The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The name Lucifer inspires a slight sense of dread in some, and is usually associated with notions of antipathy. Is this justified? The name Lucifer means: light bearer, light bringer. Medieval beliefs were different, but for those who have studied the deep knowledge of the world, Lucifer actually denotes something quite different.

Spiritual beings play a role in human life. The religions of the East speak of deva and dhyani chohan, the more Western religions, such as Christianity, speak of angels and archangels. To those who are familiar with the spiritual worlds, they represent something true and real. Higher beings play a role in human life. Lucifer is also understood to be among the guiding personalities, the leading or seducing ones.

Here we must be clear about dualism – duality – which plays a role in all areas of life. The ancients, including Pythagoras, speak of this duality: light and darkness, male and female, positive and negative magnetism, and we could cite many more such dualities. – When we make a glass rod electrically positive by rubbing it, we simultaneously make the rubbing material electrically negative. The electricity of glass and that of the rubbed material are related to each other as light is to darkness. In the Persian creation myth, we find Ormuzd and Ahriman: good deity, evil deity. Everything that drives the world forward is done by the good god, while everything that hinders it is withdrawn by the evil god. They place man in the middle.

Remember that everything in the world has a good and an evil side. What do human beings, with their culture, not owe to fire. And on the other hand, how destructive the power of fire can be in volcanic phenomena. Germany's great poet Schiller sang gloriously about this in “The Bell”: “Beneficial is the power of fire...” and so on.

This duality also works in man himself. For centuries, the one principle was seen as evil. A distinction was made between divine - good, and luciferic - evil. In the story of creation, the luciferic principle was represented as a snake. Man had to grow out of a dull nature, so the snake came and opened his eyes to good and evil, and thus another principle was opposed to the divine one. The ancient Indians called the Rishis a snake.

We have to go much deeper into the development of the human soul to see what reality underlies the Lucifer principle. In more recent times, views on this have undergone changes. These were already evident in the old Faust saga. Goethe reshaped it to meet human needs. Faust not only wanted to immerse himself in divine science, he also wanted to make a covenant with evil powers. Then he no longer wanted to approach theology, he wanted to remain a medical doctor. He put the Bible behind the bench and that was considered a reason to fall into the hands of evil forces. In Goethe's work, the crux of the matter is in the second part of Faust: “Whoever strives, we can redeem.” So it is not something destructive, but rather a power is evoked that is not opposed to the deity.

If we want to understand this power, we must realize how man fits into the world around him. Man forms one of the kingdoms; alongside him we have the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom. Man perceives himself as a self-aware being and carries within himself all these kingdoms; he is the bearer of all these natures. He has a physical body in common with the mineral, and he also shares the etheric or life body with the plant. Through his world of feelings, which, as the astral body, is the carrier of passions, instincts, desires, he has something in common with the animal. Thus, man is in an interdependent relationship with the three realms.

Man can only sustain his life by breathing. He draws in the air of life – oxygen – into himself, combines the latter with carbon in his body and exhales this poison – carbonic acid. But man and animal could not live if the plant did not continually renew this air of life. Man and animal owe the possibility of life to the plant. The plant owes it to the mineral. It is only logical to extend this chain of development beyond man, not only to lower beings but also to higher ones. Just as man belongs to lower beings, so he also belongs to higher ones. The fact that man does not see higher beings is no reason why they should not exist. Higher senses can bring man this perception.

Man is first of all a tetrad: physical body, etheric body, astral body and the I. He is a developing being. How does his development take place? A savage still follows his animal instincts, he follows every urge; the one who is higher up only follows certain urges, and those who are very high up, let us say, for example, Schiller or Francis of Assisi, follow even fewer of the lower urges, but transform them into ideals. This results in an upward development of the astral body. The inferior man also has an astral body, but he has done little work in it. A superior man raises his astral body from the animal stage to a higher, nobler and more perfect form. The astral body consists of two parts: what other entities have given him, and what he himself has worked into it. That which he has worked into it himself, we call “Manas”, spirit self, and we thus designate the fifth limb of man. Manas is nothing other than the transformed astral body. But man can do much more than transform his astral body. An undeveloped person knows nothing of morality, law, logic; he has developed little Manas.

But there are even deeper changes. In the ninth and tenth centuries, people did not all have such perfect ideas, but much of what they had learned was incorporated into their astral bodies, because it is the carrier of everything we can learn in the world. What we learn changes quickly, but habits and temperaments change more slowly. We could compare what changes quickly with the minute hand of a clock and what changes more slowly with the hour hand. But there is also the opportunity to change what we are used to, and in doing so we change the etheric or life body: because it is denser, it makes it more difficult for the ego to change. As much as the human being changes his etheric body, so much 'budi' arises in him. Religions are instructions on how to work “Budhi” into the etheric body, while morality only changes the astral body. In the highest sense, art does the same as religions.

Thus you can now find the human being with six limbs, even if manas and budhi are only present in him in a germinal state. But there is already secret training that develops the etheric body. What is taught to the individual is doctrine; what transforms humanity is an influence on the budhi, is secret training. A chela, an occult disciple, works in his etheric body.

But what is hardly present in the seed is the Atman. It is such a strong power that a person can work with it right into his physical body. What can a person do in his physical body today? A person who can develop as an artistic human being, as a chela, can become master of his habits. But the person who has worked this seventh link, this Atman, into himself, also learns to control his pulse. And with this, he becomes partaker of the eternal. This is an achievement of mastery.

Now we see the human being with manas, budhi and atman. We now know that man, we said the I, stands in relation to the three lower realms, and now we see that he stands in relation to a realm above him, the divine realm, through what he has worked into himself as Manas. In this divine realm we have to seek the Elohim, divine spirits, of whom the Bible, as Jehovah, names one.

Through his Manas, his spiritual self, man is linked to the higher worlds. Therefore, we speak of man as one who is becoming, an evolving God. Christ Jesus says, “You are gods.” (John 10:34) Man will one day look back on his present spiritual level and he will feel like a human being who has grown out of it completely.

If we believe in evolution, we must also consider this for other beings, and looking back, we see that our older brothers, the Elohim, with them Jehovah, on an earlier planet or on the earlier embodiment of the earth, occupied the same stage that man now occupies on the present embodiment of the earth. The law of embodiment is not only the basis of man, but of all beings. Goethe speaks of the Earth Spirit: “In the flood of life, in the storm of action, I surge up and down,” and so on. The Earth was seen by individuals as a spiritual being and man as its members. The Earth was often embodied and in its previous embodiment it brought the present gods to the level of man. And in a later incarnation, the present-day human being will take on the level of his older brothers, the Elohim or gods. God, the Nameless, the Unfathomable, is not spoken of here. Elohim or Deva, better translated into German as: spirits.

To illustrate this “progressive” view, I will give an albeit trivial example: just as a student passes through different classes, the class that present humanity is going through is what the gods went through in their previous incarnation on Earth. Students also remain in classes, and so there were beings that did not go through this class completely.

Where do they stand today between humans and gods? They are higher beings than humans, but lower than the gods. In a sense, they are familiar with humans. The following law exists: Each of the basic parts of the human being is developed in an incarnation on earth. In the present incarnation on earth, the manas is developing; in the earlier incarnation, the astral body. The essential thing in this development on earth was that man has changed his entire astral body, that he no longer has anything of the animal in him. Through the development of the manas, he can enter into contact with manasic beings. Only when the atman is developed can he develop independently. Today, older brothers work, later still older ones in budhi and still older ones in atman. The higher spirits that have remained are related to the human astral body. They have already tasted of the Divine. Just as in Manas, demigods also help us to assert ourselves and to glow with the Divine. We would remain trapped in lower instincts if it were not for this stimulation. Thus the passions are transformed into higher instincts. There would only be a barren realm of moral principles, but they would not pulsate in man.

The Old Testament has wonderfully developed this law. The entities that evoke enthusiasm, the glow of love for the manasic, are called Luciferic entities. Thus, Lucifer is the one who evokes the astral passion for the divine in man. He thus arouses in him the desire to learn to love the divine, not as a duty, but as an inclination. He adds independence to submission. He is the instigator of human freedom.

Man becomes free only by following the divine out of his own urge. This is reflected in the biblical story of creation. God guided man, he could not choose. Then the serpent came, and the thought came into man, not only to live in God is desirable, but to become God himself, to carry the image of the deity in [himself] as a personality. Through Lucifer — biblically expressed through the serpent — the human body became the light bearer, as Lucifer himself was the light bearer, until Christ entered the world as “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) and realized the principle of love for the divine. External knowledge, knowing what the laws of the world are, now seems dull to man. This external knowledge should grasp our inner being, should intervene directly as theosophy, as an independent inner experience. This is how Lucifer anchors himself in man. This research is called the school of Luciferian striving. These people are called: children of Lucifer.

If the gods gave science, Lucifer gave enthusiasm.

God: Revelation.

Lucifer: freedom.

We have a filial relationship with God; Lucifer awakened the feeling of being an independent being, of freedom. Devotion was a voluntary sacrifice. As everywhere, there must be a duality: God and Lucifer.

Thus, the Luciferic entities have not been left behind for no reason. They are those who strive to lead us to the divine by our own free choice. To do so, man must also have the opportunity to be evil. He can certainly become divine without it, but only through free choice.

If the Supreme is to be free, then it must be anchored in the other nature. In this way, God and luciferic entities work towards perfection and freedom.

Question & Answer: Question: [What does the] sphinx mean?

Rudolf Steiner: What the mind is trying to grasp today is nothing new as a concept. The pyramids represent the ancient views of our ancestors: there are four lines on which they stand = the fourfold nature of the human being, physical body, etheric body, astral body with the I. That is the foundation. Above it rises the triangle, representing the three basic parts that the ego works out of the four: Atman, Budhi, Manas. The trinity is not yet complete. If you want to feel this, then you must look at the sphinx. She represents the lower nature and from the eye the riddle of future development radiates towards you. In it, man prophetically seeks his future.

Question: [Not handed down.]

Rudolf Steiner: There are two writings – they are not actually writings in the strict sense – one is kept by a religious community, a church in secret, the other is kept by a master, a great leader of humanity.

Notes by Alice Kinkel, first degree

The first prayer distinguishes us from all other such endeavors, which are based on documents or on a traditional wisdom. We do not refer to anything like that, we only tie in with the work that has been done, with what has actually been achieved.

In the near future, among other things that will be undertaken against us, our occult movement will also be tried to be suspected and vilified, so we should know this, to which we are joining.

In the spiritual realm, a community like ours exists, but it has only as much justification as souls profess it as the truth. And if someone does not like something about it, they do not need to be part of it. We do not claim to be an order, a Rosicrucian movement or anything of the kind, but our aim is to represent the truth in such a way that we do not claim wisdom as our own, but we do want to appropriate the work that has flowed from it as wisdom.

Wisdom is there; there was an ancient wisdom treasure of humanity, as shown in the “Guardian of the Threshold” by the Grand Master. And how one has to relate to this, that is, how one advances in the occult life, is shown to us by Maria in the second scene with Thomasius. It would be more convenient to give a prescription for all, but it had to be shown in our Western movement how people of the special kind of Thomasius, Strader, Capesius and Maria go the initiation way.

“Compasses and Rule” means: We adopt your customs. Such prayers contain in words everything we need, as do the Mystery Dramas of Dr. Steiner. Every word is there in its place and full of occult meaning. Nothing, nothing is set and said for a reason other than its spiritual meaning and power, as it is.

The opponents of spirituality, such as Haeckel, carry their spiritual darkness deeply hidden within themselves and their rage and anger is actually directed against themselves. Because they cannot access their deepest soul life in life, they show themselves quite differently towards spirituality after death and are most easily summoned, for example, in spiritualistic séances.

Nietzsche is very interesting in this respect; he found it difficult to let go of his material side and that is why he presented such a strange picture to the seer during his illness. The man Nietzsche, this strange personality, lying on the sofa and the aura around him. The split in the ego comes to expression in such personalities; while the consciousness is materialistic, the subconscious is spiritual.

“Brethren of the Future…” – We have no name either, because Lucifer is the patron of every external foundation of an association or society.

Upon admission to the first degree, it is also said: The sign of the first degree will be the expression in the future of self-knowledge or of what is understood by “know thyself”.

Berlin, February 10, 1913

Notes by Alice Kinkel Fourth Degree

A.o.L.o.L.A.

The human being is connected to the self in thirty-three ways. We have to overcome this self through our I. This self is anchored in the human body in the 33 currents in the spinal cord.

The shearer sees how currents emanate from the etheric and astral bodies, which can then be expressed in the movements of the limbs, which are half held back in the speech organs, in the larynx, where the sound is formed, and then held rigidly in the human head, brain and skull, brain lobes. The brain, the symbols for it in the lodge...

Starting with the left hand: I - an outward striving. The sound I - direct the right eye into the indefinite.

Stretching = A - both eyes into infinity.

Embrace = O - Look firmly at a specific point. Cross = E - Place your right hand over your left hand, and your feet in the same way, crossing your right foot over your left - just as the optic nerves are crossed in the human head.

Cupped hand = AO - Bend the body in a semicircle. Fist or clench = U

You should not carry out the movements, but inhibit the movement, press the limbs firmly against the body, but feel the same as if you were carrying out the movements.

We are the lost word of creation. The holy word is to be used only in the sign.

Where are we? In the sign of four.

Name the four: earth, water, air, fire.

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The Cassiazweig has been discussed.

You are all half human; you are to develop the other half that belongs to you through the exercises that have been given to you, gradually. That is the task.

The [Pillars of] Hercules.

The task is this: for six to eight to ten weeks or more of the year, completely switch off the ego in words and thoughts. Only when you have accomplished this will you understand all of this.

Be The following also belongs to the explanations about the four:

The four can also be understood in terms of the four sentences that are always spoken in the lodge and that we know: 1913

Learn silence and you will have power.

Give up power and you will have will. Give up will and you will have feeling. Give up feeling and you will have knowledge.

The four is complemented to the seven: salt, sulfur, mercury.

Now the holy word is broken down again into the four;

earth, water, air, fire

gnomes, sylphs, salamanders

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One column is the sun, the other the moon; both make up the earth.

Esoterics' progress is hindered because they think that the experiences they should have are much more tumultuous than they are. Whereas it's mainly a matter of paying attention to very subtle happenings. Imagine going into a forest on a quiet evening. One would hear the slightest sound—the falling of leaves, a sled's approach, etc. And now imagine a big city. One wouldn't hear them in its noisy streets, yet all of these slight, fine sounds would also be present there.

I often hear the complaint: I can't free myself of the many images and thoughts that arise when I'm meditating. But one can definitely look upon this as progress in meditation. For as the astral body and ego loosen their connection with the physical and etheric bodies during meditation, an esoteric is enabled to objectify his other human being, as it were. He should take a close look at his soul and spiritual part that weaves and works there without his help.

Lucifer's temptation approaches an esoteric from within and that of Ahriman from outside. An example: Say that one is living in a moral and quiet family, but that there are people in the adjacent apartment who read and tell each other a lot of tall tales. Even if one did not hear any of this with one's physical ears it nevertheless becomes imprinted on one's etheric body and then appears during meditation. Another example: One happens to see a dog being run over. Yelping and whimpering can arise in one's own body and continue to work after one experiences such an accident. Or a whole witches' sabbath can arise during meditation out of other connections. The meditator shouldn't despair about this but should be glad, since he can have an inkling of the connection, and thereby learns to look at himself ever more objectively and at everything that worked upon him previously.

It's like a palpation of one's whole body during meditation. Painful feelings will arise here and there as a result of egoism and other things. In this probing one begins above the head and goes down the whole body, one small part at a time.

If one starts from symptoms one will learn to draw conclusions about previous experiences. Thus an inflammation of the middle ear permits one to infer the strangest impressions that were made upon the etheric body through the fact that one heard tall tales as a child without full consciousness, but which had a very vivid effect nevertheless. If someone falls asleep in theosophic talks or similar events, then what he heard continues to work in his etheric body, and this especially if he feels pangs of conscience or if he reproaches himself for having gone to sleep; this often works very strongly in the subconsciousness.

If one reproaches oneself for still being so bad because ugly images repeatedly arise during inner concentration and meditation we can be comforted by the Gospel word: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Etheric body (etheric body). A coarser (externally perceptible) human body (and that of other living beings) underlying finer body (body). It is characterized by the newer theosophy as the system of forces, which have their lawful content from the spiritual basis of the world and which find their expression (objectification) in the organic forms of the physically perceptible body. The etheric body has nothing in common with the speculative-mystical “vital force” of the old vitalists. However, it does coincide with the “inner man” of earlier philosophies, referred to as the “scheme”, and also appears in the world view of Origenes and Augustinus. In more recent times, it found a representative in the philosophers Troxler, I. H. Fichte, among others. In Kant, it is found, albeit surrounded by skepticism, in the dreams of a spirit-seer as a soul-like inner man who bears all the limbs of the outer man within him as a possibility. For modern theosophy, the etheric body is a reality that can be perceived when the “inner senses” of the observer are awakened and brought to perception through appropriate soul training from their latent state in which they are in ordinary human life. It then reveals itself as a system of forces that changes its forms (never taking fixed forms), flows through the physical body and merges into the indefinite (into the forces of the cosmos) in the area of the anterior physical body (like a kind of mirror image of the spine). It forms an intermediate link between the physical body and the higher components of the human being, the soul and the spirit. In the state of sleep, the etheric body remains fully connected to the physical body, while the soul and spirit detach themselves from the region of the sensory organs and the central nervous system (but not from the other organs and the sympathetic nervous system). During dreaming, the spirit is detached from the sense organs and the central nervous system, but the soul is not detached from them. (This detachment is not to be thought of as spatial, but as dynamic). In death, the etheric body, soul and spirit (the soul is also called the astral body, the spirit of man is called the “ego body”) detach themselves from the physically perceptible body (spatially and dynamically); these three parts of the human being remain connected for a short time (several days); then the etheric body detaches itself from the soul and spirit. It then passes over, in accordance with natural law, into the general cosmic forces: one part into the etheric sphere of the earth, another part into the etheric world that does not belong to the earth. This dissolution of the etheric body takes place at different times and also varies in character according to the individual. An observation of the laws of this dissolution is one of the most difficult problems of spiritual science. This kind of dissolution is connected with the character of the physical life on earth and forms part of the causes of destiny that affect soul and spirit after they have passed into the spiritual world after their separation from the etheric body.

