the human spirit had thought out, but which had not been acquired in any sort of shadowy dream-state, he became gradually more aware of his ego, until this consciousness of personality reached a certain high point in the ancient Egyptian civilization. In this awareness of the personality, there was present something else that appeared at the same time inferior and as though now bound to the physical world and absorbed into it, something that had no possibility of acquiring a connection with that from which the human being had been born.

If we wish to grasp the whole course of events, we must picture to our souls two fundamental soul-moods in human evolution. We must remember how humanity of the Atlantean and ancient Indian periods longed to strip off personality. The Atlanteans were able to accomplish this, and they took it for granted that they would each night strip off their personality and live in the land of the spirit. The Indians could do this, because their principle of initiation led them, by means of their Yoga, into what was impersonal. To repose in the universal divine substance was their desire. In a later branch of the human family, this reposing within the universal was preserved in the consciousness of being united with preceding generations. It remained in the consciousness of the people that they had been born out of a line of ancestry, and an individual human being felt himself united through the blood with generations as far back as his earliest ancestor. This was the mood which grew out of that ancient soul-mood of feeling oneself spiritually sheltered within the divine-spiritual substance. Thus it happened that those human beings who had passed through a normal evolution began in the third cultural epoch to feel themselves as individuals, yet, at the same time, knowing that they were sheltered within the whole, within the divine-spiritual, that they belonged through the blood relationship to the entire line of forefathers, and that God lived for them in the blood flowing down to them through the generations. We have seen how a certain degree of perfection of this mood had been developed within those people who composed the followers of the Old Testament. “I and Father Abraham are one,” means that the individual felt himself preserved within the whole line of descent back to Abraham. That was, in general, what constituted the fundamental mood of all normally developed races of the third cultural period. However, only to the followers of the Old Testament was it predicted that there existed something spiritually more profound than the Divine Fatherhood that ran through the blood of successive generations. We have already called attention to that great moment in human evolution when this was prophesied. When Moses heard the voice calling unto him saying: “When thou wouldst proclaim My Name, say that ‘I AM’ hath said it unto thee!”, then here for the first time sounds forth the knowledge and manifestation of the Logos, of the Christ. Here for the first time, for those who could comprehend, was prophetically proclaimed that in God there existed something that not only had to do with the blood relationship, but that in Him there existed something purely spiritual. What ran through the Old Testament was like a prophecy. Who was it, in fact, who at that time in a prophecy revealed His name to Moses? We must now dwell a little on this question. Here again we have a passage which the commentators of the Gospel consider very superficially, not recognizing the fact that one must examine these records as thoroughly as possible.

Who was it who announced His name prophetically, to Whom the name “I AM” must be given? Who was it? We find the answer, if with earnestness and dignity we properly grasp a certain passage of the Gospel. It is the passage which we find in the 12th Chapter, beginning with the 37th verse. Here Christ-Jesus points to the fulfilment of the words of the Prophet Isaiah, to the prophecy with its reference to the fact that the Jews would not believe in Christ-Jesus. Jesus Himself refers to Isaiah:

He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted and I should heal them.

These things said Isaiah when he saw His glory and spake with Him.

Isaiah spake with Him! With Whom did Isaiah speak? Reference is made here to the passage in Isaiah 6: 1 which reads:

In the year that the King of Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and His train filled the Temple.

Whom did Isaiah see? This is clearly told here in the Gospel of St. John. He saw the Christ! He was always to be seen in the spirit and now you will no longer find it incomprehensible when Spiritual Science points out that He whom Moses saw, who proclaimed the words “I AM” as His name, was the same Being who then appeared upon the earth as the Christ. The actual Spirit of God of antiquity is none other than the Christ. We are now at a point in this religious record which is very difficult to understand, especially for those who do not go at it properly. This passage must be clearly understood, particularly because with the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the most extraordinary confusion has arisen. It is a fact that exoterically these words have always been used in the most manifold ways in order that the real esoteric meaning might not be directly evident. When, according to ancient Judaism, the “father” was mentioned, the physical father whose blood flowed down through the generations was meant. When they spoke of Him who revealed Himself spiritually, as Isaiah spoke of the “Lord,” they were referring to the Logos of which the Gospel of St. John speaks. The writer of this Gospel means nothing more nor less than that the One who could always be perceived in the spirit became flesh and dwelt among us!

When it has become clear to us that in a certain sense the Christ was also spoken of in the Old Testament, we shall understand what place the ancient Hebrew peoples have held in our evolution. The ancient Hebrew-principle grew out of the Egyptian civilization. It stands out in bold relief against the background of the Egyptian principle.

Thus we see how the normal course of human evolution progressed as it was described yesterday. The first cultural period of the postAtlantean age is the ancient Indian, the second the ancient Persian, the third the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldaic-Egyptian civilization; then follows the fourth, the Greco-Latin and the fifth which is our own present cultural epoch. Before the fourth epoch began, that people which with its traditions provided the soil for Christianity emerged out of the third epoch like a mysterious branch. When we summarize all that we have been hearing in these lectures, we shall find it much more comprehensible that the appearance of the Christ had to take place in the fourth era.

