The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The light of the sun is flooding
The realms of space;
The song of birds resounds
Through fields of air;
The tender plants spring forth
From Mother Earth,
And human souls rise up
With grateful hearts
To all the spirits of the world.

Those of you who were present at the performance in Munich will remember that this children's song was the prelude to the Rosicrucian Mystery. Tonight, something of a spiritual scientific nature should unfold itself to us in connection with the content of this drama and with what, one could say, has come to life in it.

If I may, I would like to touch on the long, slow spiritual path that led to this Mystery Drama. When I think about it and look at it, its origins go back to the year 1889, twenty-one years ago; it is not approximately but exactly twenty-one years that bring me back to the germinal point of this drama. In these matters, absolute exactness can be observed. The direction has been quite clear to me in which, in 3x7 years, these seeds have grown (without any special assistance, I can say, on my part), for they have led their own individual life in these 3x7 years. It is truly remarkable to follow the path of such seeds to what may be called their finished form. Their progress can be described as a passage through the Underworld. It takes seven years for them to descend; then they return, and for this they need seven more years.

By then, having reached more or less the place where they first engaged a person before their descent, they must go in the opposite direction for seven years toward the other side; one could even say, onto a higher level. After twice seven years, then, plus seven more years, it is possible to try to embody them, foreseeing that whatever has been right in their development can take on a distinct form. If I were not convinced that within the Rosicrucian Mystery an individual organism has lived and grown for 3x7 years, I would not venture to speak further about it. I feel not only justified in speaking, however, though this is not really the question, but also in a sense obligated to speak about what lives in this Rosicrucian Mystery, not only between the lines, between the characters, in the What and the How, but what is alive in everything in the drama and what must be alive in it.

In various places since the performance of the drama in Munich, I have stated the fact that many, many things of an esoteric nature would not need to be described, that lectures would be unnecessary on my part, if only everything that lies in the Rosicrucian Mystery could work directly on your souls, my dear friends, and on the souls of others, too. I would have to use the enormous number of words necessary in my lectures and speak for days, for weeks, even for years, in order to describe what has been said and what could be said in the single drama. Everything you find in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment,¹ which is written in a somewhat tentative style—and in esoteric matters it is certainly correct to write thus as a description of the path into higher worlds—combined with what was said in Occult Science,² can be found, after all, in a much more forceful, true-to-life, and substantial form in the Rosicrucian Mystery. The reason is that it is more highly individualized. What is said in such a book as Knowledge of the Higher Worlds about human development had to be applicable to every individual who wishes to direct his path in some way into higher worlds, applicable to each and every person. Because of this, the book takes on—even with as much concreteness as possible—a certain abstract character, or you might call it a semi-theoretical character. We must hold fast, however, to this point: human development is never merely development in general. There is no such thing as development per se, no such thing as common, ordinary, orthodox development. There is only the development of this or that particular person, of a third, fourth, or twentieth human being. For each individual in the world, there must be a different process of development.

For this reason, the most honest description of the esoteric path of knowledge must have such a general character that it never in any way will coincide with an individual development. Should one actually describe the path of development as seen in the spiritual world, one can do it only by shaping the development of a single human being, by altering for the individual whatever is universally true. The book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, contains, to a certain extent, the beginning of the secrets of all human development. The Rosicrucian Mystery contains the secrets of the development of a single individual, Johannes Thomasius.

It was a truly long descent from all the occult laws of development down to a single, actually real human being. In this process, on this path, what has a tendency to become theory in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds had to be turned almost completely upside down. If it was to go beyond mere theory and particularly if it was to enter the artistic sphere, it had to be completely reversed, because the laws of art are quite different from any others. Just as there are natural laws, so there are also artistic laws, and these cannot be manipulated by the ordinary human consciousness, for then only dry-as-dust allegories would be the result.

Artistic laws must be handled just as Mother Nature handles her own laws when she lets a child, a plant, or an animal come into existence. If everything we can know about the world of nature is to be seen from the one direction that reveals its laws and secrets to the beholder, then whatever is to be revealed in art—any kind of art—must be seen from the other side, from just the opposite point of view. Therefore, it would be the worst imaginable interpretation of a work of art to start from ideas, concepts, or laws we have picked up somewhere, when we approach, say, a poem. Whoever thinks of explaining a work of art by means of abstract or symbolic ideas cannot be considered artistic. The poorest method of looking at a piece of work from the past in which true esoteric power has been invested, for instance, Goethe's Faust, would be to search within this work of art for the ideas and concepts one already has. Bad habits of this kind once prevailed in the theosophical movement in the most horrible way. I can remember something that happened just last year when we were performing Schuré's play, The Children of Lucifer. How shocking it was to the dramatist, who is an artist in the best sense of the word, when someone came up to him to ask, “Does this character represent Atma, this one Buddhi, a third Manas, or maybe this one is Kama Manas?” etc., etc. This kind of allegorizing is simply impossible in a truly creative, artistic process, and it is just as impossible in an explanation or interpretation. Therefore, it can now be said that no one should be pondering the anthroposophical meaning of Johannes Thomasius. To this question there is only one answer: as the main character in the drama, he is nothing more than Johannes Thomasius. He is nothing more than the living figure, Johannes Thomasius, in whom nothing more is portrayed than the mystery of development of one man, Johannes Thomasius.

If one speaks in too general a way about the various characters, one thing will be missing, which is hinted at in the words of the drama itself:

There forms itself out of this circle
a knot out of the threads
which karma spins in world becoming.

There is no development evolving at any point of human history without the knotting of threads within that development, “spun by karma in world becoming.” And no individual development can be described without showing what is at work in the realm of the occult, that is, in the physical environment one looks at with the forces lying behind that physical environment. Therefore, Johannes Thomasius must be placed in the human surroundings out of which his development is proceeding in the real world of physical men and women.

For this reason, the drama has to have a double introduction. The Prelude shows how the cosmic world in which the threads are knotting together for Johannes, threads that “karma spins in world becoming,” how this world confronts the ordinary outside world. One can certainly ask if this must be shown, if there must be a Prelude to show how this cosmic world looks from outside. Yes, it has to be shown. Something would be lacking if it were not so presented. The world in which karma spins its knots was quite different in 5000 B.C., for instance, from the world in 300 B.C. or in 1000 A.D. or today. The exoteric, ordinary, outside world is always changing, too, and its own karma is connected with the environment of a person who wishes to develop himself. Thus, the circle is drawn from outside inward. On the inside is the small circle in which Johannes Thomasius stands: the second Prelude. In the ordinary world outside there are trivial waves touching the shore; in the small circle, great waves are surging high. They show their turbulence, however, only within the soul of Johannes. That is why we are introduced first to the physical plane, and it is shown to us in such a way that the threads, which karma is spinning everywhere within this physical plane, are pointed out.

When you look with occult vision at any group of people, you will find that there are strands extending from one person to another, tangled in the most astonishing way. You see human beings who apparently have little to do with each other in ordinary life, but between their souls are flung the most important, most vital connections. Everything so tangled together has gradually to be illuminated, with the focus on one particular knot. Sometimes, however, whatever is in the process of becoming must be hinted at more subtly. These delicate tones had to be sounded in Scene One, where the action is taking place on the physical plane and people with a wide variety of interests are coming together. Outwardly, they chat about this or that. As they talk, however, more or less on the surface, they are revealing karma. Everyone we first meet in Scene One on the physical plane is bound to the others by destiny. What is most fundamental is how they are bound by destiny. None of the connections have been simply thought out; they are all based on esoteric life. All the threads can come to life, and each thread is quite unique.

The remarkable character of these connections you can guess at when you find such figures as Felix and Felicia Balde meeting with Capesius and Strader. What they say is not the important thing; it is that just these persons say it. They are living persons, not invented characters. I, for one, am well acquainted with them; by that I mean they are not thought out but fully alive. They are real. I have taken especially the figure of Professor Capesius, who has grown quite dear to my heart, directly from life. The extraordinary scene of the seeress Theodora had to be brought into this setting of our ordinary world. She, as one who sometimes looks into the future, now foresees the event that is to happen before the end of the twentieth century, the coming Christ event. It is a future event that can be explained karmically, although it would be wrong to interpret other events so precisely.

Then there is the karmic relationship existing between Felicia Balde and Professor Capesius, which we find hinted at by the peculiar effect on Capesius of Felicia's fairy tales. When, too, we see Strader deeply moved by the seeress Theodora, it suggests that karmic threads are arising in Strader's heart, connecting him to her. These are all threads that lie occultly behind the physical occurrences, and they seem to be spun by karma and directed toward one point, Johannes Thomasius. In him they come together. While so much is being spoken about on the physical plane, a light begins to radiate in Johannes' soul, a light that arouses terrible waves within him. At the same time, however, this light kindles his esoteric development; as a distinctly individual development it will cross his own karma with world karma. We see, therefore, what a strong impression the happenings around him on the physical plane are making on him and how the unconscious greatness in his soul is striving upward to higher worlds.

The journey into higher worlds, however, should not take place without a compass; there must be guidance and direction. Into the midst, then, of these many relationships comes the one who is described as the leader of the group. He is also the one who understands the cosmic relationships and discerns therefore “the knots that karma spins in world becoming”; it is Benedictus, and he becomes Johannes' guide. The karma working in Johannes Thomasius, which perhaps otherwise would have to work another thousand or even thousands of years, is kindled and set ablaze in one particular moment through a karmic relationship between Benedictus and Johannes, lightly drawn in the Meditation Room scene (Scene Three). There we find ourselves at the point where a human being, destined by karma to develop himself, begins to strive upward into higher worlds. In order not to do so blindly, he will be led by Benedictus in the right direction. These thoughts will become clearer when the following passages of Scene Three are presented.

A room for meditation.
Benedictus, Johannes, Maria, and a Child.

Maria

I'm bringing you the child.
He needs a guiding word from you.

Benedictus

My child, from now on you shall come
to me each evening to hear the words
that then should dwell with you
before you enter the soul realm of sleep.
Will you do this?

Child

I'll do it gladly.

Benedictus

This evening fill your heart,
till sleep enfolds you,
with strength from these few words:
‘The heavenly powers of light are carrying me
into the spirit's house.’

(The Child is taken out by Maria, who then returns.)

Maria

And now that this child's destiny shall in future flow
within the shadow of your paternal care,
I too may ask your guiding counsel,
for I've become his mother
through powers of destiny,
if not by blood.
You showed me how
to bring him up
from that first day
when I discovered him,
left by his unknown mother at my door.
And all your rules
I followed for his guidance
worked wonders on my foster child.
For every force could come to light
that in his body and his soul lay hidden.
It soon was clear that your advice
sprang from the realm
which sheltered this child's soul
before it built its body's sheath.
We saw it hopefully unfold
and shine more brightly each new day.
You know how hard it was for me at first
to gain the child's affection.
He grew up in my care,
yet nothing more than habit
first joined his soul with mine.
He looked at me, perceiving only
that I gave him all he needed
for the well-being of his body and his soul.
Then came the time when in his heart
love was enkindled
for me, the foster mother.
An outer cause brought forth this change.
The seeress came into our circle.
The child became attached to her
and learned, enchanted by the way she spoke,
one or the other charming word.
Then came a moment when exaltation
laid hold of our strange friend;
our child could see
the glimmering light within her eyes.
He felt his young soul shaken to the core
and, frightened, rushed to me.
From this time on
the child has been devoted
to me in warmest love.
Yet since he now received his care from me
not just through natural impulse
but with awakened feeling—
since his young heart stirs warmly
whenever he looks lovingly at me—
the treasures of your wisdom
have lost their fruitfulness.
And withered now is much
that had already ripened in the child.
I saw revealed within his being
what for my friend has proved so terrible.
I'm ever more a dark enigma to myself.
Do not deny my asking this grave question:
why do I ruin friend and child
when lovingly I try to do for them
the work that spirit guidance
lets me perceive within my heart as good?
You've shown to me the lofty truth:
illusion's veil is covering the surface of our life.
Yet I must have clear knowledge,
if I must bear this destiny
which is so cruel and which works such evil.

Benedictus

There forms itself within this circle
a knot out of the threads
which karma spins in world becoming.
O friend, your sorrows
are part of such a knot of destiny in which
the deeds of gods entwine themselves with human life.
When on the pilgrimage of soul
I had attained that stage
which granted me the honor
of serving with my counsel in the spirit spheres,
there came to me a higher being
which should descend into the realm of earth
to take up its abode within a human body.
Man's destiny is now demanding this
at such a turning point of time.
A great step forward in our evolution
is only possible when gods
unite themselves with man's own lot.
For spirit eyes, which should awake
in human souls, can only be evolved
when first a god has laid the seed
within a human being.
The task was now assigned to me
to find that human being
who might be worthy to accept within his soul
the seed-force of the god.
I had to link a deed of heaven
unto a human destiny.
My spirit's eye made search—
it fell on you.
Your course of life had fitted you
as mediator for new healing forces.
In many lives you had acquired
an openness for the nobility
alive in human hearts.
The precious quality of beauty,
the highest claim of virtue,
you carried in your gentle soul
as spirit heritage.
What your eternal ego
brought down into this life through birth
matured to ripened fruit
in your first youthful years.
You did not scale too soon
the lofty spirit heights.
The longing for the spiritual world
did not arise in you
till you had fully grasped
the senses' innocent delights.
Your soul encountered love and anger while as yet
your thought was far away
from all desire for spirit.
To drink the joy of Nature in her beauty
and pick the fruits of art
was all you wished to find as riches in your life.
And you could gaily laugh
as only a small child can laugh
who has as yet no knowledge
of life's grey shadow side.
You learned to fathom human happiness,
and mourn men's pain, in times
when not an inkling had yet dawned
of questioning the roots of joy and sorrow.
The soul who shows such character
encounters earthly life
as the ripe fruit sprung from many lives.
Its childlike nature is its blossom, not
its root of being.
It was this soul alone that I could choose
as mediator for that spirit
who should attain to active power
within our human world.
So comprehend now that your being
must change into its opposite
when pouring forth from you to other beings.
The spirit in you works
in everything that can grow ripe in man
as fruit for realms eternal.
And therefore much it must destroy
that only has its place within the realm of time.
Its sacrifice in death, however,
is seed of immortality.
What flourishes for higher life
must bloom from death of lower being.

Maria

So this is how it stands with me.
You give me light,
but light that robs me of the power of sight
and tears me from myself.
Am I then nothing but a spirit's mediator
and not my own true being?
No more will I endure
this form of mine,
which is a mask and not the truth.

Johannes

Dear friend, what is it?
Your gaze has lost its light.
Your body's turned into a pillar.
I take your hand—
and it is cold as death.

Benedictus

My son, you've had to meet with many trials;
but now you stand before the hardest one.
You see her body's covering.
And yet before my gaze
her Self soars into spirit spheres.

Johannes

O see, her lips begin to move.
She speaks ...

Maria

You gave me clarity,
yes, clarity that shrouded me
in darkness on all sides.
I curse your clarity,
and you I curse
who made of me
a tool of those wild arts
through which you seek to misguide men.
Not for one moment have I ever doubted
how high you stand in spirit.
Yet now one single instant has sufficed
to tear all faith in you out of my heart.
And I must recognize that they are hell-born beings,
the spirits whom you serve.
I had to mislead others
because you misled me!
I'll flee from you to regions
wherein no word of yours can penetrate,
and yet be near enough
so that my curses can still reach you!
The fire of my blood
you've torn away from me
and given to your own false god
what must be mine.
The fire of this blood,
O may it burn you!
I had to trust
in lying and deceit,
and to accomplish this
you had at first to make of me
a phantom form.
I've often had to see
how deeds and thoughts of mine
were changed into their opposite.
So now let all
that once was love for you
be changed into wild hatred's fire.
I'll hunt through all the worlds
to find that fire
that can consume you.

I cur ... ah ...

Johannes

Who is it that is speaking here?
I do not see my friend—
I see a gruesome being!

Benedictus

Maria's soul is hovering in the heights;
she's left behind her here with us
her mortal semblance only.
And where a human body
is left without a spirit,
there's room which then
the enemy of good seeks out
to step into the realm of visibility.
He finds a body's covering
and through it he can speak.
Just such an adversary spoke
who strives now to destroy the work
I must fulfill
for many human beings' future,
for you as well, my son.
For could I take these curses,
just spoken by Maria's vacant shell,
as other than the tempter's guile,
you should not follow me.
The enemy of good was at my side;
and you, my son, have seen
plunge down into the darkness
the temporal part of her
to whom your whole love radiates.
Because so often spirits
have spoken to you through her lips,
world karma has not spared you
from hearing through them also
the prince of hell.