We have spoken of two spiritual streams, flowing through different peoples, and passing from old Atlantis towards the East. We saw the difference in their development and how they were enabled to prepare future events; and we observed how the southern stream more particularly tended to deepen the power of penetration to the spiritual world which lies behind the soul world of man, while the other more northerly spiritual stream directed man's attention to his earthly environment in order to make him aware of the spiritual world behind the world of the senses. Mention has been made of the development in the southern stream of qualities which led to spiritual beings connected with the Luciferic principle, and of the gradual approach to earth, on the other side, of the kingly spiritual being behind the sun in order finally to incarnate in a physical body, which, through many incarnations of a certain individuality, had been so purified that the Godhead found in it not merely an image of itself, but was able actually to incarnate within it. The incarnation of the Christ, the sun spirit, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was the great event which took place in the northern stream of peoples. Now these two streams of peoples may, be said to have moved towards each other in order to be mutually enriched, and during their progress there arose, in the first epoch after the great Atlantean catastrophe, the ancient Indian race in the south of Asia, a race in which the human soul was in a certain sense able to look out towards the external world of the senses as well as into itself to find the spirit, because it instinctively recognised the unity between the spirit in the external world and the spirit within man. Let us picture to ourselves the feelings of the ancient Indian when he looked out at the sense world, at the earth with its mountains and forests, its tapestry of plant life, its animal and human kingdoms.

Possessed in high degree of spiritual sight, this ancient Indian soul perceived, underlying everything, a spiritual world consisting of beings of etheric substance, who did not descend to the density of a physical body. In the mountains, trees and stars the soul of the ancient Indian saw not only the dense elements but also the finer, etheric nature, in the shape of the external world of the gods. It should not of course be imagined that these spirits were composed merely of ether but just as the etheric, the astral and the ‘I’ principles are within the physical body of a man, so these spirits had an etheric body for their lowest principle and their other, higher principles in higher worlds. The Indian, looking into this world, felt that he stood upon the Earth; that as man he had through long periods of time developed from the first germ of human existence on ancient Saturn down to the Earth evolution; that it was necessary for him to descend to dense physical matter in order to acquire self-consciousness within it. He said: ‘I, speaking to myself, am an Ego being; formerly I was a companion of all those spiritual beings visible around me to spiritual sight from the etheric world upwards. I have descended from these worlds to denser matter, yet in them all human perfection's are to be found, not only those now possessed by man, but those which he will have to attain through his own efforts. But there is one thing which no being who does not descend to the physical plane can attain. There are in the universe other lofty perfections as well as the recollection peculiar to human consciousness. There are other kinds of consciousness, but in order to develop that of a man on earth, it is necessary for a being to descend to this earth and for a number of incarnations to be embodied in dense matter.’ The soul of the ancient Indian further realised that whatever infinitely higher perfections than man on the Earth these spiritual beings possessed, there was one thing they had not in their world, namely, the human ego consciousness that to say ‘I’ as a man does, was not natural in those higher worlds. The Indian felt himself to originate from these realms and everything existing in the spiritual worlds to be summed up for him in his human ‘I’ consciousness. He knew that to speak of a human ego consciousness in the spiritual world had neither meaning nor content. Hence only a word which excludes this ‘I’ can be applied to everything that in a spiritual sense is spread out in the surrounding world, a word which is not in contact with the ‘I’ ... And the Indian consciousness named that which spread itself out externally, the ‘Tat,’ the ‘That’ in contradistinction to the ‘I.’ In order to express the fact that man is of the same nature and essence as the ‘That,’ the ‘Tat,’ or the ‘It’—that the ‘I’ or ego had only developed because of the descent to the Earth—the Indian said: ‘I am Tat, Thou art That.’ Thus man's relationship to the surrounding spiritual world (to this clairvoyant penetration of the ultimate nature of our world) was combined in the words: ‘It exists; but thou thyself art that.’

But the ancient Indian realised at the same time that the reality without designated as ‘Tat’ is also to be found by a man looking into his own inner being, that this reality manifests at one time from without, at another time from within. Therefore men of those ancient times knew that by sinking down into the soul they came to the same primordial spiritual reality as the external ‘Tat,’ but that the right relationship between them and what was living within them as their original ‘cause,’ so to speak, veiled by the life of the soul, was expressed by saying instead of ‘Thou art That,’ ‘I am Brahman,’ and ‘I am the All.’ And they took the two together to mean the following: ‘When I look out into the world of “Tat” I find a spiritual world, and if I dip down into my own soul life I find a spiritual world, and the two are one.’

As we have seen, in ancient India, a perception of the unity of the outer and of the inner was the typical outlook of the soul; and it is to be expected that the other extreme will consist in turning the gaze outwards, and in penetrating through the tapestry of the sense world to the spiritual world lying hidden behind it. And this is what actually happened to a different people. They saw the outer spiritual world, but could not realise immediately that it was the same as the inner spiritual world. Hence it is not surprising that religious conceptions and philosophical thoughts spring up, all fervently directed to the gods and spirits behind the sense world; that mythical and other descriptions for these divine spiritual beings behind the tapestry of the sense world were given to the people; and that in the mysteries of that age men were led into the spiritual world which is behind the sense world. Nor will it be a matter for wonder that side by side with such mysteries and such racial gods something else is to be found; that at the same time there were mysteries leading man along the path through the inner soul life to its deepest foundations. And in very fact we find a region of post Atlantean civilisation where those two kinds of mysteries existed contemporaneously—a region where on the one side the so-called Apollonian culture and mysteries were developed, and on the other the culture and mysteries of Dionysos. Such a division is to be found in ancient Greece. There we have on the one hand the path which was shown to the people as well as to the Initiates, the path leading out into the spiritual world, to what is behind the senses, to the spiritual world behind the sun. So far as the Greek knew this world, he gave it the name of the realm of the Apollonian beings. Apollo, the Sun god, was the representative of the divine spiritual beings which exist behind the tapestry of the sense world. But there was also a class of mysteries pointing the way through the soul life into its spiritual foundations, mysteries concerning which we already know that man may enter them only, after careful preparation, and after having attained a certain degree of maturity. For this reason the second kind of mysteries was more carefully guarded against immaturity than were the Apollonian. The Apollonian gods were indicated to the masses of the people, whereas the spiritual beings to be found along the path through the inner nature were reserved for those who, through spiritual, intellectual and moral training of their inner life had reached a certain state of maturity. This second kind of mystery cult was known as the Dionysian mystery and its central spiritual being was Dionysos. So it is natural that in Dionysos, this central figure of the inner circle of gods, men perceived a being standing in near and intimate relationship to the human soul; a being not unlike man, but one who did not descend so far as the physical plane; a being to be found by sinking from the physical plane into the depths of the soul life. Here we have in point of fact the deeper causes of the Apollonian and the Dionysian division in the spiritual culture of the Greeks. In more modern times a dim consciousness that something of the kind had existed in Greece made its appearance in several places. The group gathering round Richard Wagner realised the existence of something of the kind although without definite knowledge of its spiritual foundations. And Friedrich Nietzsche, a member of this group, founded his first remarkable and inspired work: ‘The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music’ on this very division of Greek spiritual life into the Apollonian and Dionysian mystery cults. These occurrences were a dim realisation of what may be known to an ever-increasing degree through spiritual meditation. In the minds of many men today there is a kind of yearning for such a deepening of the spiritual life. There is a widespread feeling that this deepening alone can give an answer to man's yearning. Thus in ancient Greece these two divine spiritual worlds are side by side. In ancient India they appeared as a unity, in a state of reciprocal permeation.

Now let us turn again to evolution. We have already seen that only the most advanced group of the northern stream of nations, namely the ancient Persian civilisation of Zoroaster, could originate the ideal of creating a body in which the spiritual being approaching humanity and the earth from outside could incarnate. And Zarathustra took upon himself the task of passing through his incarnations in such a way as to take later re-birth in a body spiritualised to such a degree that it was able to receive into itself the sublime sun-spirit in its most perfect form, in its Christ form. Zarathustra was reborn as Jesus, having made himself ripe through his various incarnations to be the vehicle of the Sun spirit for the space of three years.¹

We may now ask: What is the relation of Apollo to the Christ? When a Greek uttered the name of Apollo, he referred to the spiritual realm behind the sun. But men's conception of a being or of a fact differs according to their capacities. The man who has cultivated a rich inner life within his soul is capable of seeing in a truer form things which a less developed person also sees, so when the Greek uttered the name of Apollo he was indeed referring to the being which later was revealed as the Christ, but he could only conceive of it in a kind of veiled form, as Apollo. Apollo is in a certain sense a garment of the Christ, resembling in its form the being within it. Veil after veil had to fall from that figure conceived of by the soul as Apollo before the Christ could become visible and intelligible to the intuition of men. Apollo is an intimation of the Christ, but not the Christ Himself.

Now what is the most essentially characteristic quality of the Christ so far as our cycle of evolution is concerned? To consider all those divine spiritual beings to which men of ancient times looked up to as the upper gods behind the tapestry of the sense world, as the rulers and lords of the spheres and functions of the universe, is to realise that their characteristic quality is that they do not descend so far as the physical plane; they only become visible to the consciousness of the seer, which transcends the physical plane and is able to see on the etheric plane. There Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Wotan, Odin, Thor, who are all real beings, became visible. It was characteristic of these spiritual beings not to descend so far as the physical plane, but at the most to manifest temporarily in some kind of physical embodiment, a fact which is cleverly indicated in the myths when mention is made of momentary appearances of Zeus or other gods in human or some other form, when they descended to the world of men in order to carry out some purpose. It is not permissible to speak of a permanent physical incarnation of these spiritual beings behind the sense world. We may say that Apollo is a figure incapable of descending into physical incarnation. For this descent requires a higher power than Apollo possessed, namely, the Christ power. And in the Christ all the qualities of the other beings out in the universe were united, all the qualities which are revealed to the consciousness of the seer; but above and beyond all these He possessed the ability to break through the barrier separating the world of the gods from the world of man, and was able to descend into a physical body and become man in a human physical body that had been prepared for Him upon the earth. In the divine spiritual world this ability was possessed by the Christ alone. Thus one being, and one being only of the divine spiritual world descended so far as the stage of taking up its abode in a human body in the sense world, and living as man among other men. This is the great and mighty Christ event, and this is how we have to conceive it. Whereas therefore all gods and spirits can be found only by the consciousness of the seer and beyond the physical world, the Christ is to be found within the physical world, although He is a being of the same nature and essence as the other divine spiritual beings. The other gods can only be found in the external universe: the Christ is He who was born within the human soul, Who, as it were, leaves the outer world of the gods and enters into the inner nature of man. This has been an event of great significance in the evolution of the world and humanity. Before the Christ event it—had been necessary to descend to the sub-terrestrial gods hidden behind the veil of soul experiences if an inner god was sought; the Christ is a God Who may be found without as well as within. This is the essence of what happened in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, after the Indian, the Persian and the Egyptian periods. The contemplative vision and abstract perception in ancient India of the fact that the divine spiritual world was a unity, and that Tat and Brahman, streaming to the soul from two sides, were an unity, became a living life through the Christ event. Formerly men could say that the divinity to be found on the outward path and the divinity to be found on the inward path were one. After the Christ event it was possible to say that if the soul participates in the Christ, a descent to the inner life will reveal a being which is Apollo and Dionysos united in one.

Another question arises here. We have seen that divine spiritual beings of the external world are, for man, represented by the mightiest of them, by the Christ, Who, as an outer being, at the same time becomes an inner being. But what of those other beings designated in the last lecture as ‘Luciferic?’ Knowledge gained as the result of spiritual development teaches us that it would not be correct to say that the beings under the leadership of Dionysos work themselves through into the human soul life, and that, as it were from the other side, a Dionysos—a Luciferic being—incarnated as a man. Here we arrive at something vitally and essentially connected with the evolution of humanity and of the universe. If we go back to very ancient times, we find that the soul looking outwards sees the external spiritual world, and looking inwards, sees the inner divine spiritual world; the Apollonian world objectively, and the Dionysian world subjectively, to use the Greek expressions. Later on in evolution matters change somewhat. In the most ancient times, when a vast majority of men were possessed of spiritual vision, facts were as I have just described them. Objectively the upper gods were seen; subjectively, the lower gods; and there were these two paths into the spiritual world. In later times man's capacity for spiritual vision decreased; he gradually lost his original dim clairvoyance. But let us take a period in which a few men still possessed a natural spiritual vision. We need not go so very far back, for in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch such natural sight still existed. At that time men, on penetrating through the tapestry of the sense world, saw the upper gods, and on descending into the depths of their own souls, the lower gods. Those who had passed through a certain degree of initiation felt these impressions more clearly and powerfully. I should mention of course that at all times there have existed initiates with full knowledge of the unity of these two worlds; but they are men who have reached the apex of humanity. Centuries therefore before the appearance of Christ on earth, there were men who still had the old spiritual sight, and initiates who by following one path were able to find the upper gods, or following the other were led to the lower gods. But there came an age where the region which we call the world of the lower gods gradually withdrew from human life and was difficult of attainment even for those who had passed through the early degrees of initiation; but in this period it was comparatively easy at an early stage of initiation to attain to what we call the upper gods behind the outer world of the senses. Take, for instance, an initiate of the ancient Hebrew people. Such an initiate could, even if he had not attained a very high degree of initiation, look into a region where Jehovah was not merely an idea, a concept, but an etheric reality, a being which spoke to them as a man in their spiritual consciousness.

While therefore the existence of Jehovah was proclaimed to the people, to the initiates he was a reality. On the other hand it had become more difficult for an initiate of the ancient Hebraic world to find anything by dipping down into his own soul life, and searching there for the domain of the lower gods. In that region he would have felt no solid ground, but everywhere would have encountered the thick crust of his soul life through which he could not penetrate to the lower gods. The lower gods had withdrawn into a certain unknown obscurity. This was the time of the Christ's descent to the earth, when the Luciferic spirits had to a certain extent withdrawn into the darkness. And at that time men in the outer world only knew that the mysteries existed, and that those initiated into them acquired the faculty of penetrating through the forces of the soul life into the Dionysian world. There was just a vague inkling of the deep secrets which could be investigated by man in the mysteries. But the subject was merely alluded to and very few people had a clear idea of it at the time when the Christ was expected. Their ideas of the outer gods were much more definite. There were many men who still had living experience of these gods. But the evolution of humanity progresses. And with what result? There is a history of outer humanity, and in the future there will also be a history of the mysteries. Outer humanity will transform its spiritual culture and the Christ will enter into it more and more. In the mysteries, too, the nature of the Christ being, which today is hardly appreciated at all, will come to be understood. The god who could be perceived at the time of Zarathustra when spiritual sight was directed to the sun, and who descended to the earth, will be understood with ever growing intimacy by the human soul. The god who was the ruler of the outer world will become more and more an inner god. The Christ traverses the world in such a way that from a cosmic god who descended upon earth, He becomes an inner mystical god, Whom man will gradually be able to experience in the depths of his soul life. Therefore it was, that at the time of the descent of the Christ there could be accomplished what His disciples, the Apostles, described in the words: ‘We have laid our hands in His wounds, and have heard His words on the mountain.’ The essential point is that the Christ was on earth in a physical body. At that time He could not have been experienced physically within, or understood in His Dionysian nature; He had first to be experienced as the outer, historical Christ. But the progress of man's consciousness of the Christ consists in His ever deeper descent into the soul, and it will become possible for man to live through his own soul experiences subjectively, finding the mystical Christ within his own soul, in addition to the knowledge he has of the outer Christ. It will be observed how in the so-called mysticism which arose in the early days of Christianity, through Dionysius the Areopagite, a friend and pupil of St. Paul, the Christ is first understood by external occult faculties. And all the descriptions of this first occult Christian school are of a kind that depict the Christ essentially as having those qualities which he unfolds in the external worlds, and which may be experienced by instinctive spiritual sight when it is turned outwards. Then let us proceed a few centuries further in human evolution and see what has come about; let us enquire into mediaeval mystical development, into the deep inner experiences of Meister Eckhart, of Johannes Tauler, etc., and to our more modern mystics. Here are men who look down into their own souls. Just as in ancient times men looked within themselves in order to penetrate through this inner life to Dionysos, so the more modern mystics, piercing inwards, could say like Meister Eckhart: ‘The historical Christ is in very truth a fact; His development takes place in outer history but there is a possibility of descending into one's own inward life, and of there finding the inner mystical Christ.’ Thus the human soul developed the capacity of finding the Christ not only in the outer world, but also within, of finding the mystical Christ in His Dionysian nature. First the historical Christ came into being, and then through the work of the historical Christ, influences were brought to bear on the human soul of such a nature that a mystical Christ within human evolution has become possible. Therefore we may, with regard to modern times, speak of an inner mystical experience of the Christ; but we must also understand that the Christ was a cosmic god before His descent upon earth. If, in those former times, man plunged into his inner soul life, he found not Christ, but Dionysos. Today if development has come about in the right way, we find an inner Christ Being there. The Christ, at first a divinity external to the soul, has become a divinity within the soul, who will take fuller possession of it, the more the soul experiences draw near to the Christ. Here we have an example of a transformation of principles during the development of the world. When modern men speak of the mystical Christ within the soul, they should not forget that everything in the world has developed, and that mystical consciousness has not been the same through all time, but has also evolved to its present state. When the holy Rishis of antiquity looked up into the spiritual worlds they spoke of Vishvakarman, who was the same cosmic being to whom Zoroaster referred when he spoke of Ahura Mazdao. It was the Christ Being. Today this being may also be found in the inner life as the mystical Christ. This is the result of the Christ's own deed on the earth. This is the true relation of the cosmic, astronomical Christ to the mystical Christ. The outer god has gradually become an inner god.