We have already emphasized the fact that in the fourth epoch the human being had reached the point where he objectified his own spirituality, his own ego and had placed it out in the world. We perceive how gradually he permeated matter with his own spirit, with his ego-spirit. We behold the works of the Greek sculptors, and dramatists and see how they have presented, embodied before the soul, what they call their own soul qualities. Later, in the Roman period, we see how the human being also becomes conscious of what he is, and we see how he established this in the outer world as “Justice” (Jus), although a distorted Jurisprudence disguised it. For the deeper students of Jurisprudence, it is clear that real justice, which considers the human being its subject, first arose in this fourth cultural epoch. At that time the people had become conscious enough of their own personality to feel themselves for the first time as real citizens of the State. Even in the Greek period, the individual felt himself as a member of the whole municipal State. This was more important to an Athenian than to be an individual man. But to say “I am a Roman” or “I am an Athenian” meant two very different things. For to say, “I am a Roman” meant that, as an individual human being, as a citizen of the State, he had an importance, he had a will. Thus it could also be proven that the origin of the concept of a “testament” first became possible in this epoch, for this is a Roman concept. Only at that time did the human being make his will so personal, so individualized, that he wished to be active in it even beyond death. The things which Spiritual Science has to say harmonize even in the details with the actual facts.

The human being gradually reached the point of permeating matter with his spirit and this increased as time went on. The fourth epoch was that in which he thoroughly incorporated into matter what he comprehended with his spirit. In the Egyptian Pyramids you can see how spirit and matter are still wrestling with one another, how what had been grasped by the spirit had not yet fully expressed itself in matter. In the Greek Temple is expressed the complete turning point of the postAtlantean age. For one who understands a little of this, there is no more significant, no more perfect architecture than the Greek which is the purest expression of the inner characteristic of space. The pillars are considered wholly as supports, and what rests upon them is felt as something that must be supported, something that presses down. The supreme, emancipated concept of space is here in the Greek Temple carried to its ultimate conclusions. Few people have subsequently felt the concept of space in this way, yet there have been those who could have felt it, but they felt it pictorially. Let anyone test the space in the Sistine Chapel. Stand at the rear wall which bears the great picture of the Last Judgment, and look up. You will see that the rear wall rises obliquely upward. It inclines thus because the architect felt the concept of space, but did not think it so abstractly as others. Therefore this wall stands there so marvellously at an angle. This means that he no longer experienced the concept of space as did the Greeks. There is an artistic sense which feels the mysterious measure concealed in space. To sense it architecturally does not mean to sense it by means of the eyes, but by means of something else. People easily believe today that right is the same as left, above the same as below, forward the same as backward. If one would only consider the following: There are pictures in which three, four or five angels can be seen floating about. They can be painted in such a way that one would be right in thinking that they are in danger of falling at any moment. They can likewise be painted by someone who has developed the right sense for space, in such a manner that there is no possibility of such a thought arising; they could not fall because they mutually support each other. We then have the dynamic relationships in space pictorially represented before us. The Greeks had it architecturally before them. They experienced the horizontal not alone as line, but as the force of pressure and they experienced the pillar not only as a block of something, but as supporting power. This feeling-with-the-lines-of-space means, “feeling the living Spirit in the act of geometrizing.” That is what Plato meant when he used the tremendous expression, “God geometrizes continually.”

These lines really exist in space and the Greeks built their Temples in accordance with them. What was in reality a Greek Temple? From necessity it was the dwelling-house of their God. It was something quite different from the Church of the present day. The present Church is a place for preaching. The God Himself dwelt within the Greek Temple. The people were only present incidentally when they wished to be with their God. One who understands the forms of the Greek Temple, experiences a mysterious connection with the God dwelling within it. There, in the columns, and in what rests upon them, is to be seen not only what the human being has fashioned in imagination, but something that his God would have thus made, had He wished to create a dwelling place for Himself. This was the climax of the permeation of Matter with Spirit.

Let us now compare a Greek Temple with a Gothic Church. Nothing derogatory of the Gothic is intended, for from another point of view the Gothic Church stands upon a still higher level than the Greek Temple. In a Gothic Church you can see that what is expressed in its form cannot possibly be thought of or felt without the presence of the devotional congregation. In the arched forms of the Gothic there exists something (for one who can experience it) which can only be expressed in the following words: If the devotional congregation were not within, and the hands were not placed together in the form of an arch, the whole would be incomplete. The Gothic Church is not only the dwelling-house of God, but it is at the same time the meeting place for people who are praying to God. Thus, in a certain sense, mankind again over-stepped the zenith of its own evolution. We see how all that degenerated which the Greeks felt in line, column and beam in such a remarkable manner through their sense of space. A column which does not support, but which is there only as a decorative motif, was for the Greek feeling no column at all. Everything in human evolution is in perfect accord. The Greek cultural period was the most beautiful expression of the interpenetration of humanity's consciousness discovered within itself, and of what was felt as the Divine in outer space. The human being had wholly coalesced with the physical sense-world in this epoch.