Now you can seek her finally
and learn to know her being's core.
For she shall be the image of that higher man
to whom you shall aspire to raise yourself.
Her soul is soaring forth to spirit heights
where men can find their being's primal form
that in itself is rooted.
You now shall follow her to spirit realms
and see her in the Temple of the Sun.
There forms itself
within this circle
a knot out of the threads
which karma spins in world becoming.
My son, you have stood firm so far;
you will progress still further.
I see your star in its full radiance.
There is no place in sense existence
for battles such as men must fight
who strive for consecration.
What sense existence hides as riddles
which can be solved by intellect,
what human hearts receive from such existence—
no matter if it comes from love or hate
or whether it bursts forth with frightful power—
this for the spirit seeker must become
a field on which he, uninvolved,
directs his vision from without.
For forces must unfold themselves for him
which are not found upon this field itself.
You had to wrest your way through trials of soul
which only come to those
well-armed to meet those powers
belonging to the spirit worlds.
And had those powers not found you ready
to tread the path of knowledge,
they would have had to lame your feeling
before you were allowed to know
what now has been revealed to you.
The beings who can gaze at world-foundations
lead men who strive into the heights
at first up to that summit
where can be shown
if they have strength
for conscious spirit sight.
Those who possess such forces
can be released out of the world of sense.
The others still must wait.
You have sustained your Self, my son,
when powers of the heights have shaken you
and spirit forces shrouded you in dread.
Your Self has strongly battled its way through,
when doubts were wrestling in your breast
and sought to give you over to dark depths.
You have been my true pupil only
since that portentous hour
when you, despairing, felt
that you yourself were lost,
and yet the strength in you still held you firm.
I was allowed to grant from wisdom's treasures
what gave you strength
to hold yourself,
though you believed no longer in yourself.
So was the wisdom which you conquered
more truthful than the faith
bestowed on you.
You are now found mature.
You now may be released.
Your friend has led the way.
In spirit you will find her.
I can still further give you the direction:
Call forth the fiery power of your soul
with words which, uttered through my mouth,
give you the key to spirit heights.
They will accompany you
when nothing longer guides you
which eyes of sense can still behold.
With your whole heart now willingly receive them:

Light's weaving essence radiates
through far-flung spaces
to fill the world with life.
Love's blessing pours its warmth
through time's long ages
to call forth revelation of all worlds.
And messengers of spirit join
light's weaving essence
with revelation of the soul.
And when with both, the human being
can join his own true self,
he is alive in spirit heights.

O spirits who can be perceived by man,
quicken with life the soul of this our son.
Let shine in him
what can illumine
his soul with spirit light.
Let sound in him
what can awaken
his self to joyous spirit growth.

Spirit Voice (behind the scene):

Thoughts now guide him
to depths of world-beginnings;
what as shadows he has thought,
what as phantoms he has felt
soars out, beyond the world of forms—
world, of whose fullness
men, when thinking,
dream in shadows;
world, from whose fullness
men, when seeing,
live within phantoms.

(As the curtain falls slowly, the music begins.)

Those last tones of music, composed by our dear friend, Arenson,³ bring to expression what is echoing from higher worlds into Johannes Thomasius' soul in the drama. It follows the solemn experience he has had in the Meditation Room, which proved him genuinely mature and strong enough to ascend into these higher worlds. At the end of the scene just recited, we hear words actually sounding out of the spiritual worlds in a completely real way, into a soul that up to a certain level, if I may so describe it, has stood the test. The imponderable had to be touched on gently with words that are more meaningful than one at first believes.

It must be quite clear that the knot spun out of the threads of world karma presents to Johannes Thomasius a fact of the most sublime and powerful nature in that solemn place. What is actually happening?

Johannes Thomasius has to perceive a soul to whom he is joined karmically in a wonderful way (as shown later in Devachan, Scene Seven), ascending directly before him into the spiritual world. It is a unique moment in world history when such a soul enters divine worlds. Naturally, not everything connected with this moment can be fully described, but it is definitely a real happening that anyone conversant with occult life will recognize in its frightening and powerful interweaving of light and shadow.

Such a person knows, too, what happens in the physical world at the shattering moment when a soul disappears into the spiritual world, not with the gradual step of individual karma but suddenly, challenged by world karma. These are moments that are vital for the evolution of mankind. They are also moments when the real, ever-present forces of temptation, peering into our physical world out of the spiritual world (just as the powers of good do), have the strength to take possession of deserted physical sheaths and use them as platforms for their guile and powers of deception. The body is the point from which they launch their attack. Immediately, then, the situation will show itself as maya, illusion, of the worst kind.

Confronted with the small deceptions of karma, a person who is not far developed will be unable to withstand temptation. Confronted with much greater deceptions of karma, something that at a certain stage of development one would no longer have believed to be possible, a soul will recoil terrified, unless it has already gone through certain tragic depths of life experience. One can imagine some people saying that they, too, could have withstood what happened in the Meditation Room—but they should really find themselves sometime in the same situation! The reality is far different from what we might think it to be. In a spiritual reality, strange forces are at work. If someone does not believe this, he should just consider whether or not he has had any genuine experience with a human physical body abandoned by its own soul. Human beings know only ensouled bodies. In this case quite different forces come into play, and it is against these forces that Johannes Thomasius has to stand firm, having been guided to this moment in world karma.

Now two things come into question. Johannes Thomasius first has to endure what is usually known as kamaloka, the world in which there appears to us as a mirror image what we ourselves truly are. Again, this sounds milder when spoken about than it is in reality. When it appears in its reality, there is not merely a picture limited in space to tell us what it is, but it intones this from every corner of the world around us. The whole world is we ourselves. For this reason, when you hear in Scene Two how Johannes Thomasius descends into the depths of his soul where he is “among rocks and springs,” it is not a single mirror image he conjures up, speaking to him out of his soul, but it sounds to him from everywhere around him, out of the rocks and springs, out of his whole surroundings. At such a moment, words that were tame enough as they came out of world theories or philosophical works, or even spiritual scientific writings, suddenly grow into terrifying power, for they sound forth out of the whole world from every side as though, reflected from unending space, they are caught up in the various processes of nature.

O man, know thou thyself!

Thus, they sound when they become audible after living year after year within the soul. The soul then is left, lonely and forsaken, and stands before its Self. Nothing is there but the world—but this world is one's own soul; it contains everything the soul is, what its karma is, everything it has perpetrated.

In a poetic work, only a special theme can be singled out—for instance, an action far in the past, the desertion of a woman—but this comes fully alive to confront Johannes Thomasius' soul. I can say only a few words about this. When it happens, Johannes loses what is necessary for him to lose: confidence in himself, in his strength, even in the ability to find in loneliness the healing for what brings him such agonizing pain on the physical plane when experiencing it there. The following words, therefore, I beg you to take as they should be taken, that is, as shaking the soul and filling it completely. When Johannes Thomasius hears from all the world around him the words, “O man, know thou thyself,” his soul answers, as though his ego were not present:

For many years these words
of weighty meaning I have heard.
They sound to me from air and water;
they echo up from depths of earth.
And just as in the acorn secretly
the structure of the mighty oak is pressed,
within the power of these words
there is contained
all that my thought can comprehend
about the nature of the elements,
of souls as well as spirits,
of time and of eternity.
The world and my own nature
are living in the words:
O man, know thou thyself!

This is answered powerfully “from the springs and rocks.” Then his whole inner being is turned outward:

And now! within me
it is becoming terribly alive.
Around me darkness weaves,
within me blackness yawns;
out of the world of darkness it resounds,
out of soul-blackness it rings forth:
O man, know thou thyself!

(There sounds from springs and rocks:
O man, know thou thyself!)

You must try to imagine how the Self joins the cosmic process outside. Usually, we stand still or go about our hourly tasks and fail to see what is happening out there. We have no idea of it and believe that we are within our own inner being. But Johannes is following consciously what is going on. Consciously, he keeps pace with the power of all the elements, moves with the hours of the day and transforms himself into the night.

The earth I follow in her cosmic course.
I rumble in the thunder,
I flash within the lightning.

All this leaves the impression with him: I am. This is the moment, however, when the I am becomes the Daimon of his own soul. In the process, man's self-assertion is completely silenced. One can scarcely try to speak out, “I am,” but the soul replies:

... But oh, I feel
already separated from my being.

Then Johannes' own being appears in a limited, constrained form:

I see my body's shell.
It is an alien being outside myself;
it is remote from me.
There hovers nearer now another body ...

Now he can no longer speak with his own mouth but with the mouth of another person. It is the woman to whom he has done a wrong:

‘He brought me bitter sorrow;
I gave him all my trust.
He left me in my grief alone.
He robbed me of the warmth of life
and thrust me deep into cold earth.’

Then he returns to his own body:

She whom I left, unhappy one,
I was now she herself,
and I must suffer her despair.
Self-knowledge lent me strength
to pour myself into another self.

At this point a path is begun that is afterward described at the close of the scene in the words showing the effect of the world and the effect of solitude. In the world everything that streams in from outside works in the most frightful way. What comes from within works in such a way that the solitude is absolutely filled with people. This is a test, a test designed for the purpose hinted at in the words recited to you earlier:

The beings who can gaze at world foundations
lead men who strive into the heights
at first up to that summit
where can be shown
if they have strength
for conscious spirit sight.
Those who possess such forces
can be released out of the world of sense.
The others still must wait.

At this moment Johannes Thomasius would have lost consciousness and been flung back into the sense world if he had not held his ground in Scene Two, the scene we have been discussing in which he confronts his Self. Two things then became clear: his Self, as far as it is aware, has little strength; this deprives him of self-confidence. But the eternal “I” within him, of which he as yet knows nothing, has immense strength. It buoys him up and helps him to surmount the experience in the Meditation Room when Maria's soul departs. He needs, therefore, only the words of Benedictus, the force of those words, to guide him upward.

In the lines read to you, you must sense a Mystery of Words. What this means is not merely something written down in a play. In these lines, cosmic forces are actually contained, down to the very sounds. Indeed, the sounds cannot be changed. The opening of a door into the spiritual world is provided by these words; therefore, they must be heard just as they are spoken. Anything of the nature of the following lines cannot be put together in an arbitrary manner:

Des Lichtes webend Wesen, es erstrahlet
Durch Raumesweiten,
Zu füllen die Welt mit Sein.
Der Liebe Segen, er erwärmet
Die Zeitenfolgen,
Zu rufen aller Welten Offenbarung.
Und Geistesboten, sie vermählen
Des Lichtes webend Wesen
Mit Seelenoffenbarung;
Und wenn vermählen kann mit beiden
Der Mensch sein eigen Selbst,
Ist er in Geisteshöhen lebend.

Light's weaving essence radiates
through far-flung spaces
to fill the world with life.
Love's blessing pours its warmth
through time's long ages
to call forth revelation of all worlds.
And messengers of spirit join
light's weaving essence
with revelation of the soul.
And when with both the human being
can join his own true self,
he is alive in spirit heights.

Only after this can there sound from out the other world what is to sound into the soul. These are only hints, as has been said before.

Johannes Thomasius is then really impelled into the spiritual world. He cannot, however, rise directly into this world into which every person must go; he must first pass through the astral world. In Scene Four you have the astral world represented as Johannes Thomasius perceives it on the background of his own particular, individual past experience. It is not a universal description of this world but rather a description of what, for example, Johannes Thomasius had to experience there. The astral world is quite different from the physical. It is possible to meet a person there and see him as he was decades before, or to see a young man as he will become in future years. They are both realities. In your soul nature, you are still the same today as you were as a child of three. What you see in the soul world is by no means what is shown in man's outer physical form. The physical appearance conceals at every moment what was true before and what will come as truth in the future. When we look into the astral world, it is first of all necessary to overcome the primary maya of the sense world in order to understand the illusory power of time. For this reason, Johannes Thomasius sees in the astral world the person he has met on the physical plane, Capesius, as he once was as a youth, and he sees the one he knows as Strader just as he will be as an old man. What does this mean? Johannes knows Strader as he is now in the sense world with the forces present in his soul on the physical plane. But already within Strader are the conditions for what he will become after several decades. This also has to be included in our knowledge of a human being. Thus, time is rent asunder. It is really so that time is quite elastic in its nature when one enters the higher worlds. In the physical world Johannes Thomasius knows Capesius as elderly, Strader as young; now they stand together in the astral world: Capesius young, Strader old. It is not that time is stretched forward and backward but that one man is shown in his youth, the other in his old age. It is an absolutely real fact.

Something more is shown in this scene, something people react to with adolescent scorn. This is the fact that our soul experiences are greater than we usually think they are, that good and bad have their consequences when experienced within the soul. For example, if we think thoughts that are cruel or even false, they stream into the depths of the world and back again; we are closely connected in our soul experiences with the elemental powers of nature. This is no mere image. From the esoteric point of view, for example, it is a reality when Capesius is brought before the Spirit of the Elements, who leads every human being into existence. Actually, Capesius is confronting what the Spirit of the Elements is concerned with—and concerned with in such a way that when we experience anything in the soul, it is related to the elemental forces of nature. Johannes Thomasius is shown that both Capesius and Strader, out of the depths of their souls, can arouse the opposing powers of the elements. In that world, therefore, thunder and lightning follow what they have felt in their souls as pride or haughtiness, error, truth or lies. In the physical world, the error or lie a person has in his soul is quite peculiar. Someone can stand before us with error and lying in his soul and may appear to be quite innocent. But the moment we look at him with astral vision, we can see raging storms that otherwise are represented on earth only as a picture by the most terrible convulsions of the elements. All this Johannes has to experience and everything, too, that in the astral world can show him the remarkable connections he did not recognize when he met them on the physical plane.

The names given in this Rosicrucian Mystery are not given just by chance. Names such as “the Other Maria,” and so on, all point to definite relationships, so that the “one” and the “other” Maria are not merely “two Marias” but present themselves as Maria-forces to the other characters. “The Other Maria,” the mysterious nature figure, is revealed to Johannes Thomasius as the soul living below the ordinary conscious soul quite inaudibly and imperceptibly as long as man lives only in the physical world. But you must not take these relationships and characters as symbols. The Other Maria is absolutely a real person, a reality, just as the first Maria is. They should be taken for what they really are.

Everything that Johannes Thomasius has experienced passes before the eyes of his soul. He has experienced the astral world. This he can now bring into his consciousness by saying:

In realms of soul I find again
the human beings who are known to me.
The man who spoke about Felicia's fairy tales:
I could behold him here
as in his younger years;
and also he who as a youth
had chosen to become a monk:
here as an old man he appeared to me.
And with them was the Spirit of the Elements.

(End of Scene Four)

Johannes Thomasius has passed through what wipes out time before his eyes, because he has now become mature, sufficiently mature to see into the astral world. Is this world free from error? No, it is not. But in the astral world one thing can become a certainty for man. It will become a certainty for him, if he enters it in purity and without guilt, that there is a higher world shining into the astral world, just as the astral world shines into the ordinary physical world. The only question is whether or not he can see this as it actually is. People who go about in this physical world are themselves only a kind of illusion, in that they have something behind them leading them into the higher world. They stand in contrast to what they have perhaps been in distant or more recent times and what they will become in the future. But certain errors do not show us the astral world in which one is quite entangled in the world of the senses. For instance, they do not show the relationship of the three great forces of our existence: Will, Love, and Wisdom. This is so difficult to discern and understand in its reality that it remains hidden for a long time in the astral world. It is not an easy matter to discover it there. Besides, some relationships that are errors in the sense world are continued on into the astral world.

The working together of will, wisdom, and love, which at this point can only be touched on, takes place in the physical world through human beings. In the higher worlds, it takes place through the beings who expend their forces whenever, on the physical plane, the forces of supersensible beings descend into human souls. This happens through initiates in those temples where there are human representatives for the single world-forces, where human beings have come so far as to renounce the desire to portray the whole human being as he is but limit themselves to portraying a single force. It is the representatives who have taken over. But when man looks into the astral world, those holy places of the representatives of the powers of will, wisdom, and love are shown to him in a picture filled with maya. Therewith is woven a fearful web between the illusion of the sense world and of the astral world.

Now, I should have to talk for weeks if I wished to explain how it is with that figure of the higher powers shown as the initiate of the powers of will; he has met Johannes Thomasius on the physical plane, and there he really seems to be an ordinary, superficial fellow. In such a case the question can arise: are the primal forces of will supposed to work through such a person? Yes, they are. We can perhaps understand that the force manifesting the powers of will can permeate just this kind of less developed human being in the same way as the radiance of wisdom enters a man like Benedictus. We must grasp the following. If we have a beautiful flower in full bloom and place a seed beside it, it may be that the seed when developed will bring forth a still more beautiful flower. The flower can at this moment be considered quite perfect, but, according to cosmic reality, the seed is actually something more perfect. Hence, we have these opposites: Benedictus, the eminent bearer of wisdom, and the man who on the physical plane behaves in such a strange way toward everything said about the spiritual worlds and in such a strange way rejects it all. When in a group of people he hears talk about the spiritual worlds, he says, as if he were unwilling to listen:

I cannot find the bridge that leads across
from mere ideas to actual deeds.