But since every event in the external physical world is an effect of a spiritual occurrence, this penetration of the soul by the Christ has also its effect upon the other life. This effect will manifest first of all in the mysteries, and has already partly done so since the foundation of the Western mystery schools of the Rosicrucians. When by means of the discipline of the old mystery schools a man had sunk more deeply into his soul and descended to the lower gods, he found Dionysos, which is only another name for the world of the Luciferic gods. But at the time when the Christ in His glory was approaching the earth, the Luciferic reality sank into darkness even for spiritual consciousness, if the latter had not attained the very highest stages. Only the highest initiates were still able to descend to the Luciferic gods. Other men had to be told that if they descended while yet unpurified and immature, these Luciferic beings would only appear in distorted images, as wild demons who would tempt them to all sorts of evil. This is the original of all the terrible descriptions of this subterranean realm, and of the fear of the mere name of Lucifer at a certain time. And as everything is transmitted hereditarily to men who do not progress with evolution, there are still some who have inherited the fear of the name of Lucifer. But for spiritual consciousness the Luciferic world emerges again after the Christ principle has for some time been working in the soul. As soon as the Christ has worked in the soul for a while, the soul, permeated by the Christ substance, becomes mature enough to penetrate again into the realm of the Luciferic beings. The Rosicrucian initiates were the first to be able to do this. They strove to understand and see the Christ in such a form that as the mystical Christ He permeated their souls, and lived within them, and that this Christ substance in their inner being became a bulwark of strength against all attacks. It became a new light within them, an inner, astral light. Historical experience of the Christ in His true being illuminates the soul to such an extent that men again become able to penetrate into the realm of Lucifer at first only the Rosicrucian initiates were capable of this, and they will gradually carry out into the world what they have been able to experience with regard to the Luciferic principle, and will pour out over the world that mighty spiritual union which consists in the fact that the Christ, Who has poured Himself as Substance into the human soul is understood henceforth by means of the spiritual faculties that mature in the spirit of individual men through a new influx of the Luciferic principle. Let us consider an initiate of the Rose Cross. He first prepares Himself by the continual direction of the feeling, conceptions and thoughts within his soul to the great central figure of the Christ, by allowing the mighty figure of the Christ, as depicted by the Gospel of St. John, to work upon him, and in this way he purifies and ennobles himself. For our souls change fundamentally when we gaze in reverence upon the figure depicted by the Gospel of St. John. If we receive within us what streams forth from this figure, as described by St. John, the mystical Christ comes to life within us. And if we further this process by the study of other Christian documents, the soul is gradually permeated by the spiritual substance of the Christ, is cleansed and purified and reaches higher worlds. Feelings more especially are purified in this way. We either, like Meister Eckhart and Tauler, learn to conceive of the Christ in a universal sense, or else to experience Him with the tenderness of Suso and others; we feel united with that which streamed to the earth from the wide expanse of the heavenly worlds through the Christ event. Thereby a man makes himself ready to be led as a Rosicrucian initiate consciously into those regions which in ancient times were called the Dionysian worlds and may now be called the Luciferic worlds.

What is the effect upon modern Rosicrucian initiates of this introduction into the Luciferic worlds? If their feelings glow with enthusiasm for the divine as soon as they are permeated with the Christ substance, the other faculties through which we understand the world are illuminated and strengthened by the Luciferic principle. In this way the Rosicrucian initiate ascends to the Luciferic principle. His spiritual faculties are intensified and elaborated through initiation, so that he not merely feels the Christ mystically within His soul, but can also describe Him, can speak of Him and picture Him in spiritual images or thought pictures; so the Christ is not merely dimly felt and experienced but stands before him in concrete outlines, as a figure of the outer sense world. It is possible for man to experience the Christ as soul substance when he directs his gaze to that figure of the Christ which meets him in the Gospels. But to describe and understand Him in the way that other phenomena and events in the world are understood, and thereby to gain an insight into His greatness, His significance and His causative connection with world evolution, is only possible when the Christian initiate advances to knowledge of the Luciferic realms.

Thus in Rosicrucian science it is Lucifer who gives us the faculty for describing and understanding the Christ.²

What the centuries have been able to do is to propagate the Gospels; so that the Word streaming forth from them enabled hearts and souls to be warmed by their message, to be permeated by the fire and enthusiasm which flow out from them. Today we stand at a stage of human evolution when it can no longer suffice to receive the Gospels as a tradition in the old way; today men need something else. Those who decline to accept this new teaching will have to bear the Karma of opposition to the introduction of the Luciferic principle into the interpretation of the Gospels. There may be many who say: ‘We are content to accept the Gospels as simple Christians; we feel that they satisfy us; the Christ speaks through them, and He does so even when we receive them as traditionally handed down for centuries in religion.’ Although these people may imagine themselves to be good Christians, they are in reality enemies of the Christ, who on account of their personal egoism, and because they still feel themselves satisfied by what is offered in the traditional interpretation of the Gospels, would sweep away that which in future will bring Christianity into glory. Those who today believe themselves to be the best Christians are often the most effective exterminators of real Christianity. Those who today understand the development of Christianity think quite differently. They say that they do not wish to be the egoists who think that the Gospels suffice and assert that they will not have anything to do with abstractions. What spiritual science has to offer is far removed from being an abstract teaching. Real Christians today know that humanity needs something more than the Christianity of the egoists; they realise that the world can no longer be satisfied with the old Gospel tradition, and that the light from Lucifer's kingdom must be thrown upon it. They listen to the teachings proceeding from Rosicrucian schools of initiation, wherein the spiritual faculties have been intensified by the Luciferic principle, in order to penetrate more and more profoundly into the Gospels, and these initiates have found the Gospels to be of such infinite depth that it is impossible to imagine that they can ever be exhaustively dealt with. But today the time has already arrived when the Rosicrucians must let their teachings flow out into the world; they are called upon to spread abroad what they have gained from the Luciferic world in the form of intensification of spiritual forces and faculties, and to pour this into the Gospels. The spiritual science of the West consists in letting the light which streams forth and may be gained from Lucifer's kingdom be cast upon the Gospels. Spiritual science should be an instrument for the interpretation of the Gospels. So it is part of our work to bring to man the joyful message about the substance of the Christ Being, which permeates the world, and to allow the light which may be gained in Lucifer's kingdom on the path of Rosicrucian initiation to fall upon the Gospels. Thus we see that the Christ, Who formerly was a god living in the outer world, became the mystical Christ, and that by His ennoblement of the human soul, He has brought it back again to the realm called in ancient times the Dionysian world, which for awhile had to be shut off and which will be re-attained in the future by man. The interpretation of the Christ by spiritual faculties illuminated by Lucifer, is the inner and essential kernel of the spiritual stream which must flow through the western channel. And what I have said represents the mission of Rosicrucianism in the future.

What is it therefore that comes to pass in human evolution? Christ and Lucifer, the one as a cosmic god and the other as a god within the human soul, dwelt side by side in ancient times, one to be found in the upper regions and the other in the nether regions; then the evolution of the world progressed and for some time it was known that Dionysos or Lucifer, was far away from the earth; on the other hand the cosmic Christ was felt to be penetrating the earth to a greater and greater degree; Lucifer again became visible, and was once more able to be known. The paths taken by these two divine spiritual beings may be pictured more or less in the following way: they approached the earth from two different sides; Lucifer became invisible at the time when his path cut across that of the Christ—his light was overpowered by the Christ light. The Christ entered the human soul, became the planetary spirit of the earth, growing more and more to be the mystical Christ within human souls, and can be felt and realised through inner experiences. In this way the soul becomes gradually more capable of again beholding the other being, who took the reverse way, from within to without. Lucifer, from a being within man's inner nature, a purely earthly being such as he was when he was sought in the mysteries leading to the underworld, becomes a cosmic god. He will appear in ever-greater radiance in the outer world which we behold when we look through the tapestry of the sense world. Man's vision will become reversed. In the past Lucifer was seen behind the veil of the inner soul world, and the Christ, as by Zarathustra, behind the veil of the sense-world, but in the future the Christ will to an ever greater degree be realised by inner spiritual meditation and Lucifer will be found when the gaze is directed outwards into cosmic regions. Thus we have to record a complete reversal of the conditions by which man can acquire knowledge in the course of human evolution. The Christ, an erstwhile cosmic god, has become an earthly god, who is henceforth the soul of the earth; Lucifer, an erstwhile earthly god, has become a cosmic god. And when in the future, man desires again to ascend to the external spiritual world hidden behind the veil of the sense-world, and is not willing to stop short at the external and material, he must penetrate through the sense-world into the spiritual world and must allow himself to be borne to the light by the ‘Light Bringer.’ No faculties for penetration into that region can arise in man if he does not create them out of the forces flowing to him from Lucifer's kingdom. Men would be drowned in the sea of materialism, would persist in the belief that there is nothing except the outer world of matter, if they did not ascend to inspiration through the Luciferic principle. Just as the Christ principle exists to strengthen our inner being, so the Luciferic principle intensifies and develops those faculties by means of which we have to penetrate into the spiritual worlds fully and completely.

Lucifer will intensify our understanding and comprehension of the world; the Christ will strengthen us perpetually within.

• 1. Dr. Steiner has in many lectures gone more fully into the difference between the Jesus of Bethlehem and the Jesus of Nazareth, and explained to some extent the deep mystery here referred to. The translation of a small work by Dr. Arenson on this subject, and called the “History of the Child-hood of Jesus,” is strongly recommended to those interested. It is published simultaneously with this volume by the Anthroposophical Publishing Company, price 2p.
• 2. It is easy to see how, conformably with the use of the ordinary word ‘Lucifer,’ ill will or ignorance may throw calumny on what has been here said; that however cannot prevent these things being stated. Anyone, who understands by Lucifer what is here meant, must necessarily have other conceptions.

We will begin the lecture today by thinking of what is implied by the word “chance.” We say that certain happenings in the world are comprehensible to us because they take their course “in accordance with law” in them we recognise certain laws, “natural laws.” Of other happenings it is said that they seem to be governed by no law; the time at which they occur, the sequence of circumstances connected with them ... all must be attributed to “chance.” Modern science, recognising only those abstract laws which it calls the “laws of Nature,” will certainly be prone, where these laws prove inapplicable, to speak of “mere chance,” of something, that is to say, in regard to which conformity to law cannot be admitted. When modern science speaks of “chance” in cases to which its laws do not apply, it really puts a ban upon any suggestion of conformity to law. Both generally and in particulars, there is hardly anything more intolerant in human life than the “scientific attitude.” I do not, of course, refer to scientific facts, for they are presented in a way which does science the very highest credit, and intolerance does not come into question here. I am speaking of the “scientific attitude” which arises on the foundation of these facts. The attitude of materialistic thought today is an example of almost the greatest intolerance to be found in history.

If in the light of Spiritual Science, we consider “chance” in relation to the life of feeling, our first question will be: How does chance befall the human being? How does it present itself to him? ... When something happens “by chance,” “fortuitously,” it seems as though a man could not possibly, out of his own thoughts—whatever they may be—ascribe any meaning, any inner conformity to law, to this “chance” event. It looks as though reason must simply let it go at that, without bothering to ascertain whether any conformity to law could possibly be attributed to it. People are usually unwilling to bring reason or intelligence to bear upon unforeseen occurrences which, as such, are apparently quite inexplicable. Where feeling is concerned, however, the attitude is very different, although this is not generally realised. Feeling does not always allow itself to be dominated by intellectual preconceptions or by the reasoning mind, but rises out of hidden depths of the soul where man is wiser than he is in his intellect and reason. Thus it may well happen that in his life of feeling a man is attracted or repelled, pleased or displeased by what his reason and intellect call “pure chance.” We will take a definite example. A schoolboy is wrestling with a sum he has to solve; he pores over it and struggles hard but still cannot get it right. After persistent efforts he solves it, to his great delight. But he says to himself: “To be quite certain that I have got it right and shall not be kept in and be given a bad mark, I must go through it all again.” So he makes up his mind that after supper he will work it all out again. Then, quite by chance, and owing to entirely unrelated circumstances, a classmate turns up at his home and asks him what solution he has reached. They compare results and find that they agree. In this way the boy is spared from an additional strain; not needing to pore over the sum any longer, he is free and can go to bed at once. Now if the father is what is called an “enlightened” man, he will say: “The other boy did not call in unexpectedly just to save my boy an hour's study which might have injured his health, but was sent by his mother to bring something I had left behind.” The father calls it “chance.” But the boy has a feeling of happiness, although he will probably not go to the length of believing that an Angel brought this school friend to him; the reaction of his feelings, at any rate will be quite different from that of his reason and intellect. The father will certainly not be inclined to accept the idea that an Angel from Heaven sent the friend to his son, yet he too will feel glad about what happened.

That is what I mean when I say that when feeling rises out of hidden depths in the life of soul, it may well be cleverer than the intellect and the reasoning mind which have to develop independence in the course of the Earth's mission, to develop in such a way that they are thrown back entirely on themselves; reason and intellect are, so to speak, “God-forsaken,” and can therefore easily fall into the error of believing that in what presents itself to them as chance, there is no Divine-Spiritual conformity to law, nor anything like it. Therefore we may say that what rises out of the depths of the soul makes us—as in this case—cleverer in our feelings than we are in our life of intellect and reason. This indicates quite clearly that Spiritual Science is right when it asserts that what lies in the depths of the soul and rises in the feelings from these depths, originates from an epoch when the human being was not thrown back entirely upon himself; that the element of sympathy or antipathy in the life of soul is something that came over from the Old Moon period. Therefore, during the course of Earth-revolution, the human being has to become as clever in his life of intellect and reason as he became in his life of feeling during the Old Moon period of evolution. Someone may say at this point: “But I have observed that feelings are by no means always clever; they can also be the very reverse!” The reason for this is that our feelings as men of Earth are influenced by the intellect which works down into the feelings. If our feelings are stupid, they have become so only because they have been influenced by the intellect. If the life of feeling had remained immune from this influence, despite the circumstances connected with incarnation and the general evolution of mankind, then the feelings would, in fact, be cleverer than the intellect and the reason.

Considered from this point of view, something of peculiar interest concerning “chance” presents itself, something that is extremely instructive. The question might indeed be raised: “Is there not also significance in the very fact that certain things can be regarded as fortuitous, accidental? Is not that in itself significant?” The question is a natural one, for it is precisely during Earth-evolution that the human being must develop intellect and reason—in other words, what is called the “normal” consciousness. At the end of Earth-evolution man should have reached the stage of perceiving law in those happenings and facts which today he considers fortuitous; they seem to him to be examples of pure “chance”; he can see in them no immediate evidence of the law manifested by happenings in Nature; their conformity to law is wholly concealed. But precisely in those things which during the Earth-evolution conceal all evidence of law, seeming to be pure chance, man will learn to perceive a deeper conformity to law; when Earth-evolution has run its course—but not until then—this law will present itself with the same inexorable “necessity” now associated with the laws of nature. If what are now called “chance” happenings appeared to be subject to the necessity of natural law, man would learn nothing from them. He would not be able to bring himself to say of some event: “I can either regard it as full of significance—or as chance!” And so because it is given into the hands of man and is a matter of his own free will whether he will apply intelligence and reason to what looks like “chance,” he learns to find his way through earthly incarnations, to permeate with reason and intelligence what seems to be subject to no rule and to be brought merely by chance: so that what cannot, by its very nature, appear to him as an evidence of rigid conformity to law, appears, finally, as evidence of spiritual law.

We are able, here, to glimpse a very wise provision in world-evolution, one which, if we grasp its significance, shows us that with extraordinary wisdom, certain things were ordained to appear as “chance.” We have therefore, ourselves to unravel the threads of the law which has, first of all, to be discovered within them. In order that for the sake of our own development, we might be taught self-knowledge and learn to weigh ourselves in the balance, it was left to our own will either to be wise or foolish, either to recognise conformity to law in so-called matters of chance, or to acknowledge only the inflexible laws of Nature. As time goes on it will be found that certain branches of science will refuse to apply anything except the abstract, laws of outer Nature and will insist upon labelling everything else as “chance.” These branches of science too, of course, represent activity in the life of soul, but if, as Goethe indicates at the end of Faust, man has turned his gaze to a higher world and has drawn nearer to what is spoken of by all true mysticism as the “Eternal Feminine,” the realm in which the “Feminine” is the symbol for the eternal laws of Nature and the sciences ... if that has come to pass, these particular branches of science will, at the end of Earth-existence, be regarded as the “Foolish Virgins.” On the other hand, Spiritual Science and what develops from it will be able to act in accordance with wisdom and law in those domains where the external sciences—the “Foolish Virgins”—are incapable of doing so. This will enable certain branches of science to be the “Wise Virgins” at the end of Earth-evolution. And the beautiful parable in the Gospel indicates what will happen to the Wise and Foolish Virgins in due time. (Matthew 25:1-13)

These things can lead us more deeply into the secrets of world-evolution; and if we connect direct observation of the outer world with what we learn from Spiritual Science, a very remarkable factor comes to light. I will ask you now to accompany me in your thoughts.

You know that during the Earth period, more and more of the content, the data of knowledge, the achievements, the experiences of the normal consciousness, will become an integral part of man's being. But all evolution proceeds slowly and by degrees, and it will occasionally happen—indeed it sometimes happens now—that something which only in the future will be normal for man, projects itself into the life of abstract reason and intellect, into the domain of the various branches of natural science; something not derived from the normal consciousness but connected with higher forms of consciousness projects itself into life. It is naturally veiled from the normal consciousness, but it points, nevertheless, to the deeper backgrounds of existence. Hence it is to be expected that whenever there is a projection of something which transcends the normal consciousness, it will also, strangely enough, be too striking to be lightly put down to “chance.” In other words: As long as a man lives among his fellows with his normal consciousness only, he can speak lightly of “chance.” As long as in mutual dealings among human beings there is no question of any element other than reason and intellect playing into their words and actions, so long will it be possible to speak glibly of “chance.” For then, everything in their intercourse with one another and in external life which does not appear to be subject to law, will look so much like chance that it will be difficult to realise that even in what is, apparently, quite fortuitous, there is a connection regulated by law. But suppose something comes into our earthly life which cuts across the ordinary form of intercourse between human beings, based as it is, merely upon intellect and reason—something which indicates a great deal more! So that you may see what I mean, I want to quote a special case which is to be regarded merely as an example but from which a great deal may be learnt if it is viewed in the light of Spiritual Science. It is an unpleasant, disagreeable case, but one from which we can learn, as in an experiment, what is actually in operation.