It is nonsense when modern scholars wish to obscure what was felt in earlier ages. From the Spiritual-Scientific point of view, we look upon the fourth epoch of the post-Atlantean age as an epoch in which the human being harmonized perfectly with his environment. That age—in which he seemed to coalesce with the outer reality—was alone qualified to understand that the Divine is able to appear in an individual man. All earlier epochs would have understood almost anything more easily than this. They would have felt that the Divine was much too exalted and sublime to appear in a physical human form. It was just this physical form against which they desired to guard the Divine. Therefore, “Thou shalt make no image” had to be announced to just that people whose mission it was to grasp the idea of God in His spiritual form. Out of concepts such as these, this people evolved and out of its womb was begotten the idea of the Christ, the idea that spirit was to appear in the flesh. For this mission was the Jewish people chosen and within it, in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Christ Event had to occur.

Thus for the Christian consciousness, the whole of human existence falls into a pre-Christian and a post-Christian period. The God-Man could only be comprehended by the human being at a certain time. Thus we see how the Gospel of St. John connects in full consciousness and in its ideas, with what was—to use a trivial expression—precisely in conformity with the times, with what had its origin directly in the consciousness of the age. Consequently it happened wholly of itself, that the thought imagery, through which the writer of the Gospel tried to grasp the greatest event in cosmic history, seemed to him best expressed in the forms of Greek thought, as it were, like something inwardly related. And gradually the whole Christian feeling grew into these thought forms. We shall see how something like the Gothic had to appear during the progress of evolution, because Christianity was, as it were, called upon to lead evolution again beyond the material. Christianity could arise only at a time when men were not yet so deeply immersed in matter that they were likely to overestimate its worth; when they were not yet plunged so deeply into matter as is the case in our age, but were still able to spiritualize it and to penetrate it.

Thus the birth of Christianity appears as something positively necessary in the whole spiritual course of human events. If we desire to understand what form Christianity should gradually assume, understand what form was prophesied for it by such an individuality as the writer of this Gospel, we must take under consideration, in the next lecture, certain essential and important concepts.

It has been shown that everything must be taken literally, but that first the alphabet must be really understood. It is not without significance that the name of John appears nowhere in the Gospel and that John is always spoken of as the “Disciple whom the Lord loved.” We have seen what mystery lies hidden behind this fact, a mystery of profound significance.

Now we shall consider another expression, one that makes it directly possible for us to make a connection with the subsequent evolutionary periods of Christianity. The manner of speaking of the “Mother of Jesus” in the Gospel, is usually overlooked. If the ordinary, average Christian were asked: who was the Mother of Jesus? he would reply: “The Mother of Jesus was Mary?” And many indeed will believe that there is something in the Gospel of St. John to the effect that the Mother of Jesus was called Mary. But nowhere in this Gospel is there anything to indicate that the Mother of Jesus was called Mary. Wherever reference is made to her, she is quite intentionally called just the Mother of Jesus. The meaning of this we shall learn later. In the chapter on the Marriage in Cana, we read: “and the Mother of Jesus was there;” and further on, it says: “His Mother saith unto the servants.” Nowhere do we find the name “Mary.” And when we meet her again in the Gospel of St. John, when we see the Saviour upon the Cross, we read:

“There stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.”

It is clearly and definitely stated who stood by the Cross. The Mother was there, then her sister who was the wife of Cleophas and who was called Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Whoever thinks about it at all, must say to himself: It is extraordinary that the two sisters are both called Mary? That is not customary in our day. It was also not customary at that time. And since the writer of the Gospel calls the sister, Mary, it is clear that the Mother of Jesus was not called Mary. In the Greek text, it says clearly and distinctly: “Below stood the Mother of Jesus, and His Mother's sister Mary who was the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” For a proper understanding the question arises: “Who was the Mother of Jesus?” Here we touch upon one of the most important questions in the Gospel of St. John: “Who was the real father of Jesus, and who was His mother?”

Who was the father? Can this question be asked at all? Not only can it be asked according to the Gospel of St. John, but also according to St. Luke. For it would show an extraordinary absence of thought not to see that at the Annunciation it was proclaimed:

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Even in the Gospel of St. Luke it is pointed out that the father of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. This must be taken literally and those theologians who do not recognize it cannot really read the Gospel. Thus we must ask the great question:—How does all this harmonize with what we have heard in the words, “I and the Father are one,” “I and Father Abraham are one,” “Before Abraham was, was the I AM?” How can we bring into harmony with all this, the undeniable fact that the Evangelist sees the Father-Principle in the Holy Spirit? And what must we think about the Mother-Principle, according to the Gospel of St. John?