(Romanus, Scene One)

He is a man who finds elsewhere what leads to deeds; to him, any talk about the spiritual is simply empty talk. You could tell this fellow beautiful things about theosophy; to the man he is, now, on the physical plane, it is nothing but words. What he finds worthwhile is the working of machines. When he hears about the Other Maria, how spiritual power has become part of her, kindling a strength of feeling and love in her so that she can perform healing deeds, he is the one who rejects all this, saying merely, “That comes from her having a good heart!” He remains wholly on the physical plane, where he is indeed a philistine, an ordinary fellow, but also at the same time an energetic, determined man of will. Hence, he says:

If this good person has achieved so much
the impulse lies
in her warm heart.
When work is done, men surely need
refreshment and renewal from ideas.
But only training of the will,
combined with skill and strength
in all the genuine work of life,
will further human progress.
When whirr of wheels
is humming in my ears,
and when contented human hands
are labouring at machines,
it's then I feel the powers of life at work.

This is the man of will, the man of action. If you were to talk to him day in and day out about the spirit, his only response would be, “You can't turn a winch with that; meanwhile, what are people going to eat?” This amounts to saying, “Turn your winches all day long, and then, if you have a little spare time, talk about the spirit for amusement!” Here are the forces still latent in the seed, and they are good forces, important forces. Through the powers of will they stream into the world. When people hear about spiritual worlds and receive what is said, each in his own way, this must not be judged theoretically, for it is extremely difficult to arrive at the truth. If you do not understand that a seed must be looked upon as the counterpart to such a person as has just been described, you will be experiencing the same kind of illusion as the one presented by the Subterranean Temple. There it is an astral maya. There is reality in what Johannes Thomasius perceives in the scene with Capesius and Strader when he sees them at different ages. But in Scene Five a maya, a Fata Morgana of the spiritual world, is pictured, from which, after it has been experienced, the soul must free itself. Therefore, you have to take Scene Five as justified only by the fact that reality is intermingled with the maya.

No part of this scene would contribute to Johannes Thomasius' development unless it bore the same relationship to astral experience that the concepts and ideas of the physical world bear to our understanding of the world. What scientific knowledge is for the physical plane, the “Maya Temple” is for the astral world. The “Maya Temple” is no more a reality rooted in the spiritual world than a concept is something we can eat. But concepts must live in the world for an understanding of the world to be possible. Only in this way can there play in from another world what is profoundly illuminating for Johannes Thomasius, that is, to recognize the definite knot in world karma formed when Felix Balde comprehends that in solitary wanderings about the world he must not bury his soul treasures but must bring them to the temple.

Then, for the first time, it is possible for Johannes Thomasius to perceive relationships in the spiritual world that are, so to speak, much more real, and of a more delicate and intimate nature. For example, the projection of the astral world into the physical world takes place when such a thing happens as the inspiring of a man like Capesius by someone who does not really know, herself, how much is living in her soul. In the Mystery Play, Felicia Balde does not know this. In the case of a man of intellect, a man who works intellectually, everything passes through his intellect. There is nothing whatever in the intellect that can give us strength while it instructs us about the world. This lies outside the capacity of the intellect. In a person of exceptional intelligence, a force coming from the spiritual world may pass through the intellect and then continue. At this point, he will be able to speak of the spiritual world in splendid, theoretical terms. The mind, however, does not influence the degree of inner esoteric life or the content of the soul. What comes from theories may reach the soul even without passing through the intellect; it can discover a person who is receptive to the fountainhead of spirit and who can summon up something there that Capesius, for instance, describes on the physical plane. This is clearly shown in his words about Felicia Balde, who lives out there in the solitude with Felix, and what she really means to him—when he says how gladly he listens to her because she speaks out of the most profound, age-old wisdom. It is important for us to grasp fully what Capesius is saying: on the physical plane, there is a woman to whom he likes to listen and from whose lips come things welling up from occult sources. She cannot clothe them in elegant words, but when her words reach the ear of Capesius, he can say:

I must allude
if I'm to tell about it,
to something which in truth
seems far more wonderful to me
than much that I have heard of here,
because it speaks more to my heart.
I scarcely should be able in another place
to bring the words across my lips
which here I find so easy.
I feel my soul, at times,
as though entirely empty and exhausted;
it is as if the very fountainhead
of knowledge had run dry within me,
as if I could not find one word
that seems worthwhile to speak or to be heard.

(Scene One)

Such things exist. Such people, however much they know, feel at these times as if they could get no further.

And when I feel such barrenness of spirit,
then I escape and go where these good people
have their refreshing, quiet solitude.

Then his soul begins to open out, because that is for him the door into the occult world.

And there Felicia tells me many a tale
in pictures fabulous,
of beings dwelling in the land of dreams
and in the realm of magic fairy tales,
who live a motley life.
The tone in which she tells of them
recalls the bards of ancient times.
I do not ask the sources of her words,
but this one thing I clearly know:
that new life wells and flows into my soul
dispelling its paralysis.

The reality of all this Johannes Thomasius can observe on the physical plane, for he is present, but to be able to explain it to himself he has first to look into the astral world. In Scene Six then, in the astral world, Felicia Balde appears to him “just as she is in life.” She gives the Spirit of the Elements one of the hundreds of fairy tales she has told Capesius. Now, however, comes the reciprocal movement to what takes place below the threshold of consciousness.

Felicia has told Capesius her fairy tales. When she tells one that she herself does not understand, the forces arise in his soul that banish his mental paralysis; then he can, in turn, relate something to his audience. It sounds, however, quite different from what Felicia has related. Mysterious forces are active even in Capesius. When one seeks to discover them, he will find their origin in the astral world, where it can be seen how they call forth countercurrents. Wherever there are elemental powers, they call up the kind of reverberations that Felicia's words awaken in the soul of Capesius. The same kind of thing occurs in our brain. A little spirit lives there who perhaps thinks out the most wonderful things. When we try to discover how he comes out of the macrocosm, we are likely to find the Earth-brain, which thinks thoughts on quite a different scale from those appearing in the small human brain. A man will often assert something he does not see in his own brain, but it will look grotesque when it is reflected in the giant Earth-brain. This has to be reflected; hence, the relationship of Gairman, who appears on the physical plane and then as the Spirit of the Earth-brain. About this, too, one could speak for a long time. Were we to look with soul vision at what takes place in the lonely cottage when Felicia tells her fairy tales and afterward behold the Spirit of the Earth-brain, we would discover many a secret, as, for instance, how ironical this Spirit of the Earth-brain is and how often he mocks. Ridicule has to be a concern of his, because he finds much to laugh at in what human beings do.

From an artistic point of view, it is justifiable that the moment this mockery is out of place, Gairman appears in the role he has so often to play and shows himself in his true guise. We see then, after Felicia Balde has told one of her fairy tales before the Spirit of the Elements in Scene Six, how an abnormal effect is produced on the Spirit of the Earth-brain, who translates the tale in quite different words. Felicia relates the story:

... Once upon a time
there was a Being
that flew from East to West,
following the journey of the sun.
It flew on, over lands and over seas;
and from the heights it watched
the busy life of men.
It saw how men love one another,
and how in hate they persecute each other.
Nothing could hinder
this Being in its flight;
for hate and love create
always the same a thousandfold.
But over one house on its way
the Being had to pause.
Within, there was a tired man
who pondered over human love
and pondered, too, on human hate.
His pondering had carved
deep furrows on his brow,
had turned his hair quite white.
In its concern for him,
the Being lost its guide, the sun,
and stayed at this man's side.
It was still in his room
at evening when the sun went down;
and when the sun returned,
the Being was once more
caught upward by the spirit of the sun.
Again it saw the many people in love, in hate,
continue on their earthly course.
And when it came a second time
above the house, still following the sun,
its gaze fell there
upon a dead old man.

The Spirit of the Earth-brain responds in a way that is naturally not at all justifiable:

Once upon a time there was a man
who tramped from East to West;
the urge for knowledge lured him on
to travel over lands and seas,
and by his rules of wisdom
he watched the busy life of men.
He saw how men love one another
and how in hate they persecute each other.
At every single instant
he saw himself at all his wisdom's end.
For how it is that hate and love
forever rule the earthly world
could not be brought into a law.
He noted many thousand cases,
yet lacked a comprehensive whole.
This dry researcher
encountered on his way
a Being of the Light,
upon whom life weighed heavily,
for it was in a constant battle
with a dark shadow-form.
‘Well, who are you?’
inquired the dry researcher.
‘Oh, I am Love,’
one being answered.
‘In me behold dark Hate,’
so spoke the other.
The man, however, could
no longer hear these beings' words.
As deaf researcher, tramped on
from East to West, this man.

These things are distinct experiences of the astral world. Johannes Thomasius has to pass through them in order to ascend into the spiritual world.

Today I will only say briefly that it is necessary for Johannes Thomasius, in order to reach the spiritual world itself, to make a real connection with that world on threads already woven in the physical world. As you will hear later in the recitation of Scene Seven, his connection with the spiritual world arose out of the karma encompassed by incarnations, and this could be revealed only to Devachanic vision. Devachanic elements actually have to play their part. Therefore, I ask you to notice how everything is alive in the living, weaving Devachanic ocean. This can be described, but the details must more or less be hinted at. For a real description, we must go further. Let us not think that we know anything of higher worlds by speaking about them with the words sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, alluding to Philia, Astrid, and Luna. These three figures are in no way personifications of the three soul principles, nor are they symbols for them. Listen to the vowels with which each of these characters describes her activities. Try to hear what lives in the vowels. Then you can follow how the sequence of single vowels and single words make clear what is given in a different way as sentient, intellectual, and consciousness souls. Should you delete any part of it, it will no longer be intact. Therefore, it is important to listen carefully to the words when, for instance, Luna speaks, so as to get an understanding of the Devachanic element in the consciousness soul:

Ich will erwärmen Seelenstoff
Und will erhärten Lebensäther.
Sie sollen sich verdichten,
Sie sollen sich erfühlen,
Und in sich selber seiend
Sich schaffend halten,
Dass du, geliebte Schwester,
Der suchenden Menschenseele
Des Wissens Sicherheit erzeugen kannst.

I will enwarm soul-substance
and will make firm life-ether.
They shall condense themselves,
they shall perceive themselves,
and in themselves residing
guard their creative forces,
that you, beloved sister,
Within the seeking soul
may quicken certainty of knowledge.

(Scene Seven)

In the movement of the words can be heard in this description of Devachan what otherwise cannot in any way be expressed. This, too, must be taken into consideration. When speaking about higher worlds, we are definitely obliged to speak in many different ways. What I could never say theoretically about the sentient, intellectual, and consciousness souls you may perceive, if you have the desire to understand it, from the characterization of the three figures, Philia, Astrid, and Luna. But you must understand that these three are not symbols or allegories of the sentient, intellectual, and consciousness souls. Should you ask, “What are these three?” the answer would be, “They are persons who are alive; they are Philia-, Astrid-, and Luna-people.” This always must be kept firmly in mind.

How karma, finally intertwining and twisting itself together, can display in a picture what as microcosm Johannes Thomasius experiences in his soul—this was portrayed in the whole closing scene of the Munich performance. Showing how karma is at work, the various characters stood in their places. Each had his position according to his relationship to another person. If you imagine this actually mirrored in the soul of Johannes Thomasius, you will then have more or less what is contained in this picture of the spirit realm in Scene Seven, which could only with great difficulty be given verbal expression.

(There followed a recitation of Scene Seven by Marie von Sivers, accompanied at the beginning and end by the music of Adolf Arenson.)

• 1. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, Anthroposophic Press, Inc., Spring Valley, NY, reprinted 1983.
• 2. Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Occult Science, Anthroposophic Press, Inc., Spring Valley, NY, 1979.
• 3. Adolf Arenson (1855-1936) composed the music for the four Mystery Dramas at the request of Rudolf Steiner.

[ 1 ] One of the fundamental principles of true spiritual science is that the one who devotes himself to its study should do so with full consciousness; he should attempt nothing and practice nothing without knowledge of the effect produced. A teacher of spiritual science who gives advice or instruction will, at the same time, always explain to those striving for higher knowledge the effects produced on body, soul and spirit, if his advice and instructions be followed.

[ 2 ] Some effects produced upon the soul of the student will here be indicated. For only those who know such things as they are here communicated can undertake in full consciousness the exercises that lead to knowledge of the higher worlds. Without the latter no genuine esoteric training is possible, for it must be understood that all groping in the dark is discouraged, and that failure to pursue this training with open eyes may lead to mediumship, but not to exact clairvoyance in the sense of spiritual science.

[ 3 ] The exercises described in the preceding chapters, if practiced in the right way, involve certain changes in the organism of the soul (astral body). The latter is only perceptible to the clairvoyant, and may be compared to a cloud, psycho-spiritually luminous to a certain degree, in the center of which the physical body is discernible. (A description will be found in the author's book, Theosophy.) In this astral body desires, lusts, passions, and ideas become visible in a spiritual way. Sensual appetites, for instance, create the impression of a dark red radiance with a definite shape; a pure and noble thought finds its expression in a reddish-violet radiance; the clear-cut concept of the logical thinker is experienced as a yellowish figure with sharply defined outline; the confused thought of the muddled head appears as a figure with vague outline. The thoughts of a person with one-sided, queer views appear sharply outlined but immobile, while the thoughts of people accessible to the points of view of others are seen to have mobile, changeable outlines. (In all these and the following descriptions it must be noted that by seeing a color, spiritual seeing is meant. When the clairvoyant speaks of “seeing red,” he means: “I have an experience, in a psycho-spiritual way, which is equivalent to the physical experience when an impression of red is received.” This mode of expression is here used because it is perfectly natural to the clairvoyant. If this point is over-looked, a mere color-vision may easily be mistaken for a genuine clairvoyant experience.)

[ 4 ] The further the student advances in his inner development, the more regular will be the differentiation within his astral body. The latter is confused and undifferentiated in the case of a person of undeveloped inner life; yet the clairvoyant can perceive even the unorganized astral body as a figure standing out distinctly from its environment. It extends from the center of the head to the middle of the physical body, and appears like an independent body possessing certain organs. The organs now to be considered are perceptible to the clairvoyant near the following part of the physical body: the first between the eyes; the second near the larynx; the third in the region of the heart; the fourth in the so-called pit of the stomach; the fifth and sixth are situated in the abdomen. These organs are technically known as wheels, chakrams, or lotus flowers. They are so called on account of their likeness to wheels or flowers, but of course it should be clearly understood that such an expression is not to be applied more literally than is the term “wings” when referring to the two halves of the lungs. Just as there is no question of wings in the case of the lungs, so, too, in the case of the lotus flowers the expression must be taken figuratively. In undeveloped persons these lotus flowers are dark in color, motionless and inert. In the clairvoyant, however, they are luminous, mobile, and of variegated color. Something of this kind applies to the medium, though in a different way; this question, however, need not be pursued here any further.

[ 5 ] Now, when the student begins his exercises, the lotus flowers become more luminous; later on they begin to revolve. When this occurs, clairvoyance begins. For these flowers are the sense-organs of the soul, and their revolutions express the fact that the clairvoyant perceives supersensibly. What was said previously concerning spiritual seeing applies equally to these revolutions and even to the lotus flowers themselves. No one can perceive the supersensible until he has developed his astral senses in this way. Thanks to the spiritual organ situated in the vicinity of the larynx, it becomes possible to survey clairvoyantly the thoughts and mentality of other beings, and to obtain a deeper insight into the true laws of natural phenomena. The organ situated near the heart permits of clairvoyant knowledge of the sentiments and disposition of other souls. When developed, this organ also makes it possible to observe certain deeper forces in animals and plants. By means of the organ in the so-called pit of the stomach, knowledge is acquired of the talents and capacities of souls; by its means, too, the part played by animals, plants, stones, metals, atmospheric phenomena and so on in the household of nature becomes apparent.

[ 6 ] The organ in the vicinity of the larynx has sixteen petals or spokes; the one in the region of the heart twelve, and the one in the pit of the stomach ten.