In a certain place it happened that a clergyman had alienated a woman's affection from her husband. He had had a kind of love-affair with this woman, causing the husband deep grief. In the same place there lived two men, friends of each other, who were devoted to the clergyman, not merely in their intellectual life, but in their hearts and feelings. They were in his power, in the sense that his influence worked not only through the life of intellect and reason but also through the religious services and rites, through the element of spiritual life in religion. That the rites in this case had not produced any very good effect, is not the point here; the point is the method adopted by the two men and the fact that the clergyman was their spiritual pastor ... The two friends finally decided to do the clergyman a good turn and they consulted together as to how to get rid of the husband. The case has ugly features about it because the spiritual element is mingled with egoistic, human interests, bringing the whole thing near to the region of black magic. The two friends agreed to murder the husband, and actually did so. Thus they both incurred guilt, not merely by their intellectual decision but also because they had come under the sway of a psychological influence which affected the whole parish. We have therefore a curious case of human connections in which not only reason and intellect are operating but also something lying behind reason and intellect—because the clergyman, being what he was, was able to work with means connected with the spiritual life. What is to be expected, in the light of the principles of Spiritual Science known to us? Because events are causes and, as such, bring consequences, we can expect to find something else happening as a result of what then took place. In most occurrences connected merely with the operations of the reason and intellect, you will find many “chance” happenings, and you will speak of them light-heartedly as such, if you know nothing of Spiritual Science. But it will not be possible to speak of “chance” when there is definite evidence of a psychic influence having been involved in the causes of certain happenings. Here were two friends who had co-operated in the murder. In such a case, karma may be expected to work in a very definite way and all the circumstances oblige us to think of something more than “chance.” Something very special must have been at work, for in this case there is evidence of an influence which might be termed “grey” or “black” magic. And what did, in fact, happen? The two murderers fell ill unaccountably, each with a different illness, and both died within the same hour. Those who insist upon speaking of “chance” will naturally want to do so here too; but those less determined to attribute everything to chance will try to reflect a little more deeply. What has been said in connection with this striking example will be confirmed in many ways if you are willing to probe thoroughly into incidents suggesting the interplay of something more than belongs specifically to the Earth-mission and Earth-consciousness; in this case, something rooted behind the sphere of external existence is in operation, indicating by the peculiar course of events, “abnormal” conditions—as common parlance would express it. But those who observe events from the standpoint of Spiritual Science will say: Here is a direct indication that because there is something different in the actual causes, the karmic course taken by the consequences of those causes will be strikingly significant.

Thus when we know of the power of the Supersensible behind the world of sense, the very way in which the external facts present themselves is an indication that such happenings differ from those in which there is no suggestion of any interplay of the Supersensible. Ordinary science would do well to investigate matters other than the pointless subjects which are dragged to light nowadays and which Friedrich Theodor Vischer—in some respects a very shrewd writer—ridiculed in the following way. He said: There was once a learned scholar who went to Goethe's house and burrowed in all the dust that had been accumulating for years, examining every scrap of paper still lying in the wastepaper baskets; then he searched in all the corners, turned over the dirty rubbish heaps, and finally produced a treatise on “The Connection between Frau Geheimrat von Goethe's Chilblains and the symbolical characters in the Second Part of Faust!” That is a rather radical example but in the catalogues of the most learned publications, similar things are to be found. It would be well if external science, instead of occupying itself with such matters as Vischer had in his mind, were to turn to happenings like the one quoted, which provide striking evidence that occurrences attributed to “chance” but indicating the existence of psychical elements, clearly hint at meaning. The same thing applies, of course, to cases where no psychical factor is in evidence and which may therefore lightly be put down to “chance,” only then it is not so easy to perceive the meaning, and spiritual observation is required to discern the presence of law. And so if we study life, in what confronts us as “chance,” as an antithesis to law, we can see the clash of two worlds, literally the clash of two worlds.

What do I mean by this?

Man has his Earth-mission to fulfil, that is to say, he has to develop and elaborate what is now called the “normal” consciousness. A wise World-Order has made it possible for many happenings to appear to him as chance; it therefore rests with his free will, whether or not he will recognise in them the presence of law. But several currents, not only one, are always in operation. Everywhere there is an inflow of the Spiritual, the Spiritual of which man, too, is part. The Spiritual would have been operating in an occurrence of the kind described above, even if the central figure had not been a clergyman; but in that case his own life of soul would not have been implicated to anything like the same extent.

This episode provides a clear illustration of the operation of another element, side by side with reason and intellect. Both elements play continually into life. Do not imagine for a moment that people who claim to be “Monists,” in other words, materialists, have emancipated themselves altogether from the Spiritual, or that they “believe” in nothing at all, as they pretend. Monism is nothing but belief—belief, moreover, which obscures the Spiritual. What is all important is to see through the illusion, the maya. Human prejudices being what they are, it is, of course, difficult always to see through maya; when people are deeply imbedded in maya it is by no means easy to see through it. Those who look at history today from the standpoint of materialism, may say: “The course of evolution is such that on account of certain purely materialistic contrasts in the social life of man, some kind of collapse is inevitable, and out of this collapse a new order of society will grow.” This is now being taken for granted in the domain of “historical materialism.” It has been prophesied that the clash between classes and ranks will result in a collapse of the social order, and that a new order of society will arise from the ruins. A materialist who speaks in this sense will certainly be ready to admit that he believes in nothing, but bases his judgment upon historical facts; and he will refer with a kind of inner satisfaction, even with glee, to “queer fellows” who spoke of an “Apocalypse,” a “kingdom of a thousand years,” a “millenium,” of a different shaping of the future brought about by the spiritual worlds! He will look down upon them as eccentrics. But it never once enters his head that he is merely accepting another belief, substituting materialistic belief for belief in the Spiritual. Those who are seekers after truth, however, must see through such things and emancipate themselves from maya.

Within us there is a clash of two worlds: one is connected merely with the operations of intellect and reason, resulting from the mission of the Earth as such; the other is connected with spiritual happenings which even in their apparent fortuitousness, speak an eloquent language (as in the instance given and in innumerable other cases).

What is it, then, that can help us, while adhering to the purpose and mission of Earth-existence, to seek for the working of law in “chance,” recognising the wisdom with which world-evolution has made it possible for certain things to appear as “chance,” in order that when we ourselves become a little wiser, we shall wish to discover the operation of law in them? Without exonerating the weaknesses of the times, let us face the facts clearly.

With dauntless scientific daring, men of the present age place their reliance upon the laws of Nature and are not afraid to bring the facts and happenings of Nature into the framework of these laws. In this respect men are truly courageous And why? It may sound harsh but in a certain sense it is true to say that they are courageous because after that there is nothing more to do! No special courage is needed to recognise natural laws or to anticipate laws where external phenomena themselves speak so forcibly. In these days, as a matter of fact, there would be an inclination to pay greater respect to those who are bold enough to deny natural laws than to those who recognise them If someone were to say: “People maintain that natural law exists, but after all, it, too, may well be only “chance ” ... this might evoke greater respect because it would be a radical and audacious step to admit the possibility of chance in the sphere of natural law. Nietzsche was one who came very near to the point of regarding everything as chance. Again, someone might say: “Even if hitherto the sun has risen every morning, that might likewise be a matter of chance; the daily sunrise may be regarded as chance as justifiably as other happenings.” Such a statement might be forcible and audacious—but it would be false! In their recognition of natural laws operating in chemical and physical processes men are undoubtedly courageous—the courage is certainly there ... but it is cheap! The facts of Nature do not readily lend themselves to being regarded as chance. Courage evaporates in the face of things generally designated as “chance,” Just where it is most needed and when man ought to say to himself: “Although the happenings confronting me here seem to group themselves together quite haphazardly, I shall try to find a deeper meaning and purpose in them!” To see meaning and purpose in external chance means that the outer facts are being confronted with a strength of soul which also endures in the face of seemingly quite fortuitous happenings. The modern weavings of phantasy in regard to chance are the outcome of inner weakness, because men do not trust themselves to recognise law in the things which seem to be fortuitous. It is really cowardice on the part of science to accept the factor of chance and to be chary of introducing law into what presents itself as disordered chaos simply because law does not make itself immediately apparent. Hence the science of today which really lacks courage and is willing only to concern itself with natural laws, must be counteracted by the forcible and courageous science of the Spirit which makes the soul strong enough to perceive law and order in apparently fortuitous happenings. This is the side of Spiritual Science which must make the human being strong enough not merely to recognise law where the external circumstances themselves compel him to be courageous, but where he must call upon all his inner forces and let them speak with the same compelling power with which Nature happenings speak to him. Nature confronts the human being as a finished work. Within Nature and by the side of Nature, “chance” presents itself. Man himself is involved in this “chance” and much of what he calls his destiny is rooted in the laws underlying it. What is it, then, that is needed? We will now try to answer this question.

Something must take place of which the exoteric world has absolutely no idea. What is needed is an invigoration of the impulse which has led to the scientific method and attitude of today—an invigoration which cannot possibly be drawn from the domain of science alone. External science must receive an impulse deriving from spiritual research. For since external science allows itself to be coerced into accepting natural laws, it will be incapable of unfolding the courage that is necessary for the perception of spiritual law in the realm of the seemingly fortuitous. Spiritual Science must constitute a new impulse which calls for the steeling of courage in the souls of men, an impulse which leads to something absolutely new in the world, even though this amounts merely to a new understanding of what has already been imparted to mankind but remains more or less unconscious; from our time onwards men must become conscious of it. The need for a new impulse is everywhere apparent—even to those who resist it. They themselves realise the need quite clearly but they often proceed in a very strange way. They do not directly admit it, but lacking the courage to adopt the attitude of which we have spoken, they are willing, strangely enough, to be reconciled to all sorts of philosophical opinions concerning the spiritual world which make some slight compromise with the prevailing scientific mentality. Here and there you will find that commendable “tolerance” is extended to teachings concerning a spiritual world although it is not difficult to attribute this tolerance to likes and predilections which have a habit of persisting in sincere and scientifically-minded people ... but you may be quite sure that somewhere or other there will be exceptions. Those who think they have an unconditional right to judge, may say: “Yes, it is possible to come to terms with advocates of idealistic philosophy when they base their acceptance of a spiritual world upon reason.” But when they hear about Spiritual Science or Theosophy, these people adopt a curious attitude and act very strangely, for it makes them uneasy! They cannot altogether account for it, but one thing they know, namely, that they do not want to have anything to do with this kind of thing! On that point they are unyielding and then they are not quite so tolerant; they abuse Spiritual Science, say that it is fantastic and has no reasoned foundations. Even those who from superior heights occasionally extend tolerance to other forms of idealistic thought, adopt an attitude to Spiritual Science which almost confounds the saying of Goethe: “The little fellows never notice the devil, even when he has them by the collar!” ... for Theosophy seems to them to be the very embodiment of the devil. They do not usually say as much, but that is how things are.

There has lately been a striking example of this among our own ranks; attention may be drawn to it for it is mentioned in the current German periodicals. For his Doctorate at a northern University, one of our members submitted a thesis on “The Relation of the Ego to Thinking.” If the man in question had been in the position in which I was lucky enough to be when I wrote my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity—which was before I was presenting, under the name of “Theosophy,” the world-conception I now hold—nobody would have any idea, any “false” idea, that this thesis on the relation of the Ego to Thinking has any connection with Theosophy; for there is absolutely nothing about Theosophy in it, any more than there is in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, or in my Truth and Science. People had no inkling of what was behind these two works and from time to time remarkably favourable opinions were expressed. I can give another example too. One day, because of my publications on Goethe, I was commissioned to write a chapter on Goethe's relation to natural science. The manuscript lay in the hands of the editor for a long time and the work did not appear. In those days it was practically a foregone conclusion that this particular section would have been trusted to me and not one of the persons concerned had any doubt about it. But you see, I had begun to use the word “Theosophy” and at the time I actually held an official position in the Theosophical Movement. The treatise was returned to me as “unusable”! You can see what was going on behind the scenes then, and also in the present case. If our friend had not been a theosophist, nobody would have failed to recognise that here was a logical, dialectical thesis on The Relation of the Ego to Thinking ... but the university town where this episode took place is not very big. The writer was known to be a theosophist and so the professors had no use for his work. As the professors themselves happened also to be engaged in experimental psychology, their attitude was: We recognise law only where external compulsion holds sway. If any body recognises law where there is no external compulsion, as is the case in the relation of the Ego to Thinking, his thesis is rejected as a matter of course! And so the thesis was turned down. But something else transpired. The thesis is written in a northern language with which very few people are conversant, and it was sent to an old German professor who “by chance”—I say this advisedly—understands this language. He gave his verdict quite objectively and it was an extremely favourable one.

I mention these incidents—there are many others as well so that you may know how things are, and form your own judgments. Among theosophists too there are people who are ready to admit: Here or there spiritual teaching is to be found ... although they ought to realise that it is not a question of looking for a really new impulse “here or there,” but in Spiritual Science itself. The impulses leading to progress in the world can only flourish when they are grasped in their full force. The human being, too, must lay hold of all the forces within him if he is to realise that apparent fortuity in the world is permeated with meaning and divine purpose. This is the impulse that must be given by Spiritual Science. Men must recognise that in the course of human evolution a point was once reached which must now be understood in a new sense, and in full consciousness. Significant allusion is made to it in the First Chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark, in the words: “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; know yourselves, pay heed to the new message.” And then, a few verses further on, a remarkable statement occurs concerning Christ Jesus.¹

In our Movement it is not a question of advocating orthodoxy or dogma but of indicating, in the evolutionary process of mankind, the coming of the impulse which leads to the strengthening of those inner forces whereby the human “ I ” attains self-knowledge, learning also to behold itself in the world and to draw into its own realm of law, what otherwise appears as “blind chance.” Why is it that the phenomena of Nature give no suggestion of chance? Why does man speak of law in the phenomena of Nature? It is for this reason. After the expiration of the Saturn-, Sun- and Moon-periods of evolution, the Exusiai, the “Spirits of Form,” the “Spirits of Revelation,” began their operations; and the manifested laws of Nature are not abstract laws but, in a spiritual sense, the Deeds of the Exusiai, of the Spirits of Form! When man observes the course of Nature-happenings he beholds, in the laws of Nature, the Deeds of the Exusiai. But his courage has failed. And where the Exusiai are not articulate, where they do not palpably indicate what they have laid into the facts and happenings of Nature, man has no longer any inkling that there, too, the Spiritual is in operation, in the shape of Law. But he must strive to reach the stage where he speaks of those happenings which today he still ascribes to “chance,” as the Exusiai speak in the facts of Nature. Human courage has broken down. How does man speak of destiny, of destiny in humanity? He speaks just like the grammarians who have eyes only for the words and are not interested in the connections between the words, thinking, often enough, that there is no active, living power within them. Man must learn not only to see connective purpose in the facts of Nature, in the Deeds of the Exusiai, but out of an inner impulse he must learn to speak of events in the life of humanity as though the Exusiai were being made manifest in what today seems to he pure chance. In order that this might be, there came One Who spoke very differently from those who are ignorant of what lies behind apparently fortuitous happenings. The One Who came, spoke not as the grammarians but as the Exusiai speak out of the facts of Nature. Thus did Christ speak out of the mouth of Jesus! The Gospel indicates this in a wonderful way in that to the abstract words: “And they were amazed at His teaching” ... it immediately adds: “For He taught as the Exusiai teach!” Where do the Exusiai teach? In the facts of Nature! And with this same Nature-necessity, Christ spoke out of the mouth of Jesus concerning those realms of existence over which the laws of Nature seem to exercise no sway.

Such is the impulse that must enter into men. Then, in the “chance” happenings of today they will find the courage to recognise the kingdom of spiritual law and gradually to learn to speak of it as the Exusiai, the Spirits of Form, speak in the facts of Nature.

The great Easter-Impulse given to humanity consisted in this: There dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth the Power of a Being Who spoke with the same inner necessity with which the laws of Nature speak in the facts of Nature, from the mineral kingdom of Earth, up and beyond the realm of the clouds, to the very Realm of the stars. Thus did Christ speak in Jesus of Nazareth! And when man is able to fire his courage with this impulse he will recognise conformity to law in all the facts of world-existence, in the realm of Nature and also in the realm of the Spirit, where “chance” is thought to operate. There must come to men—free from all preconceived thoughts—a new understanding of where the might of the Christ-Impulse lies, and of the heights to which the Christ-Impulse can raise them.

With such thoughts we pass towards the Festival held as a memorial that this Impulse was vouchsafed to mankind. Much of what has been said in this lecture may well serve as a kind of Easter Meditation, and you will then find that such thoughts can help to promote the true mood of soul in which to celebrate the Festival.

• 1. See: The Gospel of St. Mark, by Rudolf Steiner.

To a theosophist the effects of Esotericism or Theosophy on the etheric and astral bodies and the Self are naturally much more important than the effects produced on the physical body. Nevertheless, we shall gain a foundation for the next lectures, when we have to consider the more spiritual principles of the nature of man from this point of view, if we also bear in mind what may be said about the changes in the physical body. It should, however, be expressly noticed that the changes dealt with here do not refer to the highest stages of initiation, but rather to the early stages of the esoteric or theosophical life, and are therefore of a certain general importance.

You will have gathered from the last lecture that under the influence of Esotericism, or the serious study of Theosophy, the physical body of man becomes more alive, in a certain way, more filled with movement inwardly; and it may on that account become more uncomfortable. It is more felt than in the external, exoteric, so-called normal life of man. We shall have to speak later of the difference between vegetable and animal food in connection with the other sheaths; but in the construction and organisation of the physical body, the difference between vegetable and animal food is greater to an amazing degree. Emphasis must always be laid upon the fact that it cannot be our mission to make propaganda for any particular system of diet, but only to state what is right and true on this subject; and as the soul develops, the matters now under consideration become matters of personal experience. Above all, it becomes a matter of experience that when meat is eaten our physical body has more to bear, more to drag about, as it were, than when we eat vegetable food.

We emphasised in the last lecture the fact that in the course of development the physical body seems to shrink; it separates from the higher, spiritual principles. Now, when animal food is taken, this is felt—as was described in the last lecture—in the human organism as something like a foreign substance, as a thorn in the flesh—if we may use a common expression. In an esoteric or theosophical development we feel the weight of the earth in animal food more than we usually do, and above all, we experience the fact that animal food inflames the instinctive life of the will. This more unconscious life of the will, which flows more in emotions and passions, is inflamed by animal food. Hence the observation is an absolutely correct one which declares that warlike peoples are more inclined to animal food than peaceful peoples. But this need by no means lead to the belief that vegetable food must take away all courage and energy. Indeed, we shall see that all that a man loses in the way of instincts, aggressive passions and feelings through refraining from animal food—all of which will be dealt with when we speak of the astral body—all this is compensated for from within the soul. These things are all connected with the whole position of man and the other kingdoms of nature towards the Cosmos, and we gradually gain—though perhaps not yet through higher clairvoyance—a sort of proof, a sort of confirmation of what the Occultist affirms regarding the relation of human life to the Cosmos. We gain a sort of proof of this when, through experiencing the more mobile and living processes of the physical body, we ourselves learn to a certain extent the nature and properties of those substances of the earth which are used for food.

It is interesting to compare three kinds of food with respect to their cosmic significance. These are: milk and all connected with it; the plant world and all connected with that, and the foods prepared from it; and animal food. We may learn to compare milk, plants and animals as nourishment when, through theosophical or esoteric development, we become more sensitive to the effects of these foods; and it will then also be easier for us to observe the verification obtainable from a rational observation of the outer world.