In order that you may come tomorrow properly prepared in spirit to formulate these questions, your attention should also be called to the fact that a sort of series of generations is presented in the Gospel of St. Luke; that we are told that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist; that He began to teach in His thirtieth year and that He was the son of “Mary and Joseph, who was the son of Eli,” etc., and there follows the whole line of generations. If we trace this succession, we see that it goes back to Adam. Then follows something extraordinary; here we find the words: “who was the son of God.” Just as the generations are traced back from son to father in the Gospel of St. Luke, so is the succession traced back from Adam to God. Such a passage must be taken very seriously! Now we have gathered together the questions which should lead us tomorrow directly into the very center of the Gospel of St. John.

During the last few days, I have tried to show how Western civilization originated and that a significant and mighty turning point can be noted in mankind's overall evolution in the fourth Christian century. It was also necessary to point out how Greece gradually developed in the direction of this twilight, so to speak; how, based on quite different impulses, the civilization of central and western European culture came about, and how a comprehension of Christianity developed under these influences. To begin with, let us try and refer to the facts under consideration once more from a certain different viewpoint.

Christianity originated in the western Orient from the Mystery of Golgotha. Insofar as its specific nature was concerned, Oriental culture certainly was already in decline. The ancient, primordial wisdom existed in its last phases in what developed in Asia Minor and Greece as Gnosticism. The Gnosis, after all, was a form of wisdom that combined, in the most manifold ways, what presented itself to the human being as phenomena of the cosmos and nature. This not withstanding, in comparison to the directly perceived, instinctive insight into the spiritual world that was the foundation of Oriental development, Gnosticism already had a more, shall we say, intellectual, rational character. The spiritual life that permeated all human perception in the ancient Orient was no longer present. It was actually from the last vestiges of the ancient wisdom that people sought to fit together the philosophical and humanistic view that was then employed as a body of wisdom for understanding the Mystery of Golgotha. The substance inherent in the Mystery of Golgotha was clothed in the wisdom retained from the Orient in Greece.

Now let us consider this wisdom from the point of view of spiritual science. If we view human beings as they devoted themselves once upon a time to this wisdom, we find that the main thing in the ancient Orient was that people saw the world with what was active in their astral body, with what they could experience in their soul through their astral body—even though their sentient soul and rational or intellectual soul had already developed. It was the astral body that worked into these soul members and enabled people to actually turn their glance away from the earthly phenomena and to still perceive quite clearly what enters in the spiritual, super-sensible sphere from the cosmos. As yet, human beings did not have a view of the world based on the ego. Their self expressed itself only dimly. For the human being the ego was as yet not an actual question. Human beings dwelled in the astral element, and in it they still lived in a certain harmony with the world phenomena surrounding them. In a sense, the really puzzling world for them was the one they beheld with their eyes, the one that ran its course around them. For them, the comprehensible world was the super-sensible world of the gods, the world in which the spiritual beings had their existence. Human beings looked across to these spiritual beings, to their actions, their destinies. It was indeed the essential characteristic of the view of the ancient Orient that people's attention was directed towards these spiritual worlds. People wished to comprehend the sensory world on the basis of these spiritual worlds.

Today, finding ourselves within our civilization, we take the opposite view. To us, the physical-sensory world is given. Proceeding from it, in one way or another, we try to comprehend the spiritual world—if we attempt that at all, if we do not reject doing so, if we do not remain stuck in pure materialism. The material world is seen as given by us. The ancient Orientals saw the spiritual world as given. On the premise of the physical world, we try to discover something with which to comprehend the wondrousness of the phenomena, the purpose of the structure of the organisms, and so on; based on this physical, sensory world, we try to prove to ourselves the existence of the supersensory world. The ancient Orientals tried to comprehend the physical, sensory environment on the basis of the superphysical, supersensory world given to them. Out of it, they wished to receive light—indeed, they did receive it, and without it, the physical, sensory world was to them only darkness and trepidation. Thus, they also experienced what they sensed to be their innermost being as still completely illuminated by the astral body, as having emerged from the spiritual worlds. People then did not say, I have grown out of earthly life. Rather, they said, I have grown and descended out of divine-spiritual worlds; and the best I bear within me is the recollection of these divine spiritual worlds. Even Plato, the philosopher, speaks of the fact that the human being has insights, memories, of his prenatal life, the life he led prior to descending into the physical material world. The human being certainly viewed his ego as a ray emerging from the light of the super-sensible world. For him, the material world, not the supersensory world, was puzzling.

This world view then had its offshoots in Greece. The Greeks already experienced themselves within the body, but in it they discovered nothing that could have explained this body to them. They still possessed the traditions of the ancient Orient. They viewed themselves in a certain sense as a being that had descended from the spiritual worlds but that in some ways had already lost the awareness of these spiritual worlds. It was actually the final phase of the Oriental life of wisdom that appeared in Greece, and it was on the basis of this world view that the Mystery of Golgotha was to be understood. After all, this Mystery presented the human being with the profound, tremendous problem of life, with the question how the super-sensible, cosmic being from other worlds, the Christ, could have found His way into a human corporeality. The permeation of Jesus by the Christ was the great problem. We see it light up everywhere in the Gnostic endeavors. People had no such insight of their own concerning a link between the super-sensible aspect of their own nature and the sensory-physical element of their being, and because they had no perception of the connection between the soul-spiritual and the corporeal-physical in reference to themselves, the Mystery of Golgotha became an unsolvable problem for the thinking influenced by the Greek world view. It was, however, a problem with which Greek culture struggled and to which it devoted its finest resources of wisdom. History records much too little of the spiritual struggles that took place then.