[ 7 ] Now certain activities of the soul are connected with the development of these organs, and anyone devoting himself to them in a certain definite way contributes something to the development of the corresponding organs. In the sixteen-petalled lotus, eight of its sixteen petals were developed in the remote past during an earlier stage of human evolution. Man himself contributed nothing to this development; he received them as a gift from nature, at a time when his consciousness was in a dull, dreamy condition. At that stage of human evolution they were in active use, but the manner of their activity was only compatible with that dull state of consciousness. As consciousness became clearer and brighter, the petals became obscured and ceased their activity. Man himself can now develop the remaining eight petals by means of conscious exercises, and thereby the whole lotus flower becomes luminous and mobile. The acquisition of certain faculties depends on the development of each one of the sixteen petals. Yet, as already shown, only eight can be consciously developed; the remainder then appear of their own accord.

[ 8 ] The development proceeds in the following manner. The student must first apply himself with care and attention to certain functions of the soul hitherto exercised by him in a careless and inattentive manner. There are eight such functions. The first is the way in which ideas and conceptions are acquired. In this respect people usually allow themselves to be led by chance alone. They see or hear one thing or another and form their ideas accordingly. As long as this is the case the sixteen petals of the lotus flower remain ineffective. It is only when the student begins to take his self-education in hand, in this respect, that the petals become effective. His ideas and conceptions must be guarded; each single idea should acquire significance fore him; he should see it in a definite message instructing him concerning the things of the outer world, and he should derive no satisfaction from ideas devoid of such significance. He must govern his mental life so that it becomes a true mirror of the outer world, and direct his effort to the exclusion of incorrect ideas from his soul.

The second of these functions is concerned with the control of resolutions. The student must not resolve upon even the most trifling act without well-founded and thorough consideration. Thoughtless and meaningless actions should be foreign to his nature. He should have well-considered grounds for everything he does, and abstain from everything to which no significant motive urges him.

The third function concerns speech. The student should utter no word that is devoid of sense and meaning; all talking for the sake of talking draws him away from his path. He must avoid the usual kind of conversation, with its promiscuous discussion of indiscriminately varied topics. This does not imply his preclusion from intercourse with his fellows. It is precisely in such intercourse that his conversation should develop to significance. He is ready to converse with everyone, but he does so thoughtfully and with thorough deliberation. He never speaks without grounds for what he says. He seeks to use neither too many nor too few words.

The fourth is the regulation of outward action. The student tries to adjust his actions in such a way that they harmonize with the actions of his fellow-men and with the events in his environment. He refrains from actions which are disturbing to others and in conflict with his surroundings. He seeks to adjust his actions so that they combine harmoniously with his surroundings and with his position in life. When an external motive causes him to act he considers how he can best respond. When the impulse proceeds from himself he weighs with minute care the effects of his activity.

The fifth function includes the management of the whole of life. The student endeavors to live in conformity with both nature and spirit. Never overhasty, he is also never indolent. Excessive activity and laziness are equally alien to him. He looks upon life as a means for work and disposes it accordingly. He regulates his habits and the care of his health in such a way that a harmonious whole is the outcome.

The sixth is concerned with human endeavor. The student tests his capacities and proficiency, and conducts himself in the light of such self- knowledge. He attempts nothing beyond his powers, yet seems to omit nothing within their scope. On the other hand, he sets himself aims that have to do with the ideals and the great duties of a human being. He does not mechanically regard himself as a wheel in the vast machinery of mankind but seeks to comprehend the tasks of his life, and to look out beyond the limit of the daily and trivial. He endeavors to fulfill his obligations ever better and more perfectly.

The seventh deals with the effort to learn as much from life as possible. Nothing passes before the student without giving him occasion to accumulate experience which is of value to him for life. If he has performed anything wrongly or imperfectly, he lets this be an incentive for meeting the same contingency later on rightly and perfectly. When others act he observes them with the same end in view. He tries to gather a rich store of experience, ever returning to it for counsel; nor indeed will he ever do anything without looking back on experiences from which he can derive help in his decisions and affairs.

Finally, the eighth is as follows: The student must, from time to time, glance introspectively into himself, sink back into himself, take counsel with himself, form and test the fundamental principles of his life, run over in his thoughts the sum total of his knowledge, weigh his duties, and reflect upon the content and aim of life. All these things have been mentioned in the preceding chapters; here they are merely recapitulated in connection with the development of the sixteen-petalled lotus. By means of these exercises the latter will become ever more and more perfect, for it is upon such exercises that the development of clairvoyance depends. The better the student's thoughts and speech harmonize with the processes in the outer world, the more quickly will he develop this faculty. Whoever thinks and speaks what is contrary to truth destroys something in the germ of his sixteen-petalled lotus. Truthfulness, uprightness, and honesty are in this connection creative forces, while mendacity, deceitfulness, and dishonesty are destructive forces. The student must realize, however, that actual deeds are needed, and not merely good intentions. If I think or say anything that does not conform with reality, I kill something in my spiritual organs, even though I believe my intentions to be ever so good. It is here as with the child which needs must burn itself when it touches fire, even though it did so out of ignorance. The regulation of the above activities of the soul in the manner described causes the sixteen-petalled lotus to shine in glorious hues, and imparts to it a definite movement. Yet it must be noted that the faculty of clairvoyance cannot make its appearance before a definite degree of development of the soul has been reached. It cannot appear as long as it is irksome for the student to regulate his life in this manner. He is still unfit as long as the activities described above are a matter of special pre-occupation for him The first traces of clairvoyance only appear when he has reached the point of being able to live in the specified way, as a person habitually lives. These things must then no longer be laborious, but must have become a matter of course. There must be no need for him to be continually watching himself and urging himself on to live in this way. It must all have become a matter of habit.

Now this lotus flower may be made to develop in another way by following certain other instructions. But all such methods are rejected by true spiritual science, for they lead to the destruction of physical health and to moral ruin. They are easier to follow than those here described. The latter, though protracted and difficult, lead to the true goal and cannot but strengthen morally.

[ 9 ] The distorted development of a lotus flower results not only in illusions and fantastic conceptions, should a certain degree of clairvoyance be acquired, but also in errors and instability in ordinary life. Such a development may be the cause of timidity, envy, vanity, haughtiness, willfulness and so on in a person who hitherto was free from these defects. It has already been explained that eight of the sixteen petals of this lotus flower were developed in a remote past, and that these will re-appear of themselves in the course of esoteric development. All the effort and attention of the student must be devoted to the remaining eight. Faulty training may easily result in the re-appearance of the earlier petals alone, while the new petals remain stunted. This will ensue especially if too little logical, rational thinking is employed in the training. It is of supreme importance that the student should be a rational and clear-thinking person, and of further importance that he should practice the greatest clarity of speech. People who begin to have some presentiment of supersensible things are apt to wax talkative on this subject, thereby retarding their normal development. The less one talks about these matters the better. Only someone who has achieved a certain degree of clarity should speak about them.

[ 10 ] At the beginning of their instruction, students are as a rule astonishes at the teacher's lack of curiosity concerning their own experiences. It would be much better for them to remain entirely silent on this subject, and to content themselves with mentioning only whether they have been successful or unsuccessful in performing the exercises and observing the instructions given them. For the teacher has quite other means of estimating their progress than the students' own statements. The eight petals now under consideration always become a little hardened through such statements, whereas they should be kept soft and supple. The following example taken, for the sake of clarity, not from the supersensible world but from ordinary life, will illustrate this point. Suppose I hear a piece of news and thereupon immediately form an opinion. Shortly afterwards I receive some further news which does not tally with the previous information. I am thereby obliged to reverse my previous judgment. The result is an unfavorable influence upon my sixteen-petalled lotus. Quite the contrary would have been the case had I, in the first place, suspended judgment, and remained silent both inwardly in thought and outwardly in word concerning the whole affair, until I had acquired reliable grounds for forming my judgment. Caution in the formation and pronouncement of judgments becomes, by degrees, the special characteristic of the student. On the other hand his receptivity for impressions and experiences increases; he lets them pass over him silently, so as to collect and have the largest possible number of facts at his disposal when the time comes to form his opinions. Bluish-red and reddish-pink shades color the lotus flower as the result of such circumspection, whereas in the opposite case dark red and orange shades appear. (Students will recognize in the conditions attached to the development of the sixteen-petalled lotus the instructions given by the Buddha to his disciples for the Path. Yet there is no question here of teaching Buddhism, but of describing conditions governing development which are the natural outcome of spiritual science. The fact that these conditions correspond with certain teachings of the Buddha is no reason for not finding them true in themselves.)

The twelve-petalled lotus situated in the region of the heart is developed in a similar way. Half its petals, too, were already existent and in active use in a remote stage of human evolution. Hence these six petals need not now be especially developed in esoteric training; they appear of themselves and begin to revolve when the student sets to work on the other six. Here again he learns to promote this development by consciously controlling and directing certain inner activities in a special way.

It must be clearly understood that the perceptions of each single organ of soul or sprit bear a different character. The twelve and sixteen-petalled lotus flowers transmit quite different perceptions. The latter perceives forms. The thoughts and mentality of other beings and the laws governing natural phenomena become manifest, through the sixteen-petalled lotus, as figures, not rigid motionless figures but mobile forms filled with life. The clairvoyant in whom this sense is developed can describe, for every mode of thought and for every law of nature, a form which expresses them. A revengeful thought, for example, assumes an arrow-like, pronged form, while a kindly thought is often formed like an opening flower, and so on. Clear-cut, significant thoughts are regular and symmetrical in form, while confused thoughts have wavy outlines. Quite different perceptions are received through the twelve-petalled lotus. These perceptions may, in a sense, be likened to warmth and cold, as applied to the soul. A clairvoyant equipped with this faculty feels this warmth and cold streaming out from the forms discerned by the sixteen-petalled lotus. Had he developed the sixteen and not the twelve-petalled lotus he would only perceive, in the kindly thought, for instance, the figure described above, while a clairvoyant in whom both senses were developed would also notice what can only be described as soul-warmth, flowing from the thought. It would be noted in passing that esoteric training never develops one organ without the other, so that the above-mentioned example may be regarded as a hypothetical case in behalf of clarity. The twelve-petalled lotus, when developed, reveals to the clairvoyant a deep understanding of the processes of nature. Rays of soul-warmth issue from every manifestation of growth and development, while everything in the process of decay, destruction, ruin, gives an impression of cold.

[ 12 ] The development of this sense may be furthered in the following manner. To begin with, the student endeavors to regulate his sequence of thought (control of thought). Just as the sixteen-petalled lotus is developed by cultivating thoughts that conform with truth and are significant, so, too, the twelve-petalled lotus is developed by inwardly controlling the trains of thought. Thoughts that dart to and fro like will-o'-the-wisps and follow each other in no logical or rational sequence, but merely by pure chance, destroy its form. The closer thought is made to follow upon thought, and the more strictly everything of illogical nature is avoided, the more suitable will be the form this sense organ develops. If the student hears illogical thoughts he immediately lets the right thoughts pass through his mind. He should not, however, withdraw in a loveless way from what is perhaps an illogical environment in order to further his own development. Neither should he feel himself impelled to correct all the illogical thoughts expressed around him. He should rather silently co-ordinate the thoughts as they pour in upon him, and make them conform to logic and sense, and at the same time endeavor in every case to retain this same method in his own thinking.

An equal consistency in his actions forms the second requirement (control of actions). All inconstancy, all disharmony of action, is baneful for the lotus here in question. When the student performs some action he must see to it that his succeeding action follows in logical sequence, for if he acts from day to day with variable intent he will never develop the faculty here considered.

The third requirement is the cultivation of endurance (perseverance). The student is impervious to all influences which would divert him from the goal he has set himself, as long as he can regard it as the right goal. For him, obstacles contain a challenge that impels him to surmount them, but never a reason for giving up.

The fourth requirement is forbearance (tolerance) toward persons, creatures, and also circumstances. The student suppresses all superfluous criticism of everything that is imperfect, evil and bad, and seeks rather to understand everything that comes under his notice. Even as the sun does not withdraw its light from the bad and the evil, so he, too, does not refuse them an intelligent sympathy. Should some trouble befall him he does not proceed to condemn and criticize, but accepts the inevitable, and endeavors to the best of his ability to give the matter a turn for the best. He does not consider the opinions of others merely from his own standpoint, but seeks to put himself into the other's position.

The fifth requirement is impartiality toward everything that life brings. In this connection we speak of faith and trust. The student meets every human being and every creature with this trust, and lets it inspire his every action. Upon hearing some information, he never says to himself: “I don't believe it; it contradicts my present opinions.” He is far rather ready to test and rectify his views and opinions. He ever remains receptive for everything that confronts him, and he trusts in the efficacy of his undertakings. Timidity and skepticism are banished from his being. He harbors a faith in the power of his intentions. A hundred failures cannot rob him of this faith. This is the “faith which can move mountains.”

The sixth requirement is the cultivation of a certain inner balance (equanimity). The student endeavors to retain his composure in the face of joy and sorrow, and eradicates the tendency to fluctuate between the seventh heaven of joy and the depths of despair. Misfortune and danger, fortune and advancement alike find him ready armed.

[ 13 ] The reader will recognize in the qualities here described the six attributes which the candidate for initiation strives to acquire. The intention has been to show their connection with the spiritual organ known as the twelve-petalled lotus flower. As before, special instructions can be given to bring this lotus flower to fruition, but here again the perfect symmetry of its form depends on the development of the qualities mentioned, the neglect of which results in this organ being formed into a caricature of its proper shape. In this case, should a certain clairvoyance be attained, the qualities in question may take an evil instead of a good direction. A person may become intolerant, timid, or contentious toward his environment; may, for instance, acquire some feeling for the sentiments of others, and for this reason shun them or hate them. This may even reach the point where, by reason of the inner coldness that overwhelms him when he hears repugnant opinions, he is unable to listen, or he may behave in an objectionable manner.

[ 14 ] The development of this organ may be accelerated if, in addition to all that has been stated, certain other injunctions are observed which can only be imparted to the student by word of mouth. Yet the instructions given above do actually lead to genuine esoteric training, and more-over, the regulation of life in the way described can be advantageous to all who cannot or will not undergo esoteric training. For it does not fail to produce an effect upon the organism of the soul, even though slowly. As regards the esoteric student, the observance of these principles is indispensable. Should he attempt esoteric training without conforming to them, this could only result in his entering the higher worlds with inadequate organs, and instead of perceiving the truth he would be subject to deceptions and illusions. He would attain a certain clairvoyance, but for the most part, be the victim of greater blindness than before. Formerly he at least stood firmly within the physical world; now he looks beyond this physical world and grows confused about it before acquiring a firm footing in a higher world. All power of distinguishing truth from error would then perhaps fail him, and he would entirely lose his way in life. It is just for this reason that patience is so necessary in these matters. It must ever be borne in mind that the instructions given in esoteric training may go no further than is compatible with the willing readiness shown to develop the lotus flowers to their regular shape. Should these flowers be brought to fruition before they have quietly attained their correct form, mere caricatures would be the result. Their maturity can be brought about by the special instructions given in esoteric training, but their form is dependent on the method of life described above.

[ 15 ] An inner training of a particularly intimate character is necessary for the development of the ten-petalled lotus flower, for it is now a question of learning consciously to control and dominate the sense-impressions themselves. This is of particular importance in the initial stages of clairvoyance, for it is only by this means that a source of countless illusions and fancies is avoided. People as a rule do not realize by what factors their sudden ideas and memories are dominated, and how they are produced. Consider the following case. Someone is traveling by railway; his mind is busy with one thought; suddenly is thought diverges; he recollects an experience that befell him years ago and interweaves it with his present thought. He did not notice that in looking through the window he had caught sight of a person who resembled another intimately connected with the recollected experience. He remains conscious, not of what he saw, but of the effect it produced, and thus believes that it all came to him of its own accords. How much in life occurs in such a way! How great is the part played in our life by things we hear and learn, without our consciously realizing the connection! Someone, for instance, cannot bear a certain color, but does not realize that this is due to the fact that the schoolmaster who used to worry him many years ago wore a coat of that color. Innumerable illusions are based upon such associations. Many things leave their mark upon the soul while remaining outside the pale of consciousness. The following may occur. Someone reads in the paper about the death of a well-known person, and forthwith claims to have had a presentiment of it yesterday, although he had neither heard nor seen anything that might have given rise to such a thought. And indeed it is quite true that the thought occurred to him yesterday, as though of its own accord, that this particular person would die; only one thing escaped his attention: two or three hours before this thought occurred to him yesterday, he went to visit an acquaintance; a newspaper lay on the table; he did not actually read it, but his eyes unconsciously fell on the announcement of the dangerous illness of the person in question. He remained unconscious of the impression he had received, and yet this impression resulted in his presentiment.