If you were to investigate the cosmos as an occultist, you would find milk-substance on our earth, but on no other planet in our solar system. That which is produced in a similar manner within the living beings on other planets in our solar system would appear as something quite different from earthly milk. Milk is specifically earthly; and if you wished to speak about milk you would have to say that the living beings on each planet have their own special milk.

If the plant system belonging to our earth be investigated by the occultist, and compared with that of other planets, with what there can be compared with it, we must admit that the forms of the plant nature on our earth do indeed distinguish them from the plant nature on other planets in our solar system, but yet the inner being of the plants on the earth is not merely earthly, but belongs to the solar system; this means that the plant nature on our earth is related to that of the other planets of our solar system. Thus there is in our plants something that can also be found on other planets of our system.

As far as the animal kingdom is concerned it follows, indeed, from what has been said about milk, and, apart from that, it can easily be proved by the occultist, that the animal kingdom of our earth is radically different from any corresponding kingdom to be found on other planets.

Now let us consider the experience of milk-food. To the vision and experience of the occultist this milk-food appears in such a way that to the human body—we will only consider man—it signifies that which binds him, as it were, to the earth, to our planet; it connects him with the human race on the earth as a member of it belonging to a common family. Owing to the production of nourishment by the living for the living in the animal nature, mankind, as regards the physical system of sheaths, forms one whole. And we may say that all that is carried into the human organism through milk prepares man to be an earthly human creature, it unites him with earthly conditions, but it does not really chain him to the earth. It makes him a citizen of earth, but does not hinder him from being a citizen of the whole solar system.

It is different with animal-food. Animal-food which is taken from the kingdom that is specifically earthly, and which is obtained not, like milk, directly from the life-processes of the human or animal living being, but from that part of the animal substance which is already prepared for the animal—this animal-food chains man specially to the earth. It makes him into a being of earth, so that we have to say: To the extent that a human being fills his own organism with the effects of animal-food, he deprives himself of power to become free from the earth at all. Through animal-food he binds himself in the highest degree to the planet earth. Whereas milk renders him capable of belonging to the earth as the temporary scene of his development, animal-food condemns him—unless he is uplifted by something else—to make his sojourn on earth permanent, a residence to which he adapts himself exactly. The resolve to live on milk diet means: ‘Though I will stay on the earth, and fulfil my mission there, I will not be attached exclusively to the earth.’ The will to eat meat means: ‘I so pledge myself to the earth-existence that I renounce all heaven, and prefer to be wholly and solely engrossed in the conditions of earthly existence.’

Plant diet is of such a nature as to bring into action in the organism those forces which bring man to a certain cosmic union with the whole of the planetary system. That which a human being has to accomplish when he continues the assimilation of plant nourishment in his own organism is to call forth forces contained in the whole solar system, so that in his physical sheath he becomes a partaker of these solar forces; so that he does not become alienated from them, he does not tear himself away from them. This is something which the soul developing theosophically or esoterically is really able gradually to experience within; with the vegetable food it takes into itself something not pertaining to the heaviness of the earth, but in a certain sense the peculiar property of the sun, that is, of the central body of the entire planetary system. The lightness in his organism which he obtains through a plant diet lifts a man above the heaviness of earth, and gradually develops a certain inner perception of taste in the human organism, so that it is as though the latter really in a way shared with the plant the enjoyment of the sunlight, which accomplishes so much work in the plant.

From what has been said you will gather that in the case of occult, esoteric, or theosophical development, it is extremely important not to chain oneself to the earth, as it were, not to make the heaviness of earth a part of our nature through the enjoyment of an animal diet, if, according to individual conditions and conditions of heredity, it can be dispensed with; the actual decision can, of course, only be made according to the personal conditions of the individual.

It would facilitate the whole evolution of a man's life if he could refrain from eating meat. On the other hand, serious consequences might ensue if a person were to become such a fanatical vegetarian that he avoided milk and all milk-products. In the development of the soul towards the spiritual, certain dangers may easily step in, because in avoiding milk and all milk-products, a person may very easily acquire a love of striving to get away from the earth and lose the threads uniting him to his human tasks upon the earth. Therefore it should be carefully noticed that in a certain sense it is well if the earnestly striving theosophist does not allow himself to become a fanatical spiritual dreamer by creating the difficulty in his physical sheath, which will separate this physical sheath from all that relates it to what is earthly and human. In order that we may not become too eccentric when striving for psychic development, in order that we may not become estranged from human feeling and human effort on the earth, it is well for us to load ourselves in a certain way like travellers upon the earth, by the use of milk and milk-products. And it may even be a really systematic training for a person who is not in the position to be always living only in the spiritual world, as it were, and thereby becoming estranged from the earth, but who, besides this, has to fulfil his duties upon the earth, it may be part of his training not to be a strict vegetarian, but to take milk and milk-products as well. He will thereby relate his organism, his physical sheath, to the earth and to humanity, but not chain it to the earth, and weight it with earthly existence, as he would were he to enjoy meat.

Thus it is interesting in every way to see how these things are connected with cosmic secrets, and how through the knowledge of these cosmic secrets we can trace the actual effect of food substances in the human organism.

As people interested in occult truths, you must gradually realise more and more that that which appears on our earth—and our physical body belongs above all to our earthly existence—is not merely dependent on the forces and conditions of the earth but is also absolutely dependent on the forces and conditions of supra-mundane life, of cosmic life. This comes about in various ways. Thus, for example, if we consider the animal albumen contained, let us say, in hens' eggs, we must clearly understand that such animal albumen is not merely what the chemist finds by analysis, but that it is in its structure the result of cosmic forces. When we speak of albumen, this in its construction is the product of cosmic forces. Essentially, the cosmic forces really only work upon this albumen after they have first worked upon the earth itself, and, moreover, chiefly upon the moon which accompanies the earth. Thus the cosmic influence upon animal albumen is an indirect one. The cosmic forces do not work directly upon albumen, but indirectly; they work first upon the earth, and the earth reacts upon the construction of animal albumen with the forces it receives from the cosmos. Chiefly the moon takes a share in it, but only in such a way that it first receives the forces from the cosmos, and only then, with these forces that it rays forth from itself, reacts upon the animal albumen. In the tiniest cells of animals, and thus also in albumen, one who is able to look into these things with occult vision can see that not merely the physical and chemical forces belonging to the earth are to be found there, but that the smallest cell in a hen's egg, let us say, is built up of the forces which the earth first obtains from the Cosmos. Thus the substance we call albumen is indirectly connected with the cosmos, but this animal albumenous substance as we know it on the earth would never come into being if the earth were not there. It could not originate directly out of the cosmos; it is absolutely a product of what the earth has first to receive from the cosmos.

Again, it is different, for example, with what we know as fatty substance of earthly living beings, which also forms part of the foods of those who eat meat. We are speaking of animal fat. What we call fatty substance, whether a person eats it or whether it forms part of his own organism, is formed according to entirely different cosmic laws from those forming albumen. While the cosmic forces proceeding from the beings of the Hierarchy of Form are concerned with the latter, pre-eminently those beings whom we call the Spirits of Motion are concerned with the building-up of fatty substance. Now, it is important to relate these things, because only in this way does one really gain an idea how complicated is such a matter, which external science may conceive of as infinitely simple. No living being could have either albumen substance on the one hand or fatty substance on the other if the Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Motion did not work from the cosmos—even though indirectly.

Thus we can trace the effects proceeding from the beings of the various Hierarchies even into the substance of which our physical sheath consists. Therefore, in the experience which comes when the student undergoes a theosophical development, the experience which he has in respect of the albumen and the fat which he bears in his physical sheath becomes more differentiated, more mobile in itself. This is one perception. The forces which in a man living the ordinary life are combined in a single sensation, namely, that which in his organism makes the fat and that which makes the albumenous substance, are now felt separately. As the whole physical organism becomes more mobile, the evolving soul learns to distinguish two different sensations in his own body, one which so pervades him inwardly that he feels: ‘This constructs me, and gives me stature’ ... he is then perceiving the albumenous substances within him. When he feels: ‘This makes me callous to my inner limitations, this uplifts me in some sense, above my form, this makes me more sluggish with respect to my inner human feelings,’ when he disdains those perceptions of his feelings (in theosophical development these perceptions differ very greatly)—this last sensation is aroused by his experiencing the fatty substance in his physical sheath.

Thus his inner experience, even as regards his physical body, becomes more complex. This is perceived very strongly when the experience of starch or sugar is in question. Sugar has especially distinct characteristics. In a classification of tastes, sugar stands out very strongly amongst other substances. This appreciation of difference can easily be observed in ordinary life, not only in children, but also very often in older people, in their preference for sweet substances; but usually this does not go beyond the taste. When the soul undergoes development, it then experiences all the sugar it takes into its body, or already has within it, as something giving it inner firmness, supporting it inwardly, permeating it to a certain extent with a sort of natural sense of selfhood. And in this respect a sort of eulogy might even be pronounced on sugar. In passing through a soul development a person may even often notice that he needs to take sugar, because the psychic development inevitably tends to make him become more and more selfless. Through an orderly theosophical development the soul of itself becomes more selfless. Now, in order that a man—by virtue of his physical sheath, having an earthly mission—may not lose, as it were, the connection of his Ego-organism with the earth, it is well to create an counterpoise in the physical, where, indeed, realisation of the Ego is not of such great importance as in the realm of morals. It might be said that, through eating sugar, a sort of blameless ego-sense is produced, forming a counterpoise to the necessary selflessness in the spiritual realm of morals. Otherwise there might all too easily be the temptation not only to become selfless, but also dreamy and fantastic, to lose the healthy capacity for judging earthly conditions. An addition of sugar to the food gives the power, in spite of the ascent into the spiritual world, to stand firmly on the earth with both feet, and to cultivate a healthy estimate of earthly things. You see that these matters are complex; but everything grows complex when one begins to penetrate the actual secrets of life. Thus to the student as his soul progresses in theosophy it becomes evident now and then that in order not to acquire a false selflessness—namely, a loss of his personality—it is necessary at times to eat sugar; and then his experience when eating sugar is such that he says: ‘Now I am adding to myself something that, without lowering myself morally, gives me, as though automatically, as though by higher instinct, a certain firmness, a certain sense of my Ego.’ On the whole, we may say the consumption of sugar intensifies physically the character of the human personality. We may be so certain of this that we may even say that it is easier for those who take sugar to imprint the character of their personality upon their physical body than for those who do not; but it stands to reason that this must be kept within healthy limits.

These things may even lead to the understanding of something that can be observed externally. In countries where, according to statistics, little sugar is eaten, the people have less character as personalities than where more sugar is eaten. If you go to countries where the people have more personality, where each one is conscious in himself, as it were, and then from there go into countries where the people have more of the common race-type and have less personality as external physical beings, you will find that in the former a great deal of sugar is consumed, and in the latter very little.

If we wish to have still more obvious ideas of this experience of various substances we can do so by considering the so-called luxuries, such as coffee and tea, of the effects of which we have already become vividly aware in external life. The experience of a normal person is greatly heightened in a theosophical student. As said already, all this is not an agitation either for or against coffee, but simply a statement of things as they are, and I beg you to take it only in this sense. Even in an entirely normal human life, coffee and tea act as stimulants, but these excitations are felt more vividly by the soul that is undergoing a theosophical development. Of coffee, for example, it may be said that it so works as to cause the human organism to lift its etheric body out of the physical body, but in such a manner as to feel the latter as a solid foundation for the former. That is the specific action of coffee. When coffee is taken, the physical body and the etheric body are felt as differentiated, but in such a way that the physical body—especially in its qualities of form—seems under the influence of coffee to radiate into the etheric body, like a sort of solid basis for what is then experienced through the latter. Truly this ought not to be considered as an agitation for the use of coffee, for it rests upon a physical basis; a person relying too much on the use of this substance would become a completely dependent being; we are only concerned with describing the influence of this food or stimulant. But as logical, consecutive thinking depends very much upon the structure and form of the physical body, so through the peculiar action of coffee, which, as it were, gives a sharper emphasis to the physical structure, logical accuracy is assisted physically. By drinking coffee logical accuracy, the arrangement of facts in logical sequence is promoted by physical means. And it can be said that even though there may be healthy doubts about drinking much coffee, yet for those who wish to ascend to the higher regions of spiritual life, it is not amiss; it may be very good, occasionally, to obtain logical accuracy by means of coffee. We might say that it seems quite natural for one whose profession necessitates a good deal of writing, and who cannot readily find the logical sequence from one sentence to another, and has to get it all out of his pen, to make use of the stimulus of coffee. This seems quite comprehensible to one who understands how to observe these things in their secret occult foundations. Though such a drink may be necessary for us for a time as citizens of the earth, according to personal and individual conditions, it must also be emphasised that the use of coffee, with all its faults, can contribute a great deal towards the acquisition of stability. Not that it is to be commended as a means of developing stability, but it must be said that it has the power of so doing, and that if, for example, a student's thoughts have a tendency to stray in the wrong direction, we need not take it amiss if he makes himself somewhat more stable by drinking coffee.

It is different in the case of tea. Tea produces a similar effect—viz., a sort of consciousness of difference between the physical nature and the etheric nature; but the structure of the physical body is disconnected in a certain way. The etheric body appears more in its own fluctuating nature. Thought becomes volatile when tea is taken, less fitted to keep to the facts; indeed, fancy is stimulated by it, very often in a way neither sympathetic to nor in conformity with truth or with sound proportion. Hence one may say that it is comprehensible that in gatherings where flashes of thought and the development of sparkling mentality are in question, the stimulus of tea might be preferred; on the other side, it is also comprehensible that when tea-drinking gets the upper hand, it gives rise to a certain indifference to the demands arising through the healthy structure of the physical earthly body. So that dreamy fancy and a certain careless, nonchalant nature, a nature that likes to overlook the demands of the sound external life, is awakened by tea-drinking. And in the case of a soul undergoing a theosophical development we feel tea less suitable, as a beverage, than coffee, since it leads more easily to shallowness. The latter tends to soundness, the former more to charlatanry, although this word applied to these things is much too severe.

All these are things which—as we have said—are experienced through the mobility acquired by the physical sheath of the student undergoing a theosophical development. Only I might add—you may meditate further upon this afterwards or try really to experience such things—that while coffee-drinking promotes something like stability in the physical sheath, and tea-drinking favours shallowness, chocolate promotes prosaic thought. Chocolate can be felt by direct experience as the true beverage of the commonplace merry-maker, when the physical sheath becomes more mobile in itself. Therefore, chocolate may well be recommended for commonplace festivities, and thus we can now understand very well—excuse this aside—that at family festivals, birthday festivals, christenings, especially in certain circles, on certain festive occasions, chocolate is the beverage.

Then when we bear in mind these things which are means of enjoyment, the case appears to us still more significant, because that which usually is experienced concerning the means of nourishment throws its rays upon the ordinary so-called normal life; moreover, not only in such a way as to bring to notice the material substance from which the body is constructed and continually renewed, but also—as was mentioned in the last lecture—the inner disconnection, the separation of the organs from each other. That is important; that is significant.

And here we must bring specially into prominence the fact that occult observation makes clear the experience of the relation between the physical sheath and the physical heart. The physical human heart is to the occultist an extremely interesting, an extremely important organ; for it can only be understood when we bear in mind the entire mutual relationship, including the spiritual relationship, of the sun and the earth. Even at the time when, after the Saturn period, the ancient Sun was a sort of planetary predecessor of the earth, even then began the preparation, as it were, of the relation which now exists between these two heavenly bodies, the Sun and the Earth. And we must so bear in mind this relation between Sun and Earth that we thereby really comprehend how the earth of to-day, being nourished, as it were, by the solar activities, takes in these solar activities and transmutes them. What the solid substance of the earth takes in as solar forces, what the earth takes up in its envelopes of air and water, in its changing conditions of heat, what it takes up in the light that encompasses the earth, what it takes up in that part of the earth which is now no longer physically perceptible in any way—the Earth-part of the harmony of the spheres—what the earth receives as life-forces directly from the sun—all this is in connection with the inner forces that work upon the human heart through the circulation of the blood. In reality all these act upon the circulation of the blood, and through this upon the heart. All external theory with respect to this process is radically wrong. External theory calls the heart a pump that pumps the blood through the body, so that one has to look upon the heart as the organ regulating the circulation of the blood. The reverse is the truth. The heart-circulation responds to the impulse given by the circulation of the blood, which is the original source of action. The blood drives the heart; not the reverse, the heart the blood. And the whole of this organism just described, which is concentrated in the activity of the heart, is none other than the human microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic activities first received by the earth from the sun. The impulse received by the earth from the sun is reflected in that which the heart receives from the blood.

It is different with the brain. Some details of the correspondence of the brain were given in the last lecture. The human brain has very, very little to do directly with the solar activities on the earth. Directly, I say. Indirectly, as an organ of perception it is concerned with them; it perceives the external light and colour, for instance; that, however, is only perception. But directly, in its construction, in its inner mobility, in the whole of its inward life, the brain has little, scarcely anything, to do with the effects of the sun upon the earth; it is much more concerned with all that streams to the earth from outside our solar system; it is concerned with the cosmic relationship of the whole starry heavens, but not with the narrower relationships of our solar system. However, in a more limited sense, what we have to describe as the brain-substance is connected with the Moon, though only in so far as the Moon does not depend upon the Sun, but has preserved independence of it. So that what goes on in our brain corresponds to activities lying outside the forces which are imaged microcosmically in our heart. Sun dwells in the human heart; all else besides the sun in the cosmos dwells in the human brain.

Thus man, as regards these two organs, is a microcosm, because through his heart he is given up to the influences exercised by the sun on the earth, and reflects these, as it were; but through his brain he has an inner life directly connected with the cosmos outside the sun. That is a connection of extreme interest and significance. The brain is only connected with the effect of the sun on the earth through external perception. But just this very thing is overcome in theosophical development. Theosophical development surmounts the external sense world.

Hence the brain is set free for an inward life so cosmic that it is unsuitable for the specialised influence of the sun itself. When the student surrenders himself in meditation to some imagination, processes take place in his brain which have nothing at all to do with our solar system, but correspond to the processes outside it. Hence, in fact, the relationship between the heart and the brain is like that between the sun and the starry heavens, and this manifests, in a certain respect, in the experience of the soul developing through theosophy through the fact that while this soul is devoted seriously and deeply to purely theosophical thought, the heart forms, as it were, an opposite pole, and comes in opposition to what one might call the starry-brain. This opposition is expressed in the fact that the student learns to feel that his heart and brain begin to go different ways; while previously he had no need to give attention to both separately, because they were indistinguishable, he must now begin so to do—if he is developing through Theosophy.