I have called attention to the fact that the body of Gnostic literature was eradicated. If it were still available, we would be able to discern this tragic struggle for a comprehension of the living union of the super-sensible Christ with the sense-perceptible Jesus; we would observe the development of this extraordinarily profound problem. This struggle was extinguished, however, an end was put to it by the prosaic, abstract attitude originating from Romanism which is only capable of carrying inner devotion into its abstractions by means of whipping up emotions. The Gnosis was covered up and dogmatism and Church Council decisions were put in its place. The profound views of the Orient that contained no juristic element were saturated with a form assumed by Christianity in the more Western world, the Western world of that age, the Roman world.

Christianity emerged from this Romanism imbued, as it were, with the legal element; everywhere, legal concepts moved in as the Roman political concepts spread out over Christianity. Christianity assumed the form of the Roman body politic, and from what was once the world capital, Rome, we see the emergence of the Christian capital city of Rome. We see how this Christian Rome adopts from ancient Rome the special views on how human beings must be governed, how one's rule must be extended over men. We observe how a kind of ecclesiastical imperialism gains ground because Christianity is poured into the Roman form of government. What had been molded in spiritual forms of conception was transformed into a juristic and human polity. For the first time, Christianity and external political science were forged together and Christianity spread out in that form. Such mighty forces and impulses dwell in Christianity that they could, of course, be effective and survive despite the fact that they were poured into the mold of the Roman political system. And as the Roman political system took hold of the Western world, side by side with it, the humble narrations, the factual reports concerning what had taken place in Palestine, continued on.

In this Western world, however, people had been prepared in a quite special way for Christianity. This preparation consisted in the fact that the human being was aware of himself based on his physical nature; he sensed his ego by means of his physical being. Here, the difference became evident between the way Christianity had passed, as it were, through the Greek world, which then declined, and the form of Christianity that then turned into the actually political Christianity, the governmental, Roman Christianity. Then, more from the northern regions, another form of Christianity emerged that was poured into the northern people, called Barbarians by the Greeks and Romans. It streamed into those northern people who due to their nature and in concentrating their own being, so to speak, sensed their ego. Out of the totality of man in the physical-sensory realm, out of the human physical and sensory ego incarnation, they arrived at self-comprehension. Now they also tried to grasp what reached them as a simple story about the events in Palestine. Thus, in this Barbarian world, the humble tale of the events in Palestine encountered the ego-feeling, I would like to say, the blood-ego-feeling, particularly in the central and northern European realm. These two aspects came together. On the premise of this ego comprehension of man, people tried to grasp the simple report of the events in Palestine. They did not wish to comprehend its deeper content. They did not try to permeate it with wisdom. They only tried to draw it into the physical-sensory, human sphere.

In the Heliand,¹ we can observe how these tales concerning the events in Palestine appear drawn completely down to the human level, into the world of European people, the ego-world. We see how everything is brought down to the human level; unlike the way it was in Greece, people later had no ability to penetrate the Mystery of Golgotha with wisdom. The urge developed to picture even the activity of Christ Jesus as humble human activity without looking up into the super-sensible, and increasingly to imbue these tales with the merely human element. Furthermore, into this were fitted the Church Council resolutions spreading out dogmatically from the Roman-Christian Empire. Like two worlds that were alien to one another, these two merged—the Christianity that in a sense had Europeanized the report from Palestine and the Christianity representing the Greek spirit in juristic, Romanized, abstract form. This is what then lived on through the centuries.

Only a few individuals could place themselves into this stream in the manner I described yesterday, when I spoke of the sages who developed the conception of the Grail. They pointed out that the impulse of Christianity had indeed once been couched in Oriental wisdom, but that the bearer of this Oriental view, the sacred vessel of the Grail, could be brought to Europe only by means of divine spirits who hovered above the earth, holding on to it. Only then, so they said, a hidden castle was built for it, the Castle of the Grail on Mont Salvat. To this was added that a human being could only approach the miracles of the Holy Grail through inaccessible regions. Then these sages did not say that the surrounding impassable region a person has to penetrate in order to reach the miracles of the Grail is sixty miles wide. They put it in a much more esoteric way when they described this path to the Holy Grail. They said, Oh, these people of Europe cannot reach the Holy Grail, for the path they must take in order to arrive at the Holy Grail takes as long as the path from birth to death. Only when human beings arrive at the portal of death, having tread the path, impassable for Europeans, the path that extends from birth to death, only then will they arrive at the Castle of the Grail on Mont Salvat.