Reflection upon these matters will show how great is the source of illusion and fantasy contained in such associations. It is just this source which must be dammed up by all who seek to develop their ten-petalled lotus flower. Deeply hidden characteristics in other souls can be perceived by this organ, but their truth depends on the attainment of immunity from the above-mentioned illusions. For this purpose it is necessary that the student should control and dominate everything that seeks to influence him from outside. He should reach the point of really receiving no impressions beyond those he wishes to receive. This can only be achieved by the development of a powerful inner life; by an effort of the will he only allows such things to impress him to which his attention is directed, and he actually evades all impressions to which he does not voluntarily respond. If he sees something it is because he wills to see it, and if he does not voluntarily take notice of something it is actually non-existent for him. The greater the energy and inner activity devoted to this work, the more extensively will this faculty be attained. The student must avoid all vacuous gazing and mechanical listening. For him only those things exist to which he turns his eye or his ear. He must practice the power of hearing nothing, even in the greatest disturbance, if he does not will to hear; and he must make his eyes unimpressionable to things of which he does not particularly take notice. He must be shielded as by an inner armor against all unconscious impressions. In this connection the student must devote special care to his thought-life. He singles out a particular thought and endeavors to link with it only such other thoughts as he can himself consciously and voluntarily produce. He rejects all casual ideas and does not connect this thought with another until he has investigated the origin of the latter. He goes still further. If, for instance, he feels a particular antipathy for something, he will combat it and endeavor to establish a conscious relation between himself and the thing in question. In this way the unconscious elements that intrude into his soul will become fewer and fewer. Only by such severe self-discipline can the ten-petalled lotus flower attain its proper form. The student's inner life must become a life of attention, and he must learn really to hold at a distance everything to which he should not or does not wish to direct his attention.

If this strict self-discipline be accompanied by meditation as prescribed in esoteric training, the lotus flower in the region of the pit of the stomach comes to maturity in the right way, and light and color of a spiritual kind are now added to the form and warmth perceptible to the organs described above. The talents and faculties of other beings are thereby revealed, also the forces and the hidden attributes of nature. The colored aura of living creatures then becomes visible; all that is around us manifests its spiritual attributes. It must be understood that the very greatest care is necessary at this stage of development, for the play of unconscious memories is here exceedingly active. If this were not the case, many people would possess this inner sense, for it comes almost immediately into evidence when the impressions delivered by the outer senses are held so completely under control that they become dependent on nothing save attention or inattention. This inner sense remains ineffective as long as the powerful outer sense smother and benumb it.

[ 16 ] Still greater difficulty attends the development of the six-petalled lotus flower situated in the center of the body, for it can only be achieved as the result of complete mastery and control of the whole personality through consciousness of self, so that body, soul and spirit form one harmonious whole. The functions of the body, the inclinations and passions of the soul, the thoughts and ideas of the spirit must be tuned to perfect unison. The body must be so ennobled and purified that its organs incite to nothing that is not in the service of soul and spirit. The soul must not be impelled through the body to lusts and passions which are antagonistic to pure and noble thought. Yet the spirit must not stand like a slave-driver over the soul, dominating it with laws and commandments; the soul must rather learn to obey these laws and duties out of its own free inclination. The student must not feel duty to be an oppressive power to which he unwillingly submits, but rather something which he performs out of love. His task is to develop a free soul that maintains equilibrium between body and spirit, and he must perfect himself in this way to the extent of being free to abandon himself to the functions of the senses, for these should be so purified that they lose the power to drag him down to their level. He must no longer require to curb his passions, in as much as they of their own accord follow the good. So long as self-chastisement is necessary, no one can pass a certain stage of esoteric development; for a virtue practiced under constraint if futile. If there is any lust remaining, it interferes with esoteric development, however great the effort made not to humor it. Nor does it matter whether this desire proceeds from the soul or the body. For example, if a certain stimulant be avoided for the purpose of self-purification, this deprivation will only prove helpful if the body suffers no harm from it. Should the contrary to be the case, this proves that the body craves the stimulant, and that abstinence from it is of no value. In this case it may actually be a question of renouncing the ideal to be attained, until more favorable physical conditions, perhaps in another life, shall be forthcoming. A wise renunciation may be a far greater achievement than the struggle for something which, under given conditions, remains unattainable. Indeed, a renunciation of this kind contributes more toward development than the opposite course.

[ 17 ] The six-petalled lotus flower, when developed, permits intercourse with beings of higher worlds, though only when their existence is manifested in the astral or soul-world. The development of this lotus flower, however, is not advisable unless the student has made great progress on that path of esoteric development which enables him to raise his spirit into a still higher world. This entry into the spiritual world proper must always run parallel with the development of the lotus flowers, otherwise the student will fall into error and confusion. He would undoubtedly be able to see, but he would remain incapable of forming a correct estimate of what he saw. Now, the development of the six-petalled lotus flower itself provides a certain security against confusion and instability, for no one can be easily confused who has attained perfect equilibrium between sense (or body), passion (or soul), and idea (or spirit). And yet, something more than this security is required when, through the development of the six-petalled lotus flower, living beings of independent existence are revealed to his spirit, beings belonging to a world so completely different from the world known to his physical senses. The development of the lotus flowers alone does not assure sufficient security in these higher worlds; still higher organs are necessary. The latter will now be described before the remaining lotus flowers and the further organization of the soul-body are discussed. (This expression—soul-body—although obviously contradictory when taken literally, is used because to clairvoyant perception the impression received spiritually corresponds to the impression received physically when the physical body is perceived.)

[ 18 ] The development of the soul-body in the manner described above permits perception in a supersensible world, but anyone wishing to find his way in this world must not remain stationary at this stage of development. The mere mobility of the lotus flowers is not sufficient. The student must acquire the power of regulating and controlling the movement of his spiritual organs independently and with complete consciousness; otherwise he would become a plaything for external forces and powers. To avoid this he must acquire the faculty of hearing what is called the inner world, and this involves the development not only of the soul-body but also of the etheric body. The latter is that tenuous body revealed to the clairvoyant as a kind of double of the physical body, and forms to a certain extent an intermediate step between the soul nature and the physical body. (See the description on the author's book Theosophy.) It is possible for one equipped with clairvoyant powers consciously to suggest away the physical body of a person. This corresponds on a higher plane to an exercise in attentiveness on a lower plane. Just as a person can divert his attention from something in front of him so that it becomes non-existent for him, the clairvoyant can extinguish a physical body from his field of observation so that it becomes physically transparent to him. If he exerts this faculty in the case of some person standing before him, there remains visible to his clairvoyant sight only the etheric body, besides the soul-body which is larger than the other two—etheric and physical bodies—and interpenetrates them both. The etheric body has approximately the size and form of the physical body, so that it practically fills the same space. It is an extremely delicate and finely organized structure. (I beg the physicist not to be disturbed at the expression “etheric body”. The word ether here is merely used to suggest the fineness of the body in question, and need not in any way be connected with the hypothetical ether of physics.)

Its ground-color is different from any of the seven colors contained in the rainbow. Anyone capable of observing it will find a color which is actually non-existent for sense perception but to which the color of the young peach-blossom may be comparable. If desired, the etheric body can be examined alone; for this purpose the soul-body must be extinguished by an effort of attentiveness in the manner described above. Otherwise the etheric body will present an ever changing picture owing to its interpenetration by the soul-body.

[ 19 ] Now, the particles of the etheric body are in continual motion. Countless currents stream through it in every direction. By these currents, life itself is maintained and regulated. Every body that has life, including animals and plants, possesses an etheric body. Even in minerals traces of it can be observed. These currents and movements are, to begin with, independent of human will and consciousness, just as the action of the heart or stomach is beyond our jurisdiction, and this independence remains unaltered so long as we do not take our development in hand in the sense of acquiring supersensible faculties. For, at a certain stage, development consists precisely in adding to the unconscious currents and movements of the etheric body others that are consciously produced and controlled.

[ 20 ] When esoteric development has progressed so far that the lotus flowers begin to stir, much has already been achieved by the student which can result in the formation of certain quite definite currents and movements in his etheric body. The object of this development is the formation of a kind of center in the region of the physical heart, from which radiate currents and movements in the greatest possible variety of colors and forms. The center is in reality not a mere point, but a most complicated structure, a most wonderful organ. It glows and shimmers with every shade of color and displays forms of great symmetry, capable of rapid transformation. Other forms and streams of color radiate from this organ to the other parts of the body, and beyond it to the astral body, completely penetrating and illuminating it. The most important of these currents flow to the lotus flowers. They permeate each petal and regulate its revolutions; then streaming out at the points of the petals, they lose themselves in outer space. The higher the development of a person, the greater the circumference to which these rays extend.

[ 21 ] The twelve-petalled lotus flower has a particularly close connection with this central organ. The currents flow directly into it and through it, proceeding on the one side to the sixteen and the two-petalled lotus flowers, and on the other, the lower side, to the flowers of eight, six and four petals. It is for this reason that the very greatest care must be devoted to the development of the twelve-petalled lotus, for an imperfection in the latter would result in irregular formation of the whole structure. The above will give an idea of the delicate and intimate nature of esoteric training, and of the accuracy needed if the development is to be regular and correct. It will also be evident beyond doubt that directions for the development of supersensible faculties can only be the concern of those who have themselves experienced everything which they propose to awaken in others, and who are unquestionably in a position to know whether the directions they give lead to the exact results desired. [ 22 ] If the student follows the directions that have been given him, he introduces into his etheric body currents and movements which are in harmony with the laws and the evolution of the world to which he belongs. Consequently these instructions are reflections of the great laws of cosmic evolution. They consist of the above-mentioned and similar exercises in meditation and concentration which, if correctly practiced, produce the results described. The student must at certain times let these instructions permeate his soul with their content, so that he is inwardly entirely filled with it. A simple start is made with a view to the deepening of the logical activity of the mind and the producing of an inward intensification of thought. Thought it thereby made free and independent of all sense impressions and experiences; it is concentrated in one point which is held entirely under control. Thus a preliminary center is formed for the currents of the etheric body. This center is not yet in the region of the heart but in the head, and it appears to the clairvoyant as the point of departure for movements and currents. No esoteric training can be successful which does not first create this center. If the latter were first formed in the region of the heart the aspiring clairvoyant would doubtless obtain glimpses of the higher worlds, but would lack all true insight into the connection between these higher worlds and the world of our senses. This, however, is an unconditional necessity for man at the present stage of evolution. The clairvoyant must not become a visionary; he must retain a firm footing upon the earth.

[ 23 ] The center in the head, once duly fixed, is then moved lower down, to the region of the larynx. This is effected by further exercises in concentration. Then the currents of the etheric body radiate from this point and illumine the astral space surrounding the individual.

[ 24 ] Continued practice enables the student to determine for himself the position of this etheric body. Hitherto this position depended upon external forces proceeding from the physical body. Through further development the student is able to turn his etheric body to all sides. This faculty is effected by currents moving approximately along both hands and centered in the two-petalled lotus in the region of the eyes. All this is made possible through the radiations from the larynx assuming round forms, of which a number flow to the two-petalled lotus and thence form undulating currents along the hands. As a further development, these currents branch out and ramify in the most delicate manner and become, as it were, a kind of web which then encompasses the entire etheric body as though with a network. Whereas hitherto the etheric body was not closed to the outer world, so that the life currents from the universal ocean of life flowed freely in and out, these currents now have to pass through this membrane. Thus the individual becomes sensitive to these external streams; they become perceptible to him.

And now the time has come to give the complete system of currents and movements its center situated in the region of the heart. This again is effected by persevering with the exercises in concentration and meditation; and at this point also the stage is reached when the student becomes gifted with the inner word. All things now acquire a new significance for him. They become as it were spiritually audible in their innermost self, and speak to him of their essential being. The currents described above place him in touch with the inner being of the world to which he belongs. He begins to mingle his life with the life of his environment and can let it reverberate in the movements of his lotus flowers.

[ 25 ] At this point the spiritual world is entered. If the student has advanced so far, he acquires a new understanding for all that the great teachers of humanity have uttered. The sayings of the Buddha and the Gospels, for instance, produce a new effect on him. They pervade him with a rapture of which he had not dreamed before. For the tone of their words follows the movements and rhythms which he has himself formed within himself. He can now have positive knowledge that a Buddha or the Evangelists did not utter their own revelations but those which flowed into them from the inmost being of all things. A fact must here be pointed out which can only be understood in the light of what has been said above. The many repetitions in the sayings of the Buddha are not comprehensible to people of our present evolutionary stage. For the esoteric student, however, they become a force on which he gladly lets his inner senses rest, for they correspond with certain movements in the etheric body. Devotional surrender to them, with perfect inner peace, creates an inner harmony with these movements; and because the latter are an image of certain cosmic rhythms which also at certain points repeat themselves and revert to former modes, the student listening to the wisdom of the Buddha unites his life with that of the cosmic mysteries.

[ 26 ] In esoteric training there is question of four attributes which must be acquired on the so-called preparatory path for the attainment of higher knowledge. The first is the faculty of discriminating in thoughts between truth and appearance or mere opinion. The second attribute is the correct estimation of what is inwardly true and real, as against what is merely apparent. The third rests in the practice of the six qualities already mentioned in the preceding pages: thought-control, control of actions, perseverance, tolerance, faith and equanimity. The fourth attribute is the love of inner freedom.

[ 27 ] A mere intellectual understanding of what is included in these attributes is of no value. They must be so incorporated into the soul that they form the basis of inner habits. Consider, for instance, the first of these attributes: The discrimination between truth and appearance. The student must so train himself that, as a matter of course, he distinguishes in everything that confronts him between the non-essential elements and those that are significant and essential. He will only succeed in this if, in his observation of the outer world, he quietly and patiently ever and again repeats the attempt. And at the end he will naturally single out the essential and the true at a glance, whereas formerly the non-essential, the transient, too, could content him. “All that is transient is but a seeming” (“Alles Vergänglich ist nur ein Gleichnis,” Goethe, Faust II. ) is a truth which becomes an unquestionable conviction of the soul. The same applies to the remaining three of the four attributes mentioned.

[ 28 ] Now these four inner habits do actually produce a transformation of the delicate human etheric body. By the first, discrimination between truth and appearance, the center in the head already described is formed and the center in the region of the larynx prepared. The actual development of these centers is of course dependent on the exercises in concentration described above; the latter make for development and the four attributes bring to fruition. Once the center in the larynx has been prepared, the free control of the etheric body and its enclosure within a network covering, as explained above, results from the correct estimation of what is true as against what is apparent and non-essential. If the student acquires this faculty of estimation, the facts of the higher worlds will gradually become perceptible to him. But he must not think that he has to perform only such actions which appear significant when judged by the standard of a mere intellectual estimate. The most trifling action, every little thing accomplished, has something of importance in the great cosmic household, and it is merely a question of being aware of this importance. A correct estimation of the affairs of daily life is required, not an underestimation of them. The six virtues of which the third attribute consists have already been dealt with; they are connected with the development of the twelve-petalled lotus in the region of the heart, and, as already indicated, it is to this center that the life-currents of the etheric body must be directed. The fourth attribute, the longing for liberation, serves to bring to fruition the etheric organ in the heart region. Once this attribute becomes an inner habit, the individual frees himself from everything which depends only upon the faculties of his own personal nature. He ceases to view things from his own separate standpoint, and the boundaries of his own narrow self fettering him to this point of view disappear. The secrets of the spiritual world gain access to his inner self. This is liberation. For those fetters constrain the individual to regard tings and beings in a manner corresponding to his own personal traits. It is from this personal manner of regarding things that the student must become liberated and free.

[ 29 ] It will be clear from the above that the instructions given in esoteric training exert a determining influence reaching the innermost depths of human nature. Such are the instructions regarding the four qualities mentioned above. They can be found in one form or another in all the great cosmogonies that take account of the spiritual world. The founders of the great cosmogonies did not give mankind these teachings from some vague feeling. They gave them for the good reason that they were great initiates. Out of their knowledge did they shape their moral teachings. They knew how these would act upon the finer nature of man, and desired that their followers should gradually achieve the development of this finer nature. To live in the sense of these great cosmogonies means to work for the attainment of personal spiritual perfection. Only by so doing can man become a servant of the world and of humanity. Self-perfection is by no means self-seeking, for the imperfect man is an imperfect servant of the world and of humanity. The more perfect a man is, the better does he serve the world. “If the rose adorns itself, it adorns the garden.”

[ 30 ] The founders of the great cosmogonies are therefore the great initiates. Their teaching flows into the soul of men, and thus, with humanity, the whole world moves forward. Quite consciously did they work to further this evolutionary process of humanity. Their teachings can only be understood if it be remembered that they are the product of knowledge of the innermost depths of human nature. The great initiates knew, and it is out of their knowledge that they shaped the ideals of humanity. And man approaches these great leaders when he uplifts himself, in his own development, to their heights.