It gives us an accurate idea of man's place with regard to the whole Cosmos when we thus consider the physical sheath, and bear in mind the position of man here upon the earth. Through his blood-system and heart there is within him the whole relationship between the sun and the earth, and when his inner powers are devoted solely to that for which on earth he needs the brain as his instrument, then in that brain there are cosmic processes at work extending beyond our solar system. It will be evident that the pupil has an entirely new experience with respect to his heart and brain. His sensations really classify themselves, so that in the serene course of the stars displayed in the heavens at night he learns to feel the processes of his brain, and he feels the movements of the solar system in his heart. In this you see at the same time a path which becomes more important at a higher stage of initiation; you see the doors, as it were, which open from man to the cosmos. The student who, through higher development, steps out of himself—as has been described even in exoteric lectures—and looks back at his own body, learns to recognise all the processes in his physical body; in the circulation of the blood and the activity of the heart a reflection of the hidden forces of the solar system, and in the processes of his brain, which he then sees spiritually from the outside, the secrets of the cosmos.

The matters expressed in this last sentence are connected with an observation which I once made in Copenhagen, and which then appeared in my book, The Spiritual Guidance of Man. From this you may gather that, in a certain respect, even the structure of the brain is a sort of reflection of the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of a man's birth as seen from that part of the earth where he is born. It is profitable to approach such things from time to time from a different aspect, for in this way you may appreciate the method of occult science and the narrow-mindedness that many critics show when such an observation is made from one aspect or another. Of course, one may explain important facts like this of the mirroring of the world of stars in the human brain from a definite point of view, and it may appear arbitrary. But when other points of view are added, these all support one another. Later you will become aware of what I might call other streams of occult science which combine and flow together, and their meeting will show you more and more clearly what you feel to be a complete proof, even to external reason, of things which, if they were expressed from one aspect only, might often seem open to question.

From this also you may gain an idea of the delicacy of the whole human structure. And if now you reflect that man, in the taking in of food, binds himself completely to earth, and only through some substances, such, for instance, as vegetarian food, releases himself again, if you reflect that precisely through taking in food does man make himself a citizen of the earth, you will then comprehend the threefold division of man with respect to his physical sheath. Through his brain he belongs to the whole of the starry heavens, through his heart and all connected with it to the sun; through all his digestive system and all appertaining to that, he is, in another sense, an earthly being. This also may be experienced, and is experienced, when the external physical sheath of man becomes more mobile within. Through what comes into him from the earth alone, a man may very greatly sin against what is reflected in him through the pure forces of the cosmos. By producing disturbances through his bodily food, by the purely earthly laws which act in the digestion and which work further as sun-laws in the activity of the heart, and as the cosmic laws outside the solar system in the activity of the brain—a man can, because through external nourishment he causes disturbances, sin very deeply against the cosmic activities in his brain; and this can be experienced by the theosophically developing soul, particularly at the moment of waking. During sleep it also comes about that the digestive activity extends to the brain, flashes into the brain. On waking, the power of thought works upon the brain; and the digestive activity in the brain then withdraws. When thinking is at a standstill during sleep, the digestive activity then works into the consciousness; and when a man awakes and notices an after-effect of it, his experience may then very well be a true barometer for the suitability or unsuitability of his food. He feels this extension of his organism, as it were, into his brain as deadening, stabbing sensations, sensations which—if he has eaten something unsuitable—may often seem like little benumbed centres in his brain. All this is experienced in the most delicate manner, particularly by the theosophically developing soul. And the moment of waking is tremendously important, I mean as regards the perception of the conditions of health in the physical sheath depending upon the digestion. In perceptions which gradually become finer and finer, localising themselves in the head, the student perceives whether in his digestion he is placing himself in opposition to the cosmic laws outside our solar system or in harmony with them. Here you see the wonderful relationship of this physical sheath to the whole cosmos, the moment of waking as a barometer showing the student whether through his digestion, he is setting himself against the cosmic conditions or placing himself in harmony with them. These observations will gradually lead us to the changes which take place in the etheric body and astral body through esoteric or theosophical development.

In the last lecture I referred to two legends, that of Paradise and that of the Holy Grail. I tried to show that these two legends represent occult imaginations which may really be experienced at a certain moment. When the pupil is independent of his physical body and etheric body—as he is unconsciously during deep sleep, and with clairvoyance consciously perceives his physical body, he experiences the legend of Paradise; when his perceptions are aroused by his etheric body, the legend of the Grail presents itself. We must now point out that such legends were given as stories or as religious legends, and so popularised in a definite period. The original source of these legends, which meet us in the form of romance or of religious writings in the external history of the development of mankind, is in the Mysteries, where their contents were established only by means of clairvoyant observations. In the composition of such legends it is especially necessary that the very greatest care should be taken that both subject matter and tone should suit the period and the people to which the legends are given.

In the previous lectures of this course we have explained how through his theosophical occult development the student undergoes certain changes in his physical and etheric body. We shall have now to consider the astral body and the self more closely, and then return briefly to the physical and etheric body. We have seen that when, in order to progress further through receiving the possessions of spiritual wisdom and truth, the student undertakes this self-development, he produces by this means changes in the various part;, of his spiritual and physical organisation. Now, from the information that has been given from the akashic records of various periods of evolution, we know that in the course of the ordinary historical evolution of man these various parts of human nature also undergo a change, naturally, as it were; we know that in the ancient Indian age, the first age of civilisation after the great Atlantean catastrophe, the processes of the human etheric body were conspicuous; we know that afterwards, during the ancient Persian age of civilisation, the change in the human astral body came into prominence, and during the Egyptian-Chaldean age changes took place in the human sentient-soul, and during the Graeco-Latin age there were changes in the human intellectual- or mind-soul. In our times the changes in the human consciousness-soul are more conspicuous. Now, when a legend is given in some particular age—let us say, in the age in which the intellectual-soul undergoes a special change, when the facts in this soul are of special importance—it is important that it should be given in such a way that special attention should be paid to that particular age, and that in the Mysteries from which the legend proceeds it should be agreed that the legend must be so presented that the changes which are going on in the human intellectual- or mind-soul during that age should be protected against any harmful influences incidental to the legend, and specially adapted to its favourable influences.

Thus there can be no question of following his own inner impulse alone, when a person belonging to a Mystery school has the duty laid upon him of imparting such a legend to the world, for he must follow the dictates of the age in which he lives. If we turn our observations in this direction, we shall better understand the changes that take place, more particularly in the human astral body, when a person undergoes an esoteric development.

In the case of an esotericist, or one who seriously undertakes a theosophical development, who makes Theosophy part of his life, his astral body lives a separate life; in the case of an ordinary human being it is not so free, not so independent. The astral body of a student going through development becomes detached and independent to some extent. It does not pass unconsciously into a sort of sleep, but becomes independent, and detached, going through in a different way what a human being usually does in sleep. It thereby enters the condition suited to it. In an ordinary man who lives in the exoteric world, this astral body is connected with the other bodies, and each exercises its special influence upon it. The individually pronounced quality of this human principle does not then come into notice. But when this astral body is torn out its special peculiarities assert themselves. And what are the peculiarities of the astral body? Now, my dear friends, I have often referred to this quality—perhaps, to the disgust of many who are sitting here. The quality peculiar to the human astral body on earth is egotism. When the astral body, apart from the influences which come from the other principles of human nature, asserts, its own peculiar quality, this is seen to be egotism, or the effort to live exclusively in itself and for itself. This belongs to the astral body. It would be wrong, it would be an imperfection in the astral body as such, if it could not permeate itself with the force of egotism, if it could not say to itself, ‘Fundamentally I will attain everything through myself alone, I will do all that I do for myself, I will devote every care to myself alone.’ That is the correct feeling for the astral body. If we bear this in mind we shall understand that esoteric training may produce certain dangers in this direction. Through esoteric development, for instance, because this esoteric development must necessarily make the astral body somewhat free, those persons who take up a kind of Theosophy that is not very serious, without paying attention to all that true Theosophy wishes to give, will in the course of it specially call forth this quality of the astral body, which is egotism. It can be observed in many theosophical and occult societies that while selflessness, universal human love, is preached as a moral principle and repeated again and again, yet through the natural separation of the astral body egotism flourishes. Moreover, to an observer of souls it seems quite justifiable, and yet at the same time suspicious, when universal human love is made into a much-talked of axiom—observe that I do not say it becomes a principle, but that it is always being spoken of; for under certain conditions of the soul-life a person prefers most frequently to speak of what he least possesses, of what he notices that he most lacks, and we can often observe that fundamental truths are most emphasised by those who are most in want of them.

Universal human love ought without this to become something in the development of humanity which completely rules the soul, something which lives in the soul as self-evident, and concerning which the feeling arises: ‘I ought not to mention it so often in vain, I ought not to have it so often on my lips in a superfluous manner.’ Just as a well-known commandment says: Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain ... so might the following be a commandment to a true and noble humanity: you ought not to utter so often in vain the requirement of the universal human love which is to become the fundamental feature of your souls, for if silence is in many cases a much better means of developing a quality than speech, it is particularly the case in this matter; quietly cultivating it in the heart, and not talking about it, is a far, far better means of developing universal brotherly love than continually speaking about it. Now the advocacy of this exoteric principle has primarily nothing to do with what has been described as the fundamental quality of the astral body: egotism; the endeavour to exist in itself, of itself and through itself.

The question now is: How, then, is it possible to see this in a right light, this quality—let us calmly use the expression—of the astral body which seems so horrible to us, viz., that it wishes to be an absolute egotist? Let us set to work, beginning from the simple facts of life. There are cases even in ordinary life in which egotism expands, and where we must, to a certain degree, look upon this expansion of egotism as a necessary adaptation in life. For example, consider the characteristic of much mother-love, and try to understand how in this case egotism extends from the mother to the child. We may say that the further we penetrate among less developed peoples, and observe what we might call the lion-like way in which the mothers stand up for their children, the more we notice that the mother considers any attack upon her child as an attack upon herself. Her self is extended to the child; and it is a fact that the mother would not feel an attack upon a part of herself more than upon her child. For what she feels in herself she carries over to her child and we cannot find anything better for the regulation of the world than that egotism should be extended in this way from one being to others, and that one being should reckon itself as forming part of another, as it were, and on this account should extend its egotism over this other. Thus we see that egotism ceases to have a dark side when a being expands itself, when the being transfers its feeling and thinking into another, and considers it as belonging to itself. Through extending her egotism to her child, a mother also claims it as her possession: she counts it as part of herself; she does just as the astral body does, saying: All that is connected with me lives through me, to me, with me, etc.

We may see something similar even in more trivial cases than mother-love. Let us suppose that a man has a house, a farm, and land which he cultivates; let us suppose this man loves his house, his farm, his land and his work-people as his own body; he looks upon the matter in such a way that they are to him an extension of his own body, and loves his house, farm, land and people—as a woman may, under certain circumstances, love her gown, as forming part of her own body. In this case the being of the man expands in a certain sense to what is around him. Now, if his care expands in this way to his possessions and his servants, so that he watches over them and resists any attack upon them as he would an attack on his own body, we must then say that the fact of this environment being permeated with his egotism is extremely beneficial. Under certain circumstances, what is called love may, however, be very self-seeking. Observation of life will show how often what is called love is self-seeking. But an egotism extended beyond the person may also be very selfless, that is, it may protect, cherish and take care of what belongs to it.

By such examples as these, my dear friends, we ought to learn that life cannot be parcelled out according to ideas. We talk of egotism and altruism, and we can make very beautiful systems with such ideas as egotism and altruism. But facts tear such systems to pieces; for when egotism so extends its interests to what is around it that it considers this as part of itself, and thus cherishes and takes care of it, it then becomes selflessness; and when altruism becomes such that it only wishes to make the whole world happy according to its own ideas, when it wishes to impress its thoughts and feelings on the whole world with all its might, and wishes to adopt the axiom, ‘If you will not be my brother, I will break your head,’ then even altruism may become very self-seeking. The reality which lives in forces and in facts cannot be enclosed in ideas, and a great part of that which runs counter to human progress lies in the fact that in immature heads and immature minds there arises again and again the belief that the reality can in some way be bottled up in ideas.

The astral body may be described as an egotist. The consequence of this is that the development which liberates the astral body must reckon with the fact that the interests of man must expand, become wider and wider. Indeed, if our astral body is to liberate itself from the other principles of human nature in the right manner, its interest must include the whole of the earth and earth-humanity. In fact, the interests of humanity upon the earth must become our interests; our interests must cease to be connected in any way with what is merely personal; all that concerns mankind, not only in our own times, but all that has concerned mankind at any time in the whole of its earthly development, must arouse our deepest interests; we much reach the point of considering as an extension of what belongs to us, not only what belongs to our family by blood, not only what is connected with us such as house and farm and land, but we must make everything connected with the development of the earth our own affair.

When in our astral body we are interested in all the affairs of the earth, when all the affairs of the earth become our own, we may give way to the sense of selfhood in our astral body. This, however, is necessary, that the interests of mankind on earth should be our interests. Consider from this point of view the two legends I spoke of in the last lecture. When they were given to humanity at a certain stage, they were given from the point of view that the human being should be raised from any individual interest to the universal interests of the earth. The legend of Paradise leads the pupil directly to the starting point of our earthly evolution, when man had not yet entered upon his first incarnation, or when he is just beginning it, where Lucifer approaches him, when he still stands at the beginning of his whole development and can actually take all human interests into his own breast. The very deepest problem of education and training is contained in the story of Paradise, that story which uplifts one to the standpoint of all humanity, and imprints in every human breast an interest which can also speak in each. When the pictures of the legend of Paradise, as we have tried to comprehend them, press into the human soul, they act in such a way that the astral body is penetrated through and through by them; and under the influence of this human being whose horizon is expanded over the whole earth, the astral body may also make its own interest all that now enters its sphere. It has now arrived at being able to consider the interests of the earth as its own. Try, my dear friends, to consider seriously and earnestly what a universal, educative force is contained in such a legend, and what a spiritual impulse lies there.

It is the same with the legend of the Grail. While the Paradise legend is given to the humanity of the earth, inasmuch as it directs this humanity to the origin, the starting-point of its earthly development, while the Paradise legend, as given, uplifts us to the horizon of the whole development of humanity, the legend of the Grail is given that it may sink into the innermost depths of the astral body, into its most vital interests, just because, if only left to itself, this astral body becomes an egotist which only considers the interests that are its very own.

As regards the interests of the astral body, we can really only err in two directions. One is the direction towards Amfortas, and the other, before Amfortas is fully redeemed, leads towards Perceval. Between these two lies the true development of man, in so far as his astral body is concerned. This astral body strives to develop the forces of egotism within itself. But if it brings personal interests into this egotism it becomes corroded, and while it ought to extend over the whole earth, it will shrivel up into the individual personality. This may not be. For if it occurs, then through the activity of the personality, which expresses its ego in the blood, the whole human personality is wounded—one errs on the Amfortas side. The fundamental error of Amfortas consists in his carrying into the sphere in which the astral body ought to have gained the right to be an egotist, that which still remains in him as personal desires and wishes. The moment we take personal interests into the sphere where the astral body ought to separate itself from personal interest it is harmful, we become like the wounded Amfortas.

But the other error can also lead to harm, and only fails to do so when the being who suffers this harm is filled with the innocence of Perceval. Perceval repeatedly sees the Holy Grail pass. To a certain extent he commits a wrong. Each time the Holy Grail is carried past it is on his lips to ask for whom this food is really intended; but he does not ask; and at length the meal is over without his having asked. And so, after this meal he has to withdraw, without having the opportunity of making good what he had omitted to do. It is really just as though a man, not yet fully mature, were to become clairvoyant for a moment during the night, when he would be separated as if by an abyss from what is contained in the castle of his body, and were then to glance for a moment into it; and as if then without having obtained the appropriate knowledge, that is, without having asked the question, everything were again to be closed to him; for then, even though he wakened, he would not be able to enter this castle again. What did Perceval really neglect to do?

We have heard what the Holy Grail contains. It contains that by which the physical instrument of man on earth must be nourished: the extract, the pure mineral extract, which is obtained from all foods and which unites in the purest part of the human brain with the purest sense-impressions, impressions which come into us through our senses. Now, to whom is this food to be handed? It is really to be handed—as appears to us when from the exoteric poetic story we enter into the esoteric presentation of it in the Mysteries—it is really to be handed to the human being who has obtained the understanding of what makes man mature enough gradually to raise Himself consciously to that which this Holy Grail is. Through what do we gain the faculty to raise ourselves consciously to that which is the Holy Grail?

In the story it is very clearly indicated for whom the Holy Grail is really intended. And when we go into the Mystery presentation of the legend of the Grail we find in addition something very special. In the original legend of the Grail the ruler of the castle is a Fisher King, a king ruling over fisher folk. There was Another Who also walked among fisher folk, but He did not wish to be the king of these fishermen, rather something else; He scorned to rule over them as a king, but He brought them something more than did the king who ruled over them—this One was Christ Jesus.

Thus we are shown that the error of the Fisher King, who in the original legend is Amfortas, was a turning aside. He is not altogether worthy to receive health really through the Grail; because he wishes to rule his fisher folk by means of power. He does not allow the spirit alone to rule among this fisher folk.

At first Perceval is not sufficiently awake inwardly to ask in a self-conscious way: What is the purpose of the Grail? What does it demand? In the case of the Fisher King it required him to kill out his personal interest and cause it to expand to the interest in all humanity shown by Christ Jesus. In the case of Perceval it was necessary that he should raise his interest above the mere innocent vision to the inner understanding of what in every man is the same, what comes to the whole of humanity, the gift of the Holy Grail. Thus in a wonderful way between Perceval and Amfortas, the original Fisher King, floats the ideal of the Mystery of Golgotha, and at an important part of the legend it is delicately indicated that on the one hand the Fisher King has taken too much personality into the sphere of the astral body, and on the other stands Perceval, who has carried thither too little general interest in the world, who is still too [unsophisticated, who does not feel sufficient interest in the world. It is the immense educative value of the Grail legend that it could so work into the souls of the students of the Holy Grail that they had before them something like a balance: in the one scale that which was in Amfortas, and in the other that which was in Perceval; and they then knew that the balance was to be established. If the astral body follows its own innate interests, it will uplift itself to that horizon of universal humanity which is gained when the statement becomes a truth: ‘Where two are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them, no matter where in the development of the earth these two may be found.’ (Matthew 18, 20.)