This was basically the esoteric secret that was conveyed to the pupil. Because the time had not yet come when human beings would be able to discern with a clear consciousness how the spiritual world might once more be discovered, the pupils were told that they could enter into the sacred Castle of the Grail only by way of occasional glimpses of light. In particular, they were given strict injunctions that they had to ask, that the time had come in human development when the human being who does not ask—who does not develop his inner being and does not seek the impulse of truth on his own but remains passive—cannot arrive at an experience of his own self. For man must discover his ego by means of his physical organization. This I, which discovers itself through the physical organization, must in turn raise itself up by its own power in order to behold itself where, even in the early Greek culture, this self was still beheld, in super-sensible worlds. The I must first lift itself up in order to recognize itself as something super-sensible.

In the ancient Orient, people saw what occurred in the astral body; the consequences of former earth lives were beheld in it. This is why one spoke of karma. In Greece, this conception was already obscured. The cosmic events were observed only with dim astral vision. This is why people spoke vaguely of destiny, of fate. This view of destiny is only a diminished, weaker form of the fully concrete conception held by the ancient Orient concerning man's passage through repeated earth lives, the consequences of which make themselves known to experience within the astral body, though only instinctively. Thus, the ancient Orientals could speak of karma developing in the recurring incarnations on earth, the consequences of which were simply present in astral experience.

Now the development moved westward to the ego experience. This experience of the ego was initially tied to the physical body. It was egotistically self-enclosed. The first ego experience dwelled in dullness, even when it contained a strong impulse towards the super-sensible worlds. Parsifal, who undertook his pilgrimage to the Holy Grail, is described as a dim-witted man. It must be clearly understood that when the Mithras worship spread across the West from the Orient, it was rejected by the West; it was not comprehended. For he who sat on the bull, who was to become the victor over the base forces, experienced himself, after all, as emerging from these lower forces. If Western man beheld Mithras riding on the bull, he did not comprehend this being, for this being could not be the one the ego felt and experienced out of its own physical organization. An understanding for this riding Mithras faded away and disappeared.

It can be said that all this had to come to pass, for the ego had to experience its impulse in the physical organization. It had to connect itself firmly with the physical organization, but it must not allow itself to become set in this firm experience within the physical organization.

It was a profound reaction to the Orient's treasures of wisdom, when the West increasingly aimed for what developed out of the purely physical element. This reaction was a necessity. Any number of views did come together in Europe to make this reaction a very strong one. But it was not proper for it to extend into this spiritual striving for more than a few centuries. A new spirituality has indeed emerged since then in the first third of the fifteenth century, but it was an abstract spirituality, a sublimated, filtered spirituality.

Human beings took hold of physical astronomy and physical medicine, and, to begin with, they had to have this stimulus based on the ego impulse sensing itself in the physical element. But it must not continue to become firmly set in European civilization if this European culture wishes to avoid its decline. Truly, more than enough forces of decline are present, vestiges which should only be vestiges and which should be recognized as such.

Just remember how the most up-to-date theology—I have often emphasized this—has lost the faculty for comprehending Christ; increasingly it has arrived at the point of turning Christ Jesus completely into an earth being, a human being. It has put the “humble man from Nazareth”² in the place of Christ Jesus. Proceeding from Romanism, out of a materialistically oriented principle of authority, the living spirituality, by means of which the human being can really become familiar with the Mystery of Golgotha, was lost more and more. And observe how in modern times a science is developing that tries to comprehend everything external but that does not wish to penetrate to the human being. As a result of this science, see how impulses arise in society that try only to bring about a human, physical order but that do not want to penetrate the human, physical structures with any divine-spiritual, supersensory, spiritual principle.

During all this it is as if in human souls, in a few human souls, there remained an individual glimpse of light. When a ray of the astral element still dwelling within them combined with the ego, these individuals received such glimpses of light. It is part of the most impressive phenomena of modern Europe when we observe how, out of the East, there resounds a mighty admonition in the religious philosophy of Soloviev,³ a religious philosophy steeped, so to speak, in Eastern sultriness. But something resounds from there to the effect that a super-sensible, spiritual element must permeate the earthly social order. In a sense, we see how Soloviev dreams of a kind of Christ-state. He is capable of that because within him are the last vestiges of a subjective astral experience illuminating the ego.

Compare these dreams of a Christ-permeated state with what has been established in the East accompanied by the negation of all spiritual elements, something that harbors only forces of decline—what an overwhelming, colossal contrast! The world should pay attention to such a colossal contrast. If people had already today sufficient objectivity to observe these things, they would be able to see, on the one hand, the one who raises the demand of the Christ-permeated state, the Christ-permeated social structure, Soloviev. They would view him as somebody still stimulated by the Oriental element and casting, so to speak, a final spark into this Europe growing torpid, in order to revive it again from this viewpoint. On the other hand, Czar Nicholas or his predecessors could well be placed together with Czar Lenin; the fact that they give vent to different ideas in the historical development of mankind does not constitute a fundamental difference between them. What matters are the forces living in them and shaping the world, and the same forces dwell in Lenin that dwell in the Russian Czar; there really is no fundamental difference. It is naturally difficult to find one's way within this melee of forces that extend into European civilization from earlier times. Initially, it is indeed a melee of forces and a firm direction must be sought. Such a firm direction can be found in no other way than by lifting the ego up to a spiritual comprehension of the world. Through a spiritual comprehension of the world, the Christian impulse must be reborn. What has been striven for in regard to the external world since the first third of the fifteenth century must be striven for in reference to the totality of the human being; the whole human being has to be understood based on the knowledge of the world.