[ 31 ] A completely new life opens out before the student when the development of his etheric body begins in the way described above, and at the proper time, in the course of his training, he must receive that enlightenment which enables him to adapt himself to this new existence. The sixteen-petalled lotus, for instance, enables him to perceive spiritual figures of a higher world. He must learn now how different these figures can be when caused by different objects or beings. In the first place, he must notice that his own thoughts and feelings exert a powerful influence on certain of these figures, on others little or no influence. One kind of figure alters immediately if the observer, upon seeing it, says to himself: “that is beautiful,” and then in the course of his observation changes this thought to: “that is useful.” It is characteristic of the forms proceeding from minerals or from artificial objects that they change under the influence of every thought and every feeling directed upon them by the observer. This applies in a lesser degree to the forms belonging to plants, and still less to those corresponding to animals. These figures, too, are full of life and motion, but this motion is only partially due to the influence of human thoughts and feelings; in other respects it is produced by causes which are beyond human influence. Now, there appears within this whole world a species of form which remains almost entirely unaffected by human influence. The student can convince himself that these forms proceed neither from minerals nor from artificial objects, nor, again, from plants or animals. To gain complete understanding, he must study those forms which he can realize to have proceeded from the feelings, instincts, and passions of human beings. Yet he can find that these forms too are influenced by his own thoughts and feelings, if only to a relatively small extent. But there always remains a residuum of forms in this world upon which such influences are negligible. Indeed, at the outset of this career the student can perceive little beyond this residuum. He can only discover its nature by observing himself. He then learns what forms he himself produces, for his will, his wishes, and so on, are expressed in these forms. An instinct that dwells in him, a desire that fills him, an intention that he harbors, and so forth, are all manifested in these forms: his whole character displays itself in this world of forms. Thus by his conscious thoughts and feelings a person can exercise an influence on all forms which do not proceed from himself; but over those which he brings about in the higher world, once he has created them. Now, it follows from what has been said that on this higher plan man's inner life of instincts, desires, ideas displays itself outwardly in definite forms, just like all the other beings and objects. To higher knowledge, the inner world appears as part of the outer world. In a higher world man's inner being confronts him as a reflected image, just as though in the physical world he were surrounded by mirrors and could observe his physical body in that way.

[ 32 ] At this stage of development the student has reached the point where he can free himself from the illusion resulting from the initiation of his personal self. He can now observe that inner self as outer world, just as he hitherto regarded as outer world everything that affected his senses. Thus he learns by gradual experience to deal with himself as hitherto he dealt with the beings around him.

[ 33 ] Were the student to obtain an insight into these spiritual worlds without sufficient preparation regarding their nature, he would find himself confronted by the picture of his own soul as though by an enigma. There his own desires and passions confront him in animal or, more rarely, in human forms. It is true that animal forms of this world are never quite similar to those of the physical world, yet they possess a remote resemblance: inexpert observers often take them to be identical. Now, upon entering this world, an entirely new method of judgment must be acquired; for apart from the fact that things actually pertaining to inner nature appear as outer world, they also bear the character of mirrored reflections of what they really are. When, for instance, a number is perceived, it must be read in reverse, as a picture in a mirror: 265 would mean here in reality, 562. A sphere is perceived as thought from its center.
This inner perception must then be translated in the right way. The qualities of the soul appear likewise as in a mirror. A wish directed toward an outer object appears as a form moving toward the person wishing. Passions residing in the lower part of human nature can assume animal forms or similar shapes that hurl themselves against the individual. In reality, these passions are headed outward; they seek satisfaction in the outer world, but this striving outward appears in the mirrored reflection as an attack on the individual from whom they proceed.

[ 34 ] If the student, before attaining insight into higher worlds, has learned by quiet and sincere self-observation to realized the qualities and the defects of his own character, he will then, at the moment when his own inner self confronts him as a mirrored image, find strength and courage to conduct himself in the right way. People who have failed to test themselves in this way, and are insufficiently acquainted with their own inner self, will not recognize themselves in their own mirrored image and will mistake it for an alien reality. Or they may become alarmed at the vision and, because they cannot endure the sight, deceive themselves into believing the whole thing is nothing but an illusion which cannot lead them anywhere. In either case the person in question, through prematurely attaining a certain stage of inner development, would fatally obstruct his own progress.

[ 35 ] It is absolutely necessary that the student should experience this spiritual aspect of his own inner self before progressing to higher spheres; for his own self constitutes that psycho-spiritual element of which he is the best judge. If he has thoroughly realized the nature of his own personality in the physical world, and if the image of his personality first appears to him in a higher world, he is then able to compare the one with the other. He can refer the higher to something already known to him, so that his point of departure is on firm ground. Whereas, no matter how many other spiritual beings appeared to him, he would find himself unable to discover their nature and qualities, and would soon feel the ground giving way beneath him. Thus is cannot be too often repeated that the only safe entrance into the higher worlds is at the end of a path leading through a genuine knowledge and estimate of one's own nature.

[ 36 ] Pictures, then, of a spiritual kind are first encountered by the student on his progress into higher worlds; and the reality to which these pictures correspond is actually within himself. He should be far enough advanced to refrain from desiring reality of a more robust kind at this initial stage, and to regard these pictures as timely. He will soon meet something quite new within this world of pictures. His lower self is before him as a mirrored image; but from within this image there appears the true reality of his higher self. Out of the picture of his lower personality the form of the spiritual ego becomes visible. Then threads are spun from the latter to other and higher spiritual realities.

[ 37 ] This is the moment when the two-petalled lotus in the region of the eyes is required. If it now begins to stir, the student finds it possible to bring his higher ego in contact with higher spiritual beings. The currents form this lotus flower flow toward the higher realities in such a way that the movements in question are fully apparent to the individual. Just as the light renders the physical objects visible, so, too, these currents disclose spiritual beings of higher worlds.

[ 38 ] Through inward application to the fundamental truths derived from spiritual science the student learns to set in motion and then to direct the currents proceeding form the lotus flower between the eyes.

[ 39 ] It is at this stage of development especially that the value of sound judgment and a training in clear and logical thought come to the fore. The higher self, which hitherto slumbered unconsciously in an embryonic state, is now born into conscious existence. This is not a figurative but a positive birth in the spiritual world, and the being now born, the higher self, must enter that world with all the necessary organs and aptitudes if it is to be capable of life. Just as nature must provide for a child being born into the world with suitable eyes and ears, to too, the laws of self-development must provide for the necessary capacities with which the higher self can enter existence. These laws governing the development of the higher spiritual organs are none other than the laws of sound reason and morality of the physical world. The spiritual self matures in the physical self as a child in the mother's womb. The child's health depends upon the normal functioning of natural laws in the maternal womb. The constitution of the spiritual self is similarly conditioned by the laws of common intelligence and reason that govern physical life. No one can give birth to a soundly constituted higher self whose life in thought and feeling, in the physical world, is not sound and healthy. Natural, rational life is the basis of all genuine spiritual development. Just as the child when still in the maternal womb lives in accordance with the natural forces to which it has access, after its birth, through its organs of sense, so, too, the human higher self lives in accordance with the laws of the spiritual world, even during physical existence. And even as the child, out of a dim life instinct, acquired the requisite forces, so, too, can man acquire the powers of the spiritual world before his higher self is born. Indeed, he must do this if the latter is to enter the world as a fully developed being. It would be quite wrong for anyone to say: “I cannot accept the teachings of spiritual science until I myself become a seer,” for without inward application to the results of spiritual research there is no chance whatever of attaining genuine higher knowledge. It would be as though a child, during gestation, were to refuse the forces coming to it through its mother, and proposed to wait until it could procure them for itself. Just as the embryonic child in its incipient feeling for life learns to appreciate what is offered to it, so can the non-seer appreciate the truth of the teachings of spiritual science. An insight into these teachings based on a deeply rooted feeling for truth, and a clear, sound, all-around critical and reasoning faculty are possible even before spiritual things are actually perceived. The esoteric knowledge must first be studied, so that this study becomes a preparation for clairvoyance. A person attaining clairvoyance without such preparation would resemble a child born with eyes and ears but without a brain. The entire world of sound and color would display itself before him, but he would be helpless in it.

[ 40 ] At this stage of his esoteric development the student realizes, through personal inward experience, all that had previously appealed to his sense of truth, to his intellect and reason. He has now direct knowledge of his higher self. He learns how his higher self is connected with exalted spiritual beings and forms with them a united whole. He sees how the lower self originates in a higher world, and it is revealed to him how his higher nature outlasts his lower. He can now distinguish the imperishable in himself from the perishable; that is, he learns through personal insight to understand the doctrine of the incarnation of the higher self in the lower. It will become plain to him that he is part of a great spiritual complex and that his qualities and destiny are due to this connection. He learns to recognize the law of his life, his karma. He realizes that his lower self, constituting his present existence, is only one of the forms which his higher being can adopt. He discerns the possibility of working down from his higher self in his lower self, so that he may perfect himself ever more and more. Now, too, he can comprehend the great differences between human beings in regard to their level of perfection. He becomes aware that there are others above him who have already traversed the stages which still lie before him, and he realizes that the teachings and deeds of such men proceed from the inspiration of a higher world. He owes this knowledge to his first personal glimpse into this higher world. The so-called initiates of humanity now become vested with reality for him.

[ 41 ] These, then, are the gifts which the student owes to his development at this stage: insight into his higher self; insight into the doctrine of the incarnation of this higher being in a lower; insight into the laws by which life in the physical world is regulated according to its spiritual connections, that is, the law of karma; and finally, insight into the existence of the great initiates.

[ 42 ] Thus it is said of a student who has reached this stage, that all doubt has vanished from him. His former faith, based on reason and sound thoughts, is now replaced by knowledge and insight which nothing can undermine. [ 43 ] The various religions have presented, in their ceremonies, sacraments, and rites, externally visible patterns of the higher spiritual beings and events. None but those who have not penetrated to the depths of the great religions can fail to recognize this fact. Personal insight into spiritual reality explains the great significance of these externally visible cults. Religious service, then, becomes for the seer an image of his own communion with the higher, spiritual world.

[ 44 ] It has been shown how the student, by attaining this stage, becomes in truth a new being. He can now mature to still higher faculties and, by means of the life-currents of his etheric body, control the higher and actual life-element, thus attaining a high degree of independence from the restrictions of the physical body.

Dear attendees, it has recently become common practice in certain circles to speak of the unconscious in relation to the human soul. What was described in the lecture I gave the day before yesterday as spiritual and supersensible is, as I have shown, sensed and longed for by a great many souls at the present time. And since the very prejudices against the study of the supersensible, of which I have spoken, happen, but since one still has an indefinite feeling that there is something beyond the sensual, one speaks in the present time, one speaks more in the negative sense about this beyond and, in contrast to what consciously enters into the human soul life in everyday life, one speaks of that which remains hidden, and also unconscious or the like.

Now, if the history of the development of ideas about the unconscious in recent decades were to be discussed, it would be possible to talk about it for hours alone. But that is not my task today. I will just mention in the introduction that, although a lot has been said about the unconscious by individual personalities in the past, the term “unconscious” was used in a broader sense by Eduard von Hartmann, who is therefore often referred to as the philosopher of the unconscious, to describe what is hidden from the senses and the immediate soul life and is connected with human existence. And perhaps I may point out by way of introduction, and only hint at, that I myself at the time, in the 1880s and early 1890s of the last century, tried to come to terms with Eduard von Hartmann's views on the unconscious in human mental life, on the unconscious in the world in general.

I have reported on those discussions, which [I] also had in personal acquaintance with Eduard von Hartmann, in the second book of the second year of the journal “Das Reich”, which appears here in Munich. Perhaps it is easiest for me to begin by expressing how the spiritual-scientific direction represented here generally relates to the concept of the unconscious if I tie in with the ideas that Eduard von Hartmann had about the unconscious unconscious in human mental life, in nature and in existence in general, because I must first deviate in two respects and have always had to deviate from Eduard von Hartmann's views on this point.

The first is that Eduard von Hartmann points from the sensory, from the soul to an unconscious, to a supernatural, supersensory, but that he was of the opinion that this unconscious could only be reached for human knowledge through logical dissection of what is perceived in nature and in the human soul, that there is no other way to get at this unconscious than in a hypothetical way, by concluding from what one sees and hears and can understand, by concluding from this that there is an unconscious in the world that must always remain an unconscious, a mere hypothetical, in relation to what man can recognize here in his physical body.

In the face of Eduard von Hartmann's opinion, I have always had to put forward the spiritual-scientific one, which consists in the fact that such a hypothetical statement, such a mere logical conclusion about an unconscious, is completely worthless; because ultimately it leads to nothing but to assume that what one deduces so logically could also be otherwise. From the experiences which I permitted myself to describe the day before yesterday and on the basis of which today's consideration is to be built, I always had to conclude from these truly spiritual experiences of the human soul that one can only come to the supersensible through logical thinking, through the hypothetical dissection of the world supernatural, but through direct experience, by bringing the forces slumbering in the soul so vividly into perceptual abilities that one can not only infer the unconscious, but grasp it as such in the same way as one grasps the sensual, the ordinary conscious.

Thus spiritual science penetrates from mere logic to a real vision of the unconscious, the supersensible, for ordinary consciousness. The methods to which the human soul has to submit in order to develop, so to speak, from its foundations, which are unconscious themselves, what one could call... [Gap] I mentioned the day before yesterday the methods by which the human soul can be made to develop out of its unconscious depths what might be called, in Goethean terms, 'spiritual eyes' and 'spiritual ears', 'spiritual organs'. That is one thing: spiritual science, as it is meant here, must relate to the unconscious in a completely different way than any philosophical direction of the present, especially those that are even hypothetically based on the unconscious.

The second point at issue is that Eduard von Hartmann ultimately regards the spiritual element under consideration as unconscious of itself, that is, he believes that although it is possible to arrive at the assumption of a spiritual element behind the sensual existence by means of certain logical conclusions and conditions, one cannot but state, on the basis of the evidence, that it itself is not conscious, that it is unconscious spirit, that consciousness arises from this only when this unconscious spirit embodies itself in the human body and there creates consciousness, which would then be the only consciousness that comes into consideration, and that, in contrast to this, that which lies higher in reality than this consciousness, would be an unconscious. One would then come to see that what man must regard as his actual being of consciousness arises like a wave from an unconscious spiritual life. I believe, esteemed attendees, that it must appear quite unsatisfactory from the outset, although this is of no particular value, if one assumes the spirit but finds it endowed only with unconsciousness, and such a spirit is basically not much more valuable than the unconscious matter. It comes down to the same thing, whether one lets the spirit arise out of unconscious matter or the conscious soul-life out of unconscious spirit; one is always dealing with what I would call a purely natural spirit, with no anchoring of the human soul-spiritual in a related or superordinate soul-spiritual.

But precisely the experience of which I spoke here the day before yesterday, the experience that is based on the life of the soul transformed into spiritual perception, shows that when one penetrates, vividly penetrates, into the world of the spirit , one does not arrive at unconsciousness, but at real beings, which, quite independently of human consciousness, are just as conscious as the human consciousness itself. Indeed, there are degrees of consciousness in the universe that are superordinate to the human.

Dear attendees, today I will undertake the task of giving you a consideration of what borders on the ordinary human soul life in the area that the spiritual science represented here actually designates as the spiritual, as the supersensible; because from such a consideration, I would like to say, many things arise that illustratively lead into an appropriate judgment of what spiritual science has to say about the actual supersensible itself, and besides, it is very close to the present, where so much is said about the unconscious, where one wants to recognize the spiritual precisely in the form of the unconscious, that this spiritual science also speaks about those areas that one would so much like to confuse with the actual area of spiritual science itself.

It happens again and again, despite the fact that for many years I have seized every opportunity here to emphasize the difference between the field to be considered by spiritual science and these border areas. It happens that spiritual science is confused with these border areas. Therefore, it must talk about these border areas. Besides, there is something else. The field of spiritual life, which, when viewed as I described it the day before yesterday, is avoided by very many people today, is seen as a dream, a fantasy, and people prefer to stick to what cannot be achieved through free spiritual knowledge, as spiritual science wants it, rather than through the supersensible, but what is more self-evident. Now the supersensible does indeed flow into the sensory as a revelation; but these revelations of the unconscious supersensible in the sensory can only be judged correctly if one is able to look at them from the point of view of actual spiritual knowledge.