At this point, my dear friends, I beg you not to take a part for the whole, but to take this lecture and the next together; for they may cause misunderstanding. But it is absolutely necessary that the human astral body should in its development be uplifted to the horizon of humanity in a very special way, so that the interest, common to all humanity, becomes its own, so that it feels wronged, hurt, sad within itself, when humanity is harmed in any way. To this end it is necessary that when, through his esoteric development, the student gradually succeeds in making his astral body free and independent from the other principles of his human nature, he should then arm and protect himself against any influences of other astral bodies; for when the astral body is free it is no longer protected by the physical body and etheric body, which are a strong castle, as it were, for the astral. It is free, it becomes permeable, and the forces in other astral bodies can very easily work into it. Astral bodies stronger than itself can influence it, should it be unarmed with its own forces. It would be fatal if someone were to attain the free management of his astral body, and yet were as innocent as regards its conditions as Perceval was at the beginning. That will not do; for then all sorts of influences proceeding from other astral bodies would be able to have a corresponding effect on his.

Now, what we have just mentioned also applies to a certain extent to the external exoteric world. Humanity upon the earth lives under certain religious systems. These religious systems have their cults and rituals. These rituals surround a member of a cult with imaginations obtained from the higher worlds by the help of the astral body. The moment such a religious community admits a man to its membership he is in the midst of imaginations which, while he is influenced by the ritual, liberate his astral body. In any religious ritual the astral body becomes, to a certain extent, free, at any rate for brief moments. The more powerful the ritual, the more does it suppress the influence of the etheric body and the physical body; the more it works by means of methods that liberate the astral body, the more is the astral body, during the ceremony, enticed out of the etheric body and physical body. For this reason also—though it might seem as if I am speaking in ridicule, which I am not—for this reason there is no place so dangerous to sleep in as a church, because in sleep the astral body separates from the etheric body and physical body, and because what goes on in the ritual insinuates itself into the astral body; for it is brought down from the higher worlds by the help of astral bodies. Thus to go to sleep in church, which in some places is strongly attractive to people, is something that really should be avoided. This applies more to churches which have a ritual; it does not apply so much to those religious communities which, through the ideas of modern times, have relinquished a certain ritual or limit themselves to a minimum of ritual. We are not now speaking of these things from any preference or otherwise for one creed or another, but purely according to the standard of objective facts. When, therefore, a person has emancipated his astral body from the other principles of his human nature, the impulses and forces obtained by the help of astral bodies may easily influence him. In this respect it is also possible that a person who has arrived at the free use of his astral body, if he is stronger than another whose astral body is to some extent emancipated, may obtain a very great influence over the latter. It is then absolutely like a transference of the forces of the astral body of the stronger personality to that of the weaker. And if we then clairvoyantly observe the weaker personality, he is really seen to bear within his astral body the pictures and imaginations of the stronger astral personality. You see how necessary it is that ethics should be in the ascendant where occultism is to be cultivated; for naturally egotism cannot be cultivated without really striving to emancipate the astral body from the other principles of human nature; but the most destructive thing in the field of occultism is for the stronger personalities to strive in any way for power to further their personal interests and personal intentions. Only those personalities who absolutely renounce all personal influence are really entitled to work in the domain of occultism, and the greatest ideal of the occultist who is to attain anything legitimate is not to wish to attain anything whatever by means of his own personality, but to put aside as far as possible all consideration of personal sympathy or antipathy. Therefore, whoever possesses sympathy or antipathy for one thing or another, and yet wishes to work as an occultist, must carefully relegate these sympathies and antipathies to his own private sphere, and only allow them to prevail there; in any case he may not cultivate and cherish any of these personal sympathies and antipathies in the domain in which an occult movement is to flourish. And, paradoxical as it may sound, we may say: To the occult teacher his own teaching is a matter of no concern; in fact, the matter of least concern of all to him is the teaching which he can really only give by means of his own talents and temperament. Teaching will only have a meaning when as such it contains nothing in any way really personal, but simply what can be of help to souls. Therefore, no occult teacher will at any time give any of his knowledge to his own age if he is aware that this part of his knowledge is useless to it, and could only be useful to a different age. All this comes into consideration when we are speaking of the peculiar nature of the astral body under the influence of occult development. During the preparation for our age and its progressive development a further complication arises. For what is our own age? It is the age of the development of the consciousness-soul. Nothing is so closely connected with the egotism which accentuates the narrow, personal interests as the consciousness-soul. Hence, in no other age is there such a temptation to confuse the most personal interests with those that belong to mankind in general. This age has gradually to gather the interests of humanity into the human ego, as it were; into that very part of the human ego which is the consciousness-soul. Towards the dawn of our age we see human interests being concentrated into the ego, the acme of the sense of selfhood. In this respect it is extremely instructive seriously to consider whether, for example, what Saint Augustine wrote in his ‘Confessions’ would ever have been possible in ancient Greece. It would have been absolutely out of the question.

The whole nature of the Greek was such that his inner being was in a certain harmony with his outer nature, so that external interests were at the same time inner interests, and inner interests extended into outer ones. Consider the whole Greek culture. It was of such a nature that everywhere a certain harmony between the human inner being and the outer must be taken for granted. We can only understand Greek art and tragedy, Greek historians and philosophers, when we know that among the Greeks that which pertained to the soul was poured into the outer culture, and as a matter of course showed its union with the inner. Let us compare this with the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Everything lives for himself; he searches, digs and investigates into his own being. If we look for the entirely personal, individual note in the writings of Saint Augustine we can find it in them all. Although Augustine lived long before our age, yet he prepared for it; his was the spirit in whose records we find the first dawn, long before the rising of the sun, the first dawn of the age apportioned to the consciousness-soul. This can be perceived in every line written by him, and every line of his can be distinguished by a delicate perception from all that was possible in ancient Greece.

Now, when we know that Augustine was advancing to meet the age when the sense of selfhood—the occupation of man with his own inner being even within the physical body—is as a sort of character of this age, we can understand that one who, like Augustine, has more extended interests as well, and observes the whole of the development of mankind, will truly shudder when a human being comes to him who gives him the idea that, on attaining a certain height, the astral body must naturally develop a sort of selfishness. Purely, nobly and grandly Augustine attacks self-centredness.

We might say that he attacks it selflessly. But he came into the age when humanity had separated itself from the general interests of the outer world. Recollect that in the third post-Atlantean age every Egyptian directed his gaze to the stars, where he read human destiny, how the soul was connected with interests common to humanity. Naturally this could only be attained when the human being was still capable, in the ancient elementary clairvoyance, of keeping his astral body separate from the physical body; therefore, Augustine could not but shudder when in contact with a person who reminded him, as it were, that with higher development comes selfishness. He can comprehend this, he feels it, his instinct tells him that he is living towards the age of egoism. When, therefore, a person confronts him who represents the higher development beyond that in the physical body, he feels: we are moving in the direction of egotism. At the same time he cannot comprehend that this person is bringing with him an interest common to the whole of humanity. Try to obtain a perception of how Augustine, according to his own confession, confronts the Manichaean Bishop, Faustinus—for it is he whom I have described. When he met with Faustinus, Augustine had the experience of a man facing the age of egoism in a noble way, wishing to protect it against egotism by the inner power alone, and who must turn away from such a man as the Manichaean Bishop, Faustinus. He turned away from him because, to him, Faustinus represented something in which he ought not to take part; for he conceals something within him which could not be understood at all in exoteric life in such an age. Thus the Manichaean Bishop, Faustinus, confronts the Church Father, Augustine; Augustine, who is facing the age of the consciousness-soul, meets with a human being who preserves his connection with the spiritual world as it can be preserved in an occult movement, and who thereby also preserves the fundamental quality of the astral body, at which Augustine shudders and, from his standpoint, justly.

Let us pass on a few centuries. We then meet at the University of Paris with a man who is but little known in literature; for what he has written gives no idea of his personality; what he has written seems pedantic. But personally he must have worked in a magnificent way; personally he seems to have worked principally in such a way that he brought into his circle something like a renewal of the Greek conception of the world. He was the personification of the Renaissance. He died in 1518, working until the time of his death at the Paris University. This personality was related to the Greek world—though much more on the exoteric side—in the same way as the Manichaean Bishop Faustinus was related to the Manichees, who above all else had received, among many other things in their traditions, all the great and good aspects of the third post-Atlantean, the Egyptian-Chaldean age. Thus there was this Manichaean Bishop Faustinus, who came in touch with Augustine, and who, through what he was, had preserved the occult foundations of the third post-Atlantean age. In 1518 there died in Paris a man who had carried over, though exoterically, certain aspects of the foundation of the fourth post-Atlantean age. This caused him to impress those who worked around him in traditional Christianity as weird, sinister. The monks looked upon him as their deadly enemy; yet he made a great impression upon Erasmus of Rotterdam when the latter was in Paris. But it seemed to Erasmus as if his external environment were ill-suited to the individuality which really lived within this remarkable soul; and when Erasmus had departed and gone to England, he wrote to this man, who in the meantime had become his friend, that he wished his friend could free himself from his gouty physical body and fly through the air to England, for there he would find in the external environment a much better soil for what he felt in his soul. The fact that the personality who worked at that time could give rise to Greek feeling and sensation in such an evident manner, we see with special clearness if we bear in mind the relationship between the refined and sensitive Erasmus and this personality. Thus, just at the very beginning of the age of selfhood, one might say, lived this personality who died in Paris in 1518. He lived as an enemy of those who wished to adapt the life of human souls to the age of selfhood, and who shuddered, as it were, at a soul who could work in such a way because he wished to conjure up another age, when man was, so to say, closer to the selfhood of the astral body—the Greek age. This personality who was called Faustus Andrelinus affected Erasmus very sympathetically.

In the sixteenth century, in central Europe, we meet with another personality, who is represented as being a sort of travelling minstrel, regarding whom we are told that he deviated from the traditional theology. This personality no longer wished to call himself a theologian, calling himself a man of the world and a doctor; he placed his Bible on the shelf for a time, and engaged in the study of nature. Now the study of nature, in the age when the transition took place from all that was ancient to all that is modern, was also such that it brought to man the astral selfhood, just as did Manichaeism and the ancient thought of Greece. Thus what stood at that time on the border between ancient alchemy and modern chemistry, between ancient astrology and modern astronomy, etc., brought the astral selfhood home to man. This peculiar flickering and shimmering of natural science between the ancient and modern standpoints brought home to man—when he laid his Bible for a time on the shelf—such an astral activity that it necessitated coming to an understanding with egotism. No wonder that those shuddered at it, who with their traditions wished to adjust themselves to the age of selfhood in which the consciousness-soul had already fully dawned; and there arose in Central Europe the legend of the third Faust, John Faust, also called George Faust, an actual historical personality. And the sixteenth century welded together all the horror of the egotism of the astral body by combining the three Fausts, the Faust of Augustine, that of Erasmus, and the Faust of Central Europe, into one—into that figure depicted in popular books in Central Europe, which also became the Faust of Marlowe. Out of a complete reversal of this character Goethe created his Faust, clearly showing us that it is possible not to shudder at the bearer of that which brings home to us the essence of the astral, but to understand him better, so that to us he may be evidence of a development which will call forth from us the words, ‘We can redeem him.’ Whole ages have occupied themselves with the question of the egoistic nature of the astral body, and in legendary stories and, indeed, even in history echoes the horror of man at its nature, and the human longing to solve the problem of this astral body in the right manner, in a manner corresponding to the wise guidance of the world, and to the esoteric development of the individual human soul.

Today I would like to report to you on the second lecture I gave in Stuttgart. It will not be so much a verbatim account of what was said there as a fresh discussion of the matters dealt with in that lecture, and I shall also want to include some comment on the Stuttgart conference itself.

The purpose of the second lecture was to show the reasons why certain things that ought never to happen, particularly in a Society like ours, do nevertheless so easily occur and are such a familiar phenomenon to those acquainted with the history of societies based on a spiritual view of life. As you know, there have always been societies of this kind, and they were always adapted to their period. In earlier ages, the kind of consciousness required for entrance into the spiritual world was different from the kind we need today. As a rule people who joined forces to establish some form of cognition based on higher, super-sensible insight included among their goals the cultivation of a brotherly spirit in the membership. But you know, too, as do all those familiar with the history of these societies, that brotherliness all too easily came to grief, that it has been especially in societies built on spiritual foundations that the greatest disharmony and the worst offenses against brotherliness burgeoned.

Now if anthroposophy is properly conceived, the Anthroposophical Society is thoroughly insured against such unbrotherly developments. But it is by no means always properly conceived. Perhaps it will help toward its fuller comprehension if light is thrown on the reasons for the breakdown of brotherly behavior.

Let us, to start with, review the matters brought up yesterday. I pointed out that we distinguish between three levels of consciousness: that of ordinary waking life, that of dreams, and finally that of dreamless sleep. Man's dream pictures are experienced as a world he inhabits. While he is dreaming, it is perfectly possible for him to mistake his dreams for reality, for events just as real as those that take place in the physical world where he finds himself during his waking life.

But as I said yesterday, there is a tremendous difference between dream experiences and those of waking. A dreamer is isolated in his dream experiences. And I pointed out that someone else can be asleep beside him and have quite different dreams, hence be living in a different world. Neither can communicate anything about his world of dreams to his fellow dreamer. Even if ten people are sleeping in a single room, each has only his own world before him. This does not seem at all surprising to one who is able to enter the often marvelous dream world as a spiritual scientist, for the world in which a dreamer lives is also real. But the pictures it presents derive in every case from factors of purely individual concern. To be sure, dreams do clothe the experiences they convey in pictures borrowed from the physical plane. But as I have often pointed out, these pictures are merely outer coverings. The reality—and there is indeed reality in dreams—hides behind the pictures, which express it only superficially.

A person who explores dreams in a spiritual-scientific sense with the purpose of discovering their meaning studies not the pictures but the dramatic element running through them. One person may be seeing one dream scene, another an entirely different one. But for both there may be an experience of climbing or of standing on the edge of an abyss or of confronting some danger, and finally a release of tension. The essential thing is the dream's dramatic course, which it merely clothes in pictorial elements. This unfolding drama often has its source in past earth lives, or it may point to future incarnations. It is the unwinding thread of destiny in human life—running, perhaps, through many incarnations—that plays into dreams. Man's individual core is what is involved here. He is outside his body with his ego and astrality. That is to say, he is outside his body with the ego that he takes from one incarnation to another, and he is in his astral body, which means that he is living in the world that embraces experience of all the surrounding processes and beings in the midst of which we live before we descend to earth and find again when we return to live in a world beyond the senses after death.

But in sleep we are also isolated from our physical and etheric bodies. Dreams clothe themselves in pictures when the astral body is either just coming back into contact with the ether body or just separating from it, that is, on awakening and on falling asleep. But the dreams are there, even though one has no inkling of their presence when in an ordinary state of consciousness. Man dreams straight through the time he is sleeping. This means that he is occupied solely with his own concerns during that period. But when he wakes, he returns to a world that he shares in common with the people about him. It is then no longer possible for ten individuals to be in one room with each living in a world apart; the room's interior becomes the common world of all. When people are together on the physical plane, they experience a world in common.

I called attention yesterday to the fact that a shift in consciousness, a further awakening is necessary to enter those worlds from which we draw genuine knowledge of the super-sensible, knowledge of man's true being, such as anthroposophy is there to make available.

These, then, are the three stages of consciousness.

But now let us suppose that the kind of picture consciousness that is normally developed by a sleeping person is carried over into the ordinary day-waking state, into situations on the physical plane. There are such cases. Due to disturbances in the human organism, a person may conceive the physical world as it is normally conceived in dream life only. In other words, he lives in pictures that have significance for him alone. This is the case in what is called an abnormal mental state, and it is due to some illness in the physical or etheric organism. A person suffering from it can shut himself off from experiencing the outer world, as he does in sleep. His sick organism then causes pictures to rise up in him such as ordinarily present themselves only in dreams. Of course, there are many degrees of this affliction, ranging all the way from trifling disturbances of normal soul life to conditions of real mental illness.

Now what happens when a person carries over a dream conditioned state of mind into ordinary physical earth life? In that case, his relationship to his fellowman is just what it would be if he were sleeping next to him. He is isolated from him, his consciousness absorbed by something that he cannot share. This gives rise to a special egotism for which he cannot be held wholly responsible. He is aware only of what is going on in his own soul, knowing nothing of what goes on in any other's. We human beings are drawn into a common life by having common sense impressions about which we then form common thoughts. But when someone projects a dreaming state of mind into ordinary earth life, he isolates himself, becomes an egotist, and lives alongside his fellowman making assertions about things to which the other can have no access in his experience. You must all have had personal experience of the degree of egotism to which this carrying over of dream life into everyday life can mislead human beings.

There can be a similar straying from a wholesome path, however, in cases where people join others in, say, a group where anthroposophical truths are being studied, but where the situation I was characterizing yesterday fails to develop, namely, that one soul wakes up in the encounter with the other to a certain higher state, not of consciousness, perhaps, but of feeling awakened to a higher, more intense experiencing. Then the degree of self-seeking that it is right to have in the physical world is projected into one's conceiving of the spiritual world. Just as someone becomes an egotist when he projects his dream consciousness into the physical world, so does a person who introduces into his approach to higher realms a soul-mood or state of mind appropriate to the physical world become to some degree an egotist in his relationship to the spiritual world.

But this is true of many people. A desire for sensation gives them an interest in the fact that man has a physical, an etheric and an astral body, lives repeated earth lives, has a karma, etc. They inform themselves about such things in the same way they would in the case of any other fact or truth of physical reality. Indeed, we see this evidenced every day in the way anthroposophy is presently combatted. Scientists of the ordinary kind, for example, turn up insisting that anthroposophy prove itself by ordinary means. This is exactly as though one were to seek proof from dream pictures about things going on in the physical world. How ridiculous it would be for someone to say, “I will only believe that so and so many people are gathered in this room and than an anthroposophical lecture is being given here if I dream about it afterwards.” Just think how absurd that would be! But it is just as absurd for someone who hears anthroposophical truths to say that he will only believe them if ordinary science, which has application only on the physical plane, proves them. One need only enter into things seriously and objectively for them to become perfectly transparent.

Just as one becomes an egotist when one projects dream conceptions into physical situations, so does a person who projects into the conceptions he needs to have of higher realms views such as apply only to things of ordinary life, becomes the more isolated, withdrawn, insistent that he alone is right. But that is what people actually do. Indeed, most individuals are looking for some special aspect of anthroposophy. Something in their view of life draws them in sympathetic feeling to this or that element found in it, and they would be happy to have it true. So they accept it, and since it cannot be proved on the physical plane they look to anthroposophy to prove it.