The comprehension of the world must be viewed in harmony with the understanding of humanity. We must understand the earth evolution in phases, in metamorphoses. We have to look at earlier embodiments of our earth, but we must not consider a primordial nebula devoid of human beings. We have to look at Saturn, sun, and moon as already permeated with the activity of human beings; we must observe how the present structure of the human being originated from the earlier metamorphoses of the planet earth and how the human form in an early phase was likewise active there. We must recognize the human being in the world, and out of this knowledge of man in the world an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha can well up once again. Human beings must learn to understand why an impassable region surrounds the Castle of the Grail, why the path between birth and death is difficult terrain. When they understand why it is difficult, when they grasp that the ego experiences itself based on the physical organization, when they sense how impossible a merely physical astronomy, a merely physical medicine are, then they themselves will clear the paths. Then people will bring something into this hitherto difficult terrain between birth and death that comes into being through their own soul efforts.

Out of the substance of the soul and spirit, human beings have to fashion the tools with which to break the ground on the field, the soul-field, leading to the Castle of the Grail, to the Mystery of Bread and Blood, to the fulfillment of the words, “Do this in remembrance of me” [Luke 22:19]. For this remembrance has been forgotten; people are no longer aware of what dwells in the words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” For this is truly done in remembrance of the mighty moment of Golgotha if the symbol of the bread, that is what develops out of the earth through the synthesis of cosmic forces is understood. It is done rightly if we understand once again how to comprehend the world through a spiritualized cosmology and astronomy, and if we learn to comprehend the human being based on what his extract is, namely, the element where the spiritual directly intervenes in him—if we grasp the Mystery of the Blood. Through work on the inner being of human souls the path must be discovered that leads to the Holy Grail. This is a task of cognition, this is a social task. It is also a task that, to the greatest extent possible, is hated in the present

For due to being placed within the ego education of Western civilization, human beings develop above all a longing to remain passive inwardly in the soul, not to allow earthly existence to give to them what could bring progress to their souls. The active taking hold of the soul forces, the inward experiencing, and this does not necessarily mean occult development but merely the experience of soul nature in general; yet this is something European humanity does not like. Instead, it wishes to continue what was natural for the epoch directly preceding it, namely, the ego development, which does, however, lead to the most blatant egotism, to the blindest raging of instincts, when it is extended beyond its own age. This ego feeling, extending beyond the time properly assigned to it, first of all has penetrated the sentiments of national chauvinism. It appears in national chauvinism; from these feelings arise the spirits who wish to keep the path to the Holy Grail in an impassable condition. But it is our obligation to do everything that can be done in order to call human souls to activity in the area of knowledge as well as in the social sphere. Yet, all those forces filled with hatred against such activity of the soul emerge in opposition to such a call. After all, haven't people been conditioned long enough so that they concluded, We must consider heretical all our own soul efforts to free ourselves from guilt; we must properly cultivate the awareness of sin and guilt, for we must not progress by means of our own efforts, but must be redeemed in passivity through Christ?

We fail to understand Christ if we do not recognize Him as the cosmic power that completely unites with us when through questions and inner activity we work our way through to Him. Everywhere today, from the denominations, from theology and those who were always connected to theology, from the military and science—from all this we see arise those powers today that try to obstruct the path of inner activity.

For a long time, I have had to call attention to the fact that this is the case, and I have had to say again and again: the arising opposing powers will become more and more vehement. Indeed, to this day this has certainly come true. It is definitely not possible to say that the opposition has already reached its greatest strength. Not by a long shot has it attained its culmination. This opposition has a strong, organizing power in concentrating together all the elements that, while they are in reality destined to decline, can obstruct in their very decline for the time being everything working with the forces of upward striving progress. The forces fostering the activity of souls are weak today in comparison to the opposing elements. Those forces that, based on the comprehension of the spiritual world, try to turn the progressive forces into forces of their own soul are weak. The world has taken on an ahrimanic character. For it was inevitable that the ego, having comprehended itself in the physical element, is taken hold of by ahrimanic forces if it remains in the physical element and does not lift itself up at the right time to a spiritual understanding of itself as a spiritual being. Indeed, we see this process of usurpation by the ahrimanic powers; we observe it in the fact that, little as the sleepy souls would be willing to admit this, an actual tendency towards evil is making itself felt everywhere today.