Thus a state of consciousness applicable to the ordinary physical world is carried over into an approach to higher realms. So, despite all one's brotherly precepts, an unbrotherly element is brought into the picture, just as a person dreaming on the physical plane can behave in a most unbrotherly fashion toward his neighbor. Even though that neighbor may be acting sensibly, it is possible for a dreamer under the influence of his dream pictures to say to him, “You are a stupid fellow. I know better than you do.” Similarly, someone who forms his conceptions of the higher world with pretensions carried over from life on the physical plane can say to an associate who has a different view of things, “You are a stupid fellow,” or a bad man, or the like. The point is that one has to develop an entirely different attitude, an entirely different way of feeling in relation to the spiritual world, which eradicates an unbrotherly spirit and gives brotherliness a chance to develop. The nature of anthroposophy is such as to bring this about in fullest measure, but it needs to be conceived with avoidance of sectarianism and other similar elements, which really derive from the physical world.

If one knows the reasons why an unbrotherly spirit can so easily crop up in just those societies built on a spiritual foundation, one also knows how such a danger can be avoided by undertaking to transform one's soul orientation when one joins with others in cultivating knowledge of the higher worlds.

This is also the reason why those who say, “I'll believe what I've seen there after I've dreamed it,” and behave accordingly toward anthroposophy, are so alienated by the language in which anthrosophy is presented. How many people say that they cannot bear the language used in presenting anthroposophy, as for example in my books! The point is that where it is a case of presenting knowledge of the super-sensible, not only are the matters under discussion different; they have to be spoken of in a different way. This must be taken into account. If one is really deeply convinced that understanding anthroposophy involves a shift from one level of consciousness to another, anthroposophy will become as fruitful in life as it ought to be. For even though it has to be experienced in a soul condition different from the ordinary, nevertheless what one gains from it for one's whole soul development and character will in turn have a moral, religious, artistic and cognitive effect on the physical world in the same sense that the physical world affects the dream world. We need only be clear as to what level of reality we are dealing with.

When we are dreaming, we do not need to be communicating with or standing in any particular relationship to other human beings, for as dreamers we are really working on our ongoing egos. What we are doing behind the façade of our dream pictures concerns only ourselves. We are working on our karma there. No matter what scene a dream may be picturing, one's soul, one's ego are working behind it on one's karma.

Here on the physical plane we work at matters of concern to a physically embodied human race. We have to work with other people to make our contributions to mankind's overall development. In the spiritual world we work with intelligences that are beings like ourselves, except that instead of living in physical bodies they live in a spiritual element, in spiritual substance. It is a different world, that world from which super-sensible truth is gleaned, and each of us has to adapt himself to it.

That is the key point I have stressed in so many lectures given here: Anthroposophical cognition cannot be absorbed in the way we take in other learning. It must above all be approached with a different feeling—the feeling that it gives one a sudden jolt of awakening such as one experiences at hand of colors pouring into one's eyes, of tones pouring into one's ears, waking one out of the self-begotten pictures of the dream world.

Just as knowing where there is a weak place in an icy surface enables a person to avoid breaking through it, so can someone who knows the danger of developing egotism through a wrong approach to spiritual truth avoid creating unbrotherly conditions. In relating to spiritual truth, one has constantly to develop to the maximum a quality that may be called tolerance in the best sense of the word. Tolerance must characterize the relationships of human beings pursuing anthroposophical spiritual science together. Looking from this angle at the beauty of human tolerance, one is immediately aware how essential it is to educate oneself to it in this particular period. It is the most extraordinary thing that nobody nowadays really ever listens to anybody else. Is it ever possible to start a sentence without someone interrupting to state his own view of the matter, with a resultant clash of opinion? It is a fundamental characteristic of modern civilization that nobody listens, that nobody respects anyone's opinion but his own, and that those who do not share his opinions are looked upon as dunces.

But when a person expresses an opinion, my dear friends, it is a human being's opinion, no matter how foolish we may think it, and we must be able to accept it, to listen to it.

I am going to make a highly paradoxical statement. A person whose soul is attuned to the intellectual outlook of the day has no difficulty being clever. Every single person knows the clever thing, and I am not saying that it isn't clever; it usually is, in fact. But that works only up to a certain point, and up to that point a smart person considers everyone who isn't yet of his opinion stupid. We encounter this attitude all the time, and in ordinary life situations it can be justified. A person who has developed a sound judgment about various matters really finds it a dreadful trial to have to listen to someone else's foolish views about them, and he can hardly be blamed for feeling that way.

But that is true only up to a point. One can become cleverer than clever by developing something further. Supersensible insight can endow cleverness with a different quality. Then the strange thing is that one's interest in foolishness increases rather than decreases. If one has acquired a little wisdom, one even takes pleasure in hearing people say something foolish, if you will forgive my putting it so bluntly. One sometimes finds such stupidities cleverer than the things people of an average degree of cleverness say, because they often issue from a far greater humanness than underlies the average cleverness of the average of clever people. An ever deepening insight into the world increases one's interest in human foolishness, for these things look different at differing world levels. The stupidities of a person who may seem a fool to clever people in the ordinary physical world can, under certain circumstances, reveal things that are wisdom in a different world, even though the form they take may be twisted and caricatured. To borrow one of Nietzsche's sayings, the world is really “deeper than the day would credit.”

Our world of feeling must be founded on such recognitions if the Anthroposophical Society—or, in other words, the union of those who pursue anthroposophy—is to be put on a healthy basis. Then a person who knows that one has to relate differently to the spiritual world than one does to the physical will bring things of the spiritual world into the physical in the proper way. Such a person becomes a practical man in the physical world rather than a dreamer, and that is what is so vitally necessary. It is really essential that one not be rendered useless for the physical world by becoming an anthroposophist. This must be stressed over and over again.

That is what I wanted to set forth in my second Stuttgart lecture in order to throw light on the way individual members of the Society need to conceive the proper fostering of its life. For that life is not a matter of cognition, but of the heart, and this fact must be recognized.

Of course, the circumstances of a person's life may necessitate his traveling a lonely path apart. That can be done too. But our concern in Stuttgart was with the life-requirements of the Anthroposophical Society; these had to be brought up for discussion there. If the Society is to continue, those who want to be part of it will have to take an interest in what its life-requirements are.

But that will have to include taking an interest in problems occasioned by a constantly increasing enmity toward the Society. I had to go into this too in Stuttgart. I said that many enterprises have been launched in the Society since 1919, and that though this was good in itself, the right way of incorporating them into the Anthroposophical Movement—in other words, of making them the common concern of the membership—had not been found. New members should not be reproached for taking no interest in something launched before their time and simply seeking anthroposophy in a narrower sense, as the young people do. But it is these new enterprises that have really been responsible for the growing enmity toward our Movement. There was hostility before, to be sure, but we did not have to pay any attention to it.

Now in this context I had to say something on the subject of our opponents that needs to be known in the Anthroposophical Society. I have talked to you, my dear friends, about the three phases of the Society's development and called attention to the fact that in the last or third phase, from 1916 or 1917 to the present, the fruits of a great deal of anthroposophical research into the super-sensible world have been conveyed to you in lectures. That required a lot of work in the form of genuine spiritual research. Anyone who looks dispassionately at the facts can discern the great increase in the amount of material gleaned from the spiritual world in recent years and put before you in lectures.

Now we certainly have any number of opponents who simply do not know why they adopt a hostile stand; they just go along with others, finding it comfortable to be vague about their reasons. But there are a few leading figures among them who know full well what they are up to and who are interested in suppressing and stamping out truths about the spiritual world such as can alone raise the level of human dignity and restore peace on earth. The rest of the opponents go along with these, but the leaders do not want to have anthroposophical truth made available. Their opposition is absolutely conscious, and so is their effort to stimulate it in their followers.

What are they really intent on achieving? If I may refer to myself in this connection, they are trying to keep me so preoccupied with their attacks that I cannot find time for actual anthroposophical research. One has to have a certain quiet to pursue it, a kind of inner activity that is far removed from the sort of thing one would have to be doing if one were to undertake a defense against our opponents' often ridiculous attacks.

Now in a truly brilliant lecture that he gave in Stuttgart, Herr Werbeck called attention to the large number of hostile books written by theologians alone. I think he listed a dozen or more—so many, at any rate, that it would take all one's time just to read them. Imagine what refuting them would entail! One would never get to any research, and this is only one field among many. At least as many books have been written by people in various other fields. One is actually bombarded with hostile writings intended to keep one from the real work of anthroposophy. That is the quite deliberate intention. But it is possible, if one has what one needs to balance it, to foster anthroposophy and push these books aside. I do not even know many of their titles. Those I have I usually just throw in a pile, since one cannot carry on true spiritual research and simultaneously concern oneself with such attacks. Then our opponents say, “He is not answering us himself.” But others can deal with their assertions, and since the enterprises launched since 1919 were started on others' initiative, the Society should take over its responsibility in this area. It should take on the battle with opponents, for otherwise it will prove impossible really to keep up anthroposophical research.

That is exactly what our opponents want. Indeed, they would like best of all to find grounds for lawsuits. There is every indication that they are looking for such opportunities. For they know that this would require a shift in the direction of one's attention and a change of soul mood that would interfere with true anthroposophical activity.

Yes, my dear friends, most of our opponents know very well indeed what they are about, and they are well organized. But these facts should be known in the Anthroposophical Society too. If the right attention is paid to them, action will follow.

I have given you a report on what we accomplished in Stuttgart in the direction of enabling the Society to go on working for awhile. But there was a moment when I really should have said that I would have to withdraw from the Society because of what happened. There are other reasons now, of course, why that cannot be, since the Society has recently admitted new elements from which one may not withdraw. But if I had made my decision on the basis of what happened at a certain moment there in the assembly hall in Stuttgart, I would have been fully justified in saying that I would have to withdraw from the Society and try to make anthroposophy known to the world in some other way.

The moment I refer to was that in which the following incident occurred. The Committee of Nine had scheduled a number of reports on activities in various areas of the Society. These were to include reports on the Waldorf School, the Union for a Free Spiritual Life, Der Kommende Tag, the journals Anthroposophy and Die Drei, and so on, and there was also to be a discussion of our opponents and ways of handling them.

Now as I said, Werbeck, who has been occupying himself with the problem of opponents, gave a brilliant lecture on how to handle them from the literary angle. But concrete details of the matter were still to be discussed. What happened? Right in the middle of Werbeck's report there was a motion to cut it off and cancel the reports in favor of going on with the discussion. Without knowing anything of what had been happening in the Society, it was proposed that the discussion continue. There was a motion to omit reports right in the middle of the report on opponents! And the motion was carried.

A further grotesque event occurred. Very late on the previous evening, Dr. Stein had given a report on the youth movement. Herr Leinhas, who was chairman of the meeting, was hardly to be envied, for as I told you two days ago, he was literally bombarded with motions on agenda items. As soon as one such motion was made, another followed on its heels, until nobody could see how the debate was to be handled.

Now the people who had come to attend the delegates' convention were not as good at sitting endlessly as those who had done the preparatory work. In Stuttgart everyone is used to sitting. We have often had meetings there that began no later than 9:30 or 10 p.m. and went on until six o'clock in the morning. But as I said, the delegates hadn't had that training. So it was late before Dr. Stein began his report on the youth movement, on the young people's wishes, and due to some mistake or other no one was certain whether he would give it, with the result that a lot of people left the hall. He did give his report, however, and when people returned the following day and found that he had given it in their absence, a motion was made to have him give it again. Nothing came of this because he wasn't there. But when he did arrive to give a report on our opponents, events turned in the direction of people's not only not wanting to hear his report twice over but not even wanting to hear it once; a motion to that effect was passed. So he gave his report on a later occasion.

But this report should have culminated in a discussion of specific opposition. To my surprise, Stein had mentioned none of the specifics, but instead developed a kind of metaphysics of enmity toward anthroposophy, so that it was impossible to make out what the situation really was. His report was very ingenious, but restricted itself to the metaphysics of enmity instead of supplying specific material on the actual enemies. The occasion served to show that the whole Society—for the delegates were representing the whole German Anthroposophical Society—simply did not want to hear about opponents!

This is perfectly understandable, of course. But to be informed about these matters is so vital to any insight into what life-conditions the Society requires that a person who turns down an ideal opportunity to become acquainted with them cannot mean seriously by the Society. The way anthroposophy is represented before the world depends above all else on how the Society's members relate to the enmity that is growing stronger every day.

This, then, was the moment when the way the meeting was going should really have resulted in my saying that I couldn't go on participating if the members were solely interested in repeating slogans like, “Humanness must encounter humanness” and other such platitudes. They were paraphrased more than abundantly in Stuttgart—not discussed, just paraphrased. But of course one can't withdraw from something that exists not just in one's imagination but in reality; one can't withdraw from the Anthroposophical Society! So these matters too had to be overlooked in favor of searching for a solution such as I described to you on Saturday: On the one hand the old Society going on in all its reality, and on the other a loose confederation coming into being, eventuating in the forming of communities in the sense reported, with some bridging group to relate the two opposite elements.

For we must be absolutely clear that anthroposophy is something for eternity. Every individual can therefore study it all by himself, and he has every right to do so, without taking the least interest in the Anthroposophical Society. It would be quite possible—and until 1918 this was actually the way things were—to spread anthroposophy entirely by means of books or by giving lectures to those interested in hearing them. Until 1918 the Society was just what such a society should be, because it could have stopped existing any day without affecting anthroposophy itself. Non-members genuinely interested in anthroposophy had every bit as much access to everything as they would have had through the Society. The Society merely provided opportunities for members to work actively together and for human souls to be awakened by their fellow souls. But on the initiative of this and that individual, activities going on in the Society developed into projects that are now binding upon us. They exist, and cannot be arbitrarily dissolved. The old Society must go on seeing to their welfare. No matter how little one may care for the bureaucratic, cataloguing ways and general orientation of the old Committee, it must go on looking after things it has started. No one else can do this for it. It is very mistaken to believe that someone who is only interested in anthroposophy in general—a situation such as also prevailed in 1902—can be asked to take on any responsibility for the various projects. One has to have grown identified with them, to know them from the inside out.

So the old Society must go on existing; it is an absolutely real entity. But others who simply want anthroposophy as such also have every right to have access to it. For their satisfaction we created the loose confederation I spoke of yesterday, and it too will have its board of trustees, made up of those whose names I mentioned. So now we have two sets of trustees, who will in turn select smaller committees to handle matters of common concern, so that the Society will remain one entity. That the loose confederation does take an interest in what develops out of the Society was borne out by the motion to re-establish it, which was immediately made by the very youngest members of the youth movement, the students. So it has now been re-established and will have a fully legitimate function. Indeed, this was one of the most pressing, vital issues for the Anthroposophical Movement and the Society.

An especially interesting motion was made by the pupils of the upper classes of the Waldorf School. I read it aloud myself, since it had been sent to me. These upper-class students of the Waldorf School made a motion more or less to the following effect. They said, “We have been developing along lines laid down in the basic precepts of the Waldorf School. Next year we are supposed to take our university examinations. Perhaps difficulties of some sort will prevent it. But in any case, how will things work out for us in an ordinary university after having been educated according to the right principles of the Waldorf School?” These students went on to give a nice description of universities, and in conclusion moved that a university be established where erstwhile pupils of the Waldorf School could continue their studies.

This was really quite insightful and right. The motion was immediately adopted by the representatives of the academic youth movement, and in order to get some capital together to start such an institution they even collected a fund amounting, I believe, to some twenty-five million marks, which, though it may not be a great deal of money under present inflationary conditions, is nevertheless a quite respectable sum. These days, of course, one cannot set up a university on twenty-five million marks. But if one could find an American to donate a billion marks or more for such a purpose, a beginning could be made. Otherwise, of course, it couldn't be done, and even a billion marks might not be enough; I can't immediately calculate what would be needed.

But if such a possibility did exist, we would really be embarrassed, frightfully embarrassed, even if there were a prospect of obtaining official recognition in the matter of diplomas and examinations. The problem would be the staffing of such an institution. Should it be done with Waldorf faculty, or with members of our research institutions? That could certainly be done, but then we would have no Waldorf School and no research institutions. The way the Anthroposophical Society has been developing in recent years has tended to keep out people who might otherwise have joined it. It has become incredibly difficult, when a teacher is needed for a new class being added to the Waldorf School, to find one among the membership. In spite of all the outstanding congresses and other accomplishments we have to our credit, the Society's orientation has made people feel that though anthroposophy pleased them well enough, they did not want to become members.

We are going to have to work at the task of restoring the Society to its true function. For there are many people in the world pre-destined to make anthroposophy the most vital content of their hearts and souls. But the Society must do its part in making this possible. As we face this challenge, it is immediately obvious that we must change our course and start bringing anthroposophy to the world's attention so that mankind has a chance to become acquainted with it.

Our opponents are projecting a caricature of anthroposophy, and they are working hard at the job. Their writings contain unacknowledged material from anthroposophical cycles. Nowadays there are lending libraries where the cycles can be borrowed, and so on. The old way of thinking about these things no longer fits the situation. There are second-hand bookshops that lend cycles for a fee, so that anybody who wants to read them can now do so. We show ourselves ignorant of modern social life if we think that things like cycles can be kept secret; that is no longer possible today. Our time has become democratic even in matters of the spirit. We should realize that anthroposophy has to be made known.

That is the impulse motivating the loosely federated section. The people who have come together in it are interested first and foremost in making anthroposophy widely known. I am fully aware that this will open new outlets through which much that members think should be kept within the Society will flow out into the world. But we have to adjust ourselves to the time's needs, and anthroposophists must develop a sense of what it is demanding. That is why anthroposophy must be looked upon now especially as something that can become the content of people's lives, as I indicated yesterday.

So, my dear friends, we made the reported attempt to set up looser ties between the two streams in the Society. I hope that if this effort is rightly understood and rightly handled, we can continue on the new basis for awhile. I have no illusions that it will be for long, but in that case we will have to try some other arrangement. But I said when I went to Stuttgart for this general meeting of the German Anthroposophical Society that since anthroposophy had its start in Germany and the world knows and accepts that fact, it was necessary to create some kind of order in the German Society first, but that this should only be the first step in creating order in other groups too. I picture the societies in all the other language areas also feeling themselves obligated to do their part in either a similar or different way toward consolidating the Society, so that an effort is made on every hand so to shape the life of the Society that anthroposophy can become what it should be to the world at large.