An inclination towards evil is clearly noticeable, for example, in the manner opponents fight against anthroposophical spiritual science and everything related to it. From the most questionable sources come the means with which individuals battle today against spiritual science, even individuals who enjoy a prestigious standing in the world in scientific or theological circles. The truth is not what people are concerned with. It is only a matter of what slander suits these individuals best and what they like better. It is truly a matter of humanity being strongly possessed by the forces of evil, by a love for evil. Those who are unable today to reckon with this tendency for evil, with this ever increasing love for evil in the battle against anthroposophy, will not be able to develop a feeling, an awareness of the kind of opposing forces and powers that will yet arise in the future. For years, reference has been made to this ever-increasing development. If nothing more can be attained than a clear feeling of it, then this clear feeling, which is, after all, also a force, must at least be maintained. We have to look into the world and be aware of the way it surrounds us. With a sober mind we must realize what is really facing us in the filthy slander that is now emerging from among our opponents and that is the more impressive the more tarnished its source.

It is really necessary to become acquainted with this particular tendency, with this love of evil, that will become more and more prevalent. It is truly necessary not to wallow groggily in excuses that the opponents are convinced of what they say. Do you really believe that in individuals such as the one who has emerged as the newest opponent against anthroposophical spiritual science even the possibility for an inner force of conviction is present? Not even the possibility of conviction is present in him. He acts out of quite different deeper motives. It is indeed a clever move to seek particularly in this direction, to seek for the manner of viewing things that is based on fooling the opponent. Who is the better commander? He who can best fool the enemy! But when this principle is transferred to the means of battling against truth, then such a battle is a battle of the lie, of the personified lie against truth. We must realize that this battle of the personified lie against truth is capable of anything, that it will definitely attempt to take away from us what we have tried and are still trying to attain in the way of outward supports in order to find bearers of truth in this civilization. It is not exaggerated to say that there exists the most profound and thoroughgoing wish to deprive us of the Waldorf School and this building.⁴ And if we pay no attention to this; if we do not even develop in us a feeling concerning the ways and means of this opposition, then we remain sleeping souls. Then we do not take hold with inner alertness of what is trying to pour forth out of anthroposophical spiritual science.

Basically, we should not be surprised now that the opponents could turn out the way they did for that could have been known long ago. The overwhelming impression for us today certainly is that there are too few individuals who can be active representatives of our spiritual movement. It is generally still easier to be effective among human beings by means of force, control, and injustice than by means of freedom. The truth that is to be proclaimed through anthroposophical spiritual science is permitted to count only on human freedom. It must find people who ask questions. One certainly cannot say, Why doesn't this truth possess in itself the strength to compel human souls by virtue of divine-spiritual power? It does not wish to do that; it cannot do that. The reason is that it will always consider inner freedom, the freedom of the human being in general, to be something absolutely inviolable. If the human being is to come to anthroposophy out of his own judgment, he must become one who asks questions; out of the innermost freedom of judgment he must convince himself. The word of spiritual truth will be spoken to him; convincing himself of it is something he must do on his own. If he wishes to cooperate and be active in society, he must do so out of the innermost impulse of his heart. Those who belong in the truest sense of the word to anthroposophical spiritual science must become people who ask questions.

What do we encounter on the side of the opposition? Do not believe that only those who band together who are in some way one-sided in any one creed. No, in a Catholic church in Stuttgart, a sermon tells its listeners, Go to the lecture by Herr von Gleich.⁵ There you can invigorate your Catholic souls and can vanquish the opponents of your Catholic souls! And these Catholic souls go there; the Catholic, General von Gleich, gives a lecture and concludes with a song by Martin Luther! A fine union of one side and the other—the opponents organize as one! It certainly matters not if they agree in any way in their faith, their convictions.

For us, what matters is the strength to stand firmly on the ground of what we recognize as right. Yes, nothing will be left undone to undermine this ground; of this you can be sure. I had to bring this up one more time, particularly in connection with the considerations concerning the course taken by European civilization; for it is necessary that at least the intention develops to place oneself firmly on the ground we must recognize as the right one. It is also necessary that among ourselves we do not give ourselves up to the popular illusions concerning the various oppositions. Their aim is to undermine the ground we stand on. It is up to us to work as much as is humanly possible, and then, if the ground under us should become undermined and we do slide down into the chasm, our efforts will nevertheless have been such that they will find their spiritual path through the world. For what appears now are the last convulsions of a dying world. But even if it is in its last throes of death, this world can still strike out like a raving maniac, and one can lose one's life due to this frantic lashing out. This is why we must at least recognize what kind of impulses give rise to this mad lashing out. Nothing can be achieved by what is timid; we must appeal to what is bold. Let us try to measure up to such an appeal!

I had to include this so that you would sense that we face an important, significant, and decisive moment, and that we have to consider how we are to find the strength to persevere.

• 1 . Heiland, (meaning “Heiland” or “Savior”), ancient Saxon poetical Gospel work from around A.D. 830.
• 2 . Reference to the overall tendency of descriptions of Jesus at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
• 3 . Vladimir Soloviev, 1853–1900, Russian philosopher and poet.
• 4 . Reference to the first Waldorf School, established in Stuttgart in 1919, and the first Goetheanum.
• 5 . Gleich completed his lecture of April 6, 1921, in Stuttgart with a quote from a song by Martin Luther. On the day before, a Jesuit, Sorel, had recommended that people attend this lecture.