Today I will speak only in spiritual scientific terms about the relevant phenomena, and I hope that it will be understood that not everything can always be said in every single lecture. I may point out that even if I merely discuss these phenomena more or less from a spiritual scientific point of view today, it is understood that what I emphasized the day before yesterday is that what spiritual science tries to recognize is not only not in contradiction to a truly understood scientific result, but that these insights of spiritual science, including those into the unconscious, are confirmed by real, genuine scientific knowledge.

The areas that come into question when talking about the revelations of the unconscious are very broad, and I will only be able to consider, I would like to say, a limited area today, the area that encompasses the interesting, familiar, albeit little researched, disregarded area of field of human dreaming, the world of dreams. I shall also have to consider a field that many people regard as related to the field of dreams, but which is not really so. This field is of great interest to many people today who are seeking the path to the spirit. It is the field of sleepwalking and all related phenomena.

I will then have to point out another area of the subconscious or superconscious that also extends into ordinary human life: it is the area of fantasy creations, poetry, and artistic creation. And I will then have to point to a broad area, even if it can only be briefly considered today: a broad area that approaches man half consciously and half unconsciously, but no less significant for human life, the area we refer to as “human destiny”, in which one might not even believe that so much unconsciousness lives in it. And then I will have to point out the area that is the actual field of spiritual science, which also remains unconscious for ordinary consciousness, but whose revelations shed light on all other areas of the unconscious. I will have to talk about the I will have to speak about the realm of intuitive consciousness, which I would prefer to avoid calling the realm of truly developed seership, although that would be correct.

I will first try to give a brief characterization, without going into any explanations, of how these individual areas, from which the unconscious reveals itself, approach the ordinary human consciousness. No one should hope that spiritual science is willing to look into the realm of dreams as some amateur or superstitious people do. But spiritual science seeks to look into this realm in such a way that it can itself explain and reveal many a mysterious aspect of the life of the human soul. Everyone is familiar with this realm of dreams, with the surging dreams that a person remembers in their waking life and has an inkling that they reveal themselves from an unconscious realm, that they occur like images of memory so that they can be grasped to a certain extent.

But everyone also senses that a person dreams much more than they remember, that the dream life permeates a much larger part of the sleep life than is believed, because a large part of the dreams experienced is actually forgotten. The external characteristics of the dream life are extraordinarily interesting. At first it seems as if the dreams undulate up and down without any inner lawfulness. But one only needs to bring a few categories of dream life to mind and one will see that a certain lawfulness prevails in this dream life, even if it is only superficially observed at first.

First of all, there are what some philosophers have called sensory stimulus dreams. In them one becomes aware that the soul-spiritual life of man stands in a different relationship to the environment than in ordinary consciousness when dreaming. In them one becomes aware that in a certain way - now speaking superficially - the normal sense life is switched off, but not every language that the senses speak inwardly to the soul also ceases. One only needs to think of an example from the realm of sensory-stimulus dreams to see that, although the receptivity of the senses to the external world does not need to cease, the way in which a person otherwise communicates with the world through his senses is not present in these dreams.

You have your watch lying next to you and you dream that you hear, for example, a rider trotting by. In the waking state, you would... [Gap] – By waking up, one realizes that it was the striking of the clock that symbolized itself into the dream. In the waking state, one would have placed oneself in relation to the environment in a normal way through the sense of hearing; in the dream, what is ordinary sensory perception transforms into a symbolic process. In principle, every sense can perceive, and a very dramatic action can be linked to a sensory perception. But you will always notice that the sensory perception in the dream is in some way symbolically, pictorially reinterpreted. An ordinary sensory perception does not live in the dream life.

In the same way, bodily processes can be symbolized in dreams. We dream of a boiling oven, wake up and know that this dream has been caused by an unusually rapid heartbeat. We experience moods of the soul, reminiscences of life, things that may lie far back in the past, coming to life in dreams. We also experience dreaming things that may surprise us greatly. Everyone is familiar with these different categories of dream life. If we want to enter into a characteristic of dream life, as we want to do later, one thing must be particularly clearly noted: it is clear that dreams lack two sides of ordinary human experience.

Anyone who follows the dream life will find that dreams lack what we call the logical course of our ideas in our ordinary conscious daily life. The dream excludes logic. Sometimes one would like to contradict this statement; but the contradiction would not stand up to close observation. A dream can proceed logically; but then the logical course is not brought about by the application of the logical power in the time of dreaming, but rather we dream some event that we have once followed logically in itself. We dream along with the logic, but do not reason. This gives the appearance of being able to dream logically. One can dream the logical as reminiscence; but one cannot realize the logical as the power of logical reasoning.

The other characteristic is that moral standards and moral judgment are absent from our relationship to dream images and also from the genesis of dream images. Everyone knows that in dreams they do things about which their conscience is silent, which they would condemn, would never do if they actually happened in their waking lives. This is significant for the assessment of the world of dreams: logic and moral judgment are actually excluded from dream life. The other thing that is of real importance is that while we dream, we are in the same relationship to our environment as we are in dreamless sleep.

This is very important. In dreamless sleep we experience nothing of what is going on around us through our senses, nor do we experience anything of what is happening in our own body or what else wants to flow out of this body into the soul life. In a sense, we withdraw into the soul life, which initially remains unconscious, in dreamless sleep. If the dream images flow into this dreamless sleep, our relationship to the environment does not change. This is essential. We can speak of sensory stimulus dreams themselves, but what affects us through the senses does not do so through the process that takes place in the senses, but much more inwardly affects the human soul life; it works in such a way that the sensual is already symbolized, that it is already in a certain way spiritually transformed. We do not enter into a relationship with our environment through dreams in the same way as through rational sensory perception, and we do not do so with our own body either. We do not experience the conditions in our body in the same way as we experience them when we are awake; we experience them in a transformed way, in a way that is shaped by the soul. We experience them in a symbolized way or something similar, and that is the essential thing in dream life: that it conjures all kinds of things into consciousness, but that the person always enters into an equally closed relationship with their environment, despite dreaming, as in dreamless sleep.

This is, on the surface, the reason why we are always able to put the dream into the right perspective in its course in our waking day life [and] why we cannot be deceived by the dream into thinking that it has any meaning within our waking day life, that it sets up any unjustified claims in practical life. From this point of view, the very characteristic of a healthy psychic life is that we are not in a position to place the dream in the wrong context in our waking daily life. While the dream itself does not reason or moralize, we are always able to fully establish the logical and moral relationship of the dream itself to our waking daily life.

This is what distinguishes the dream in relation to its relationship to waking life from all personal experiences that one can now have with the second kind of unconscious, with the somnambulistic phenomena and all that goes with it, the hypnotic phenomena, the phenomena of mediumship and so on, and so on. This area is one that is of particular interest to the present day, because it is believed that in the abnormal phenomena that come to light, a gateway can be found out of the ordinary life of the senses, a place where something unknown can be glimpsed and revealed in the ordinary life of the soul.

And so it happens that people who are not only to be taken seriously as scientific and other researchers believe that one can approach the true spiritual through research in this field, or also that true researchers - sometimes great researchers in their field - because they also have the general yearning, they judge wrongly that which can be summarized in the wide field of somnambulant phenomena, and believe that by observing these somnambulant phenomena they can really approach a spiritual life in the beyond.

Now, in the realm of somnambulism and related phenomena – and I am mentioning everything related here – one has to distinguish between everything that arises in a visionary, hallucinatory way from the inner life of the soul, so that one can judge: it arises from the inner life of the soul. Even Eduard von Hartmann was unable to distinguish the image that appears in a dream from that which, for example, is a hallucination. And so he says that every dream image has something of a hallucination. But there is a fundamental difference between a dream image and a hallucination: the person, in their waking consciousness, has full control over the dream image, and is always able to integrate it correctly into the ordinary course of their waking daily life. A hallucination, on the other hand, takes away the ability to relate to it objectively. It takes control of the person's consciousness. The same applies to a vision. And the fact that they occur simultaneously means that something is taken from the person of that power which makes it possible to integrate what arises in the right way into waking day life. ... [space] The illusory character of dreams.

But this is the essence of hallucination: logic is silent, the hallucinating person combines the matter with the waking day life and is not able, by succumbing to the hallucination, to place what occurs in the hallucination in the right way into the course of the waking day life. We speak of another form of somnambulism when a person is able not only to have hallucinations and visions arising from within himself, but when he changes his sensory life in a certain way so that things become perceptible to him through this sensory life, by analogy with this sensory life, that would otherwise not be perceptible.

One may think of these phenomena as one wills – I do not want to go into a discussion of principle of these phenomena, nor into the question of whether one is justified in ascribing a scientific character to what is accepted in this field in the broadest circles. What matters to me is to show you how, regardless of the objective justification, respected researchers want to gain insight into the supernatural world through this field! It may be said that, however one may feel about these things, there are people who are to be taken very seriously indeed, who are clear about the fact that certain people have the ability to perceive things in their environment that are not perceived through ordinary sensory activity, in the broad field of “remote viewing” and thought transfer.

All this is well known today. They belong here, and I will show by a particular example how a researcher who is to be taken seriously in the highest sense believed that it was precisely through the development of human personalities, I might say to a refined sensuality, to an increased sensuality, that he could approach the other world, the unconscious, the supersensible. Rarely has anything in this field caused such a stir as the fact that Sir Oliver Lodge, who is known throughout the world as a natural scientist to be taken very seriously, has written a thick book about a field that must certainly be counted among the somnambulant phenomena by the spiritual science represented here, but which he has taken as a way to enter the supersensible world. Without committing myself to an explanation, I will first describe what happened to Sir Oliver Lodge.

Oliver Lodge's son fell at the French front during the course of this war. The remarkable thing was – and Sir Oliver Lodge describes all of this and everything related to it in his book in such a way that one gets the impression from every page: Here a person is describing with the conscientiousness of a scientific method. He draws on everything that somehow demands scientific caution. The strange thing was that even before his son fell, Sir Oliver Lodge received a message from the Americans that a medium had said that a long-dead friend of Sir Oliver Lodge would take care of him during an event that would befall Sir Oliver Lodge's son. At first, this was a very vague message, because, of course, it could be interpreted in any direction. One could say: Sir Oliver Lodge's son had gone to war. Anyone can fall there, and any friendly, superstitious side can now send a message that is as vague as possible to Sir Oliver Lodge. Sir Oliver Lodge could have interpreted this to mean that his son's life was in danger and that a deceased friend from the supernatural world would protect his son.

The other interpretation could have been that the son would fall and that the friend who had already preceded him in death years before would take care of him in the supersensible world. It happens all too often that such preliminary communications in this area are left as vague as possible. People are gullible; they are very inclined not to consider whether what is said fits whether the event happens in this or that way. But the son has fallen. The only possible interpretation was that the message was that Sir Oliver Lodge's friend in the other world would take care of the son.

Now all sorts of things were dragged to Sir Oliver Lodge - but he proved them in a truly scientific sense - all sorts of so-called trustworthy somnambulant mediums were dragged in, and many things came out of it, from which Sir Oliver Lodge, despite his scientific mind and conscientiousness, believed he recognized that his deceased son was speaking through the revelations of the mediums, and through him his protective friend. I will not present what Sir Oliver Lodge describes in the thick book, except for one thing, which can be understood in a way that is otherwise referred to as a cross experiment, which really approached people in such a way that it caused a tremendous sensation. One might say that skeptical people were actually led to believe by these things: Something from the beyond, from the soul that has passed through death, must resonate with the Father, with the whole family, wanting to speak through the mediums.

This experiment consisted of a medium describing a photograph taken by the son of Sir Oliver Lodges before he was killed. He had himself photographed with a number of comrades. The medium stated that it was said through her that this photograph was taken. The individual comrades were described in the seating arrangement, and it was said: several pictures were taken of this group. The seating arrangement was changed a little; but in one shot, it was said: the way the son places his hand on his neighbor's shoulder is different from the hand position in the other shot. Now the strange thing was that exactly this photograph was described by the medium. The other strange thing was that, scientifically speaking, no one – neither the medium nor any of the participants – could have known anything about this photograph, because it had not yet been sent from France to England and did not arrive in England until at least a fortnight later. No one could have known anything about it, yet it turned out that the medium's description was absolutely correct in the most remarkable way.

It is perhaps extremely seductive for a scientifically minded person, and it caused the utmost sensation, as mentioned, making even the most skeptical people think. Because people said to themselves: No one could have known anything. There could be no question of thought transference. It could only have come from the soul of Sir Oliver Lodge's son himself. This was an experience that happened not to a gullible spiritualist but to a conscientious naturalist, and it led him to fully acknowledge that the experiment had provided proof that his son's soul had revealed itself from the unconscious into the conscious. We will discuss Sir Oliver Lodge's error later.

I give this example because it belongs to those experiences in which something is perceived that otherwise cannot be perceived from the environment of the external world, through a modification of the sense life. This area includes everything that consists of the fact that what otherwise cannot be known through the senses and the processing of sensory impressions in space and time can be known by the human being. It includes everything that involves looking into such distances that cannot be seen with ordinary eyes, which includes predicting future phenomena and the like.

The third area that comes into consideration when speaking of the revelations of the unconscious is, of course, the area of artistic creation, and everyone is fully justified in being convinced that in the case of poetic, truly poetic or artistic creation, certain impulses from the unconscious or subconscious reveal themselves in the conscious, that what the true artist brings about cannot be explained in its entirety if one only considers what takes place in ordinary consciousness. That is why all those who have given it reasonable thought have come to the conclusion that in artistic creation, another world flows into the world of consciousness, a world that is unconscious to the ordinary world of consciousness. I do not need to characterize this area in detail, not because it is unknown and little observed, but because it is so obvious and so understandable to everyone that the unconscious reveals itself in this area.

A special area where, as already mentioned, one could deny the character of the unconscious, where the conscious and unconscious play together, can be understood as the area of human destiny. We face the guidance of our destiny in such a way that the individual events of this human destiny come about for most people in such a way that they say: Well, one thing and another happens to us. Most people are convinced that what occurs in their lives as fate is more or less due to chance, that it is a series of chance events, and that there is no inner, lawful sequence in the course of this fate.

However, this is contradicted by something else, which may only come to our consciousness in a vague and hazy way, but all too clearly nonetheless. Let us consider the relationship between our destiny and what we actually are in the concrete human life. If, at some point, we examine ourselves with even a modicum of clarity and not get stuck in abstractions, but look concretely at what we actually are, what we are capable of conceiving and giving these conceptions in terms of emotional coloration, and summoning up in terms of will energies, we will find that this actually emerges from our destiny. We look at the course of our destiny and, with clear self-observation, we know: we are a result of this destiny and we would have to deny ourselves if we wanted to deny the identity of our destiny with our soul life. We are nothing other than what fate has made of us, and if we do not want to acknowledge that we are nothing more than a play of forces, then the question of human destiny becomes a mystery.

The answer to the question: Is fate really just a series of coincidences? - depends on the other, how we are able to place ourselves in the whole world context. But from this, at least the suspicion arises in every reasonably sensible soul that in what we consciously experience and what seems to affect us more or less randomly in our destiny, that something prevails in it that remains unconscious for ordinary experience, but what can be brought into consciousness and proves to be something quite different than what occurs in ordinary consciousness.

And finally: the last area is the area of spiritual science, as it is meant here, itself, the area of the actual seeing consciousness, of which I said the day before yesterday that it can be observed in such a way that in it the human being feels as spirit in spirit, just as he feels here in the sense world as a body within the sensual beings and their appearances. The area of which I have said, that man enters when he, through the development of the otherwise hidden powers of his soul, comes to know: I stand with my I in the spirit, while otherwise I only stand in the body; I experience soul-life by separating myself from my bodily life and unfolding a self-conscious soul-life outside the body.

The phenomena and experiences that occur before this actual vision, which can only be called that, must be characterized in more detail, and before I describe the other borderlands, I would like to characterize this area of true vision first, because this is necessary for a better understanding of the other areas. What a person experiences as spiritual experience, as I said the day before yesterday, differs from experiences within the sensory world in that it actually surprises in every detail. One cannot gain any kind of judgment about what one experiences visually through what one has experienced in the sensory world. It always turns out differently than one might expect from what one is able to observe from the sensory world.

But the very way in which the spiritual world appears before one is able to perceive it visually is different from the behavior of the soul in ordinary consciousness. In our ordinary consciousness, we deal with our ideas and concepts. When speaking about the spiritual world, one must also express in concepts and ideas what can be observed. It can easily happen that one confuses ideas and concepts with the actual spiritual experiences that one encounters through the visionary consciousness.

Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference. We can remember ordinary perceptions, what we experience emotionally in and with the external sense world, in the ordinary sense of the word; but that is precisely a fundamental characteristic of truly experienced spiritual reality: just as it confronts us as spiritual, it cannot be remembered in the ordinary way. One could only believe that one had indulged in a fantastic imagination, that one had experienced something as a reminiscence of life, if one did not know the difference between a reminiscible conception and the non-reminiscible, seen, truly spiritual event. A truly spiritual event is not memorable.

One must not look at such a thing wrongly. Of course one can object: Then no one could speak of such an event; if he did not remember it, he would not be able to communicate it. Yes, just as we can transform an external sense experience into a concept that can then be remembered, so can someone who has trained for this purpose also bring a spiritual experience into the ordinary consciousness and transform it into a concept. The concept can then be remembered. But a concept is being remembered. I want to reject the objection that what is described as spiritual events is only something imagined. It is not, because if it were imagined, it would have to be memorable as such without having to be transformed first; but just as little as the sensual objectivity itself goes with us, so little does the spiritual experience go with us.

When I have seen a tree and walk away, I can again actualize the mental image of the tree in my mind, I can remember by awakening the mental image within me, if I have already awakened it when seeing the tree. If I want to experience the tree again, I have to go back to it. It is the same with spiritual experiences. These do not accompany me on my journey through the soul's life, but only what I have imagined can I remember as an image. Only when one is aware of this can one distinguish between what one has experienced and what one has merely formed as an image.

Another important difference between the visionary experience and ordinary life is that in life, through what one does, one acquires habits. What we have done often becomes a habit. If humans were not given this ability to acquire skills by repeating things over and over again, what would this human life actually be without it?

It is strangely different when, through the exercises I described the day before yesterday, one comes to have spiritual experiences. It turns out that the more often one tries to bring about this spiritual experience, the less one is skilled at having this spiritual experience. I emphasize that this is important. The seer cannot recall the spiritual experience by mere memory; he can only evoke the idea. If he wants to face the spiritual experience a second time, he has to go through the same exercises and create the same conditions so that the spiritual arises as spiritual perception. But when you do this again and again, you experience that it becomes weaker and weaker.

The fact that one cannot acquire something habitual, but that something completely different is necessary to bring about the repetition of the spiritual event, is an experience made by very many who really embark on the path to the spiritual world. It is relatively easy to take a few steps into the spiritual world if one has patience and persistence; however, further steps are as difficult to achieve as I described the day before yesterday. But the first steps are not at all difficult for specially gifted people, and the first experiences come if one pays attention to some of what I have described in “How to Know Higher Worlds?” or in my “Occult Science”.

But such people who have taken the first steps experience that they have had the experiences once, and because they then do not apply the much stronger will, they are no longer able to come to these spiritual experiences, are then very unhappy, are disappointed. This is an experience that many people have. It is absolutely necessary not only to acquire the ability to have such experiences in the first place, but also to have the modified ability to attain them again and again after the event has occurred. Each time you want to attain it, you have new difficulties; each time you have to do more emphasized, different preparations if you want to face the spiritual with the same vividness as the first time.

A third thing that one experiences as a characteristic of the spiritual event is that it is necessary to have a certain quality of soul towards the spiritual experience. This can be cultivated in ordinary life, but very often people have not developed it. A spiritual experience, however strange it may sound, does not actually last very long compared to an ordinary event; it passes by so quickly that usually the situation is that the person has barely mustered the strength to observe the event before it is already over. The thing one must summon in order to have spiritual experiences is presence of mind. This can be trained in ordinary life; but very few people train it to the strength necessary to have experiences in the spiritual world. Those who are accustomed to brooding in their ordinary lives when they want to do something, who consider all sorts of things before making a decision, who are not accustomed to making instinctive decisions and exercising their will to stick to them, who do not train themselves to make such decisions in the presence of a situation, prepare themselves poorly for real experiences in the spiritual world.

On the other hand, what one brings into the spiritual world is what one has already trained in the ordinary world as presence of mind. One can say: the training of presence of mind in relation to sensory events prepares one well to observe as quickly as is necessary in the spiritual realm, and one can truly say: the ordinary reflection of everyday consciousness is of little use to oneself, through the power that is inherent in it, for the perception of the spiritual world. This ordinary reflection, which interposes itself between perception and action, is more harmful than useful for the perception of the spiritual.

The perception of the spiritual in the spiritual realm is similar to what is called a reflex action in natural science. When a fly flies towards my eye, I close my eyelid. In such an instinctive way, in such an exclusion of the usual conscious consideration, in such a return to reflex actions, much of what we need to look around us in the right way in the spiritual world lies. This does not mean, of course, that we should somehow shut out rational consciousness; but it is only after the spiritual perception has been made that what one has experienced can be brought into consciousness.

I could cite many more such peculiarities of the perception of the spiritual world. In such perceptions, in such perceptions that are already completely different from those of ordinary sensory consciousness, the one who knows himself as a spirit lives within the spiritual world that surrounds him, who knows that he as a spirit has self-awareness and that the world that surrounds him is the spiritual world, which he would never have been able to perceive within the body. These things are so.

Now, only someone who has really come to know the spiritual world through such developed vision is able to compare what he is able to observe in the spiritual world with what occurs in the characterized border areas. By mere philosophizing about dreams, however developed the power of judgment may be, one can never really know how dreams enter into ordinary personal life. One is unable to compare the dream that penetrates into ordinary consciousness with anything else; one can only describe it, and everything that natural science has to say about it is very useful, very valuable; but the actual significance of the dream in life can only be grasped by the one who is able to compare the dream with what he gets to know in the seership as the character of the spiritual world. And there he learns in relation to the dream that the dreamer, that is, the actual dreaming being in man, is no different from the one in which the mind consciously knows itself when it is in the spiritual world.

With ordinary consciousness, one cannot judge whether it is the body or the soul that is actually dreaming. Only when one knows how one stands in the spiritual world, when one consciously grasps the self in spirituality, only then can one compare what one observes in oneself and in one's existence in the spiritual world with what occurs in dreams. And then, through direct observation, through direct spiritual insight, one can know: There is nothing else in us that dreams but what is also there when one has developed in fully conscious vision. Thus, through direct observation, one comes to the - if I may express myself pedantically - actual subject of the dream.

But one can learn even more. The one who gradually enters the spiritual world finds that his dream life gradually changes, that he no longer needs to let his dreams wash over him in such a helpless way, but that he can intervene within the course of the dream with his will, directing and guiding the dream images. It is evident, then, once again through direct observation, that what is gradually attained as the spiritual ego is itself the one that intervenes in the dream in a directing and orienting way. It is precisely through this change in dream life, through this observation of oneself becoming a spirit intervening in the dream, that one can see how the actual dreaming is nothing other than what one grasps when one is actually in the spiritual world.

And yet another aspect arises. You are aware that among the many endeavors that are now unfolding in relation to the unconscious, there is one that seeks to approach the spiritual world of man, which is called analytical psychology. This psychoanalysis, which is an exploration of a certain area of the soul, albeit with inadequate means, does not lead to an understanding of the true character of the areas under consideration. This psychoanalysis also works with the dream images of the human being. The psychoanalyst seeks to unravel the dreams and what they reveal about some hidden aspects of the soul life.

Now it is very strange that when I recently discussed the relationship of spiritual science to this method, I was reproached by several psychoanalysts. They claim that psychoanalysis is the true science, it only takes the dream in so far as it is symbolic, whereas I maintain that one ascends to the imaginations and intuitions, and I treat the dream in such a way that I grasp it in its reality. I make the mistake of taking the dream seriously, taking its imagery seriously, while psychoanalysis sees the symbolic character of dreams.

Well, one can be amazed at how misunderstood one is. What I represent as spiritual science adheres neither to the actual course of the dream nor to the symbolism to which psychoanalysis adheres. In fact, it does not adhere to content at all. The one who studies the world of dreams as a spiritual researcher comes to the following conclusion: You see, it can happen that ten people tell you about a dream, and if you are familiar with such things, you can be clear about the fact that these ten have dreamed very different things in terms of the dream sequence, but that exactly the same thing underlies the dream sequence in all ten as a spiritual reality. What matters is neither the symbolism nor the reality of what takes place in the dream, but it is clear to the spiritual researcher that what matters is the inner drama of the dream.

It may be that someone has unconsciously experienced an event in the spiritual realm. It also remains unconscious to him in relation to the dream. The event took place, taking place in the relationship of the human being as a spirit to the spiritual world. But what now occurs as a dream is an external transformation, in that what remains completely in the subconscious is used, what the person has as a sensory stimulus and so on. That is the garment that the dream drama is clothed in. That is the imagery. One can experience something that causes such tension, and this is released by confronting a spiritual event. One person may experience this by climbing a mountain and encountering an obstacle; another by being led to a door, into a labyrinth; a third person may experience the same event in a different way. What matters is not what the dream images say one after the other, but the inner drama, what lives behind the dream without images. This is a spiritual reality, and the spiritual researcher investigates what lies behind it by looking into the real spiritual.

Dreams themselves arise from the fact that what a person experiences in the purely spiritual realm is transposed into a somewhat irregular union of the eternal spiritual self with the physical body. I must assume that the real spiritual knowledge, that is, the possibility of observing human self-awareness as a spiritual being, shows people through direct observation that we are in sleep and dreamless sleep, not when falling asleep and waking up, but that we , albeit with a subdued consciousness, that we are outside our body in this sleep, that we really leave our body when we fall asleep and move back into it when we wake up, and that what moves out and moves in is a spiritual being. Vision consists in nothing other than that which otherwise remains unconscious in sleep is now raised to consciousness in the spiritual world. The dream arises from the fact that what is otherwise fully separated in the spirit, that which comes into a partially irregular connection with the bodily, arises from the fact that it comes into relation with the bodily, that it sinks into the bodily, but not so that it fills the full body, arises from the fact that that it partially sinks in, that the compulsion arises to clothe that which remains behind from becoming aware of processes in the spiritual world in that which one of the corners of corporeality gives, without one having already moved into the whole corporeality.

And so it is always a kind of darkening in the dream of what is truly eternal in man, of that which passes through birth and death, of that which, free of the body, prepares for what follows death, and also develops between birth and death in a germinal way for the next spiritual life. It is a darkening of this soul life, it is a clouding of the soul life caused by the incomplete approach to the body. Only if the human being were incapable of accomplishing what, in a healthy development of his being, he must always accomplish, of fully absorbing and thus appropriating what is attained through the body for the ordinary sense life, of controlling his involvement in the sense life, only if this did not occur would the dream life intrude into human life as something pathological!

Something else becomes apparent when one considers the boundary of the dream life in relation to the world of seeing. The one who develops the gift of second sight learns to understand through the kind of experiences he has in the spiritual world, that he experiences them separately from the body, and learns to understand that this life between birth and death, this life in the sense world, the life in the physical body, must not be seen as a life in captivity. Spiritual science never leads to false asceticism. The student comes to recognize that, in the wise ordering of the universe, the sojourn in the sense body has its good meaning. The entire life of man, which flows between forms of existence in and out of the body between death and new birth, this entire life of man takes on different things.

The power to develop in oneself those impulses that contain logic and morality, this power the person must acquire here in his sensual body, in addition to everything else he receives from the universe, if he wants to acquire it at all. This, to think logically, could not be acquired in the spiritual world, for that we must embody ourselves. Then, through the gate of death, we carry those impulses, which can only be developed on earth, into the supersensible realm.

Now because the dream consists in the fact that one actually carries a spiritual experience into the physical world through the incomplete merging with the body – I cannot go into the details – but because the human being emerges from the spiritual world as a personality, he brings into the physical world from the spiritual world something that is both unlogical and amoral, which can only enter into the content of the dream. That is why the dream appears without any logical or moralizing. Only the seer can compare this peculiarity of the dream, how it relates to morality and logic. Thus I have indicated the possibility of comparing the dream life with what man can know as the content of the spiritual world. But this reveals that the dream is... gap); only the peculiar thing is that in the dream man does not face the eternal. His eternal is active, but what fills this eternal is what comes from the body. In dreams, the eternal in man is directed towards the temporal. But the fact that the eternal is present in these events is shown by a truly spiritual scientific consideration of the dream.

The situation is different when it comes to hallucinatory, somnambulant life. Here we are dealing with the fact that the human being also enters his physical body from the spiritual, that spiritual influences it, but that the spiritual enters the physical either because the inner physical life is in some way diseased, so that the spiritual enters a diseased physical body. Now, the human being can only develop a correct relationship if he immerses himself in the bodily world, which functions as a unified whole. If he submerges himself in such a way that no part of his physical body can fully participate in the development of sensory perception, then, through the elimination of a physical element, a spiritual element arises in part.

We would not see this spiritual if we did not see when our body was somehow diseased. By the fact that it is, the spiritual asserts itself. The spiritual researcher sees the spiritual by standing in the spiritual; the hallucinator sees a spiritual in a diseased, impossible way, actually, by partially switching off his normal physical for sensory perception. But this also means that the occurrence of a spiritual vision that we have no control over is always a sign of some kind of physical illness. One can say: It is understandable that people believe, that even researchers believe, that a real spiritual being is encountered in such a pathological physical condition; but it is to be rejected to do anything that leads to the illness of the physical body for the sake of a spiritual vision. The path that leads to the forced vision is to be rejected from the spiritual-scientific point of view, because it would be a promoter of the human organism becoming ill. And anyone who so misjudges the spiritual scientific methods, as they are described in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds,” as if these methods could somehow seduce one to cultivate that which they specifically condemn, defames these spiritual scientific methods. They are defamed in the broadest sense.

But it can also happen that, to a certain extent, the sick body infects the senses, so that the senses come into a different relationship – I can only mention this in general terms – that the senses come into a different relationship to the usual environment. In everyday life, you perceive your surroundings as you know them. It may happen that through the change in the life of the senses, what is perceived in the environment is what otherwise eludes the senses. It will be what is not accessible to man through the higher spiritual life. But I will explain right away, perhaps better than by generalizing, what I mean by the example from before, by way of an example of what I mean by a somnambular life, by a refined sense life. What is otherwise understood as second sight falls under this category; I must say: it is remarkable, although Sir Oliver Lodge's book has a thoroughly scientific character, that a certain hidden dilettantism can generally be found in this book in particular. The phenomenon, which is presented as a cross experiment, is in fact nothing other than what anyone familiar with this field knows as a refinement of the sense life, so that this sense life is able to perceive things other than what is usually associated with it. If someone whose sensory life and sensory life interwoven with the intellectual life is such that the intellectual apparatus extends down into the senses, if someone has developed such a sensory life, it may happen that today he has the idea: I will ride in a fortnight and have an accident. That can happen. These things are known.

Something that cannot be perceived through the ordinary temporal connection can be perceived by a person simply through an especially abnormal sense of life that has been infected from within. There are cases in which what is seen or suspected occurs with such inevitable necessity that precautions are taken and yet it happens anyway. Now, for someone who is familiar with such things, there is nothing different about somnambulism and the like than there is about a remote vision. What did the medium actually communicate in the case of Sir Oliver Lodge? Well, about a fortnight after the seance, the photograph arrived in the same room. Two weeks later, this photograph could be described with normal consciousness. Through a remote vision, the medium described what arrived later. The somnambulant medium perceived nothing from the hereafter, saw nothing but what later became an event, and the whole crucifixion experiment is objectively, in the facts, correct; the explanation is completely incorrect.

What is at issue is that one realizes that through a somnambulant human life, one can see differently than in normal sensory and mental life, but that in this way the human being is, so to speak, more intimately united with the external world. However, a real insight into the supersensible world of the senses, which man enters after death, in which man is always in touch with the Eternal, is not possible through such abnormal states of consciousness, but only when man really enters this spiritual world in full consciousness, so that he stands as a spirit in the spiritual world and can distinguish between what he can perceive through his corporeality. Wherever there is no real looking in, wherever the spiritual mixes with the bodily itself.

Somnambulism also has its dangers, if only because the soul is switched off – for the soul is switched off and remains switched off during the dream – because the person with the spiritual and soul is completely immersed in the body, a part is switched off, and then the person becomes an automaton. This can be interesting, but must not be cultivated, because only by making the right connections between the spiritual and the physical in the proper way does a person place himself in the right way in relation to the logical and moral world. When the spiritual world has an effect in an abnormal way, this effect, in which always excludes a part of the body, can lead to an incorrect relationship between the personality of the medium and the moral and logical, to moral decline, and to the interweaving of all kinds of lies in a cognitive way, and so on, and so on. We can conclude from the fact that man actually turns himself into an automaton in the artificially induced somnambulistic state that it must not be artificially induced.

Thus, spiritual science shows especially for this area how much man has to pay attention to the fact that these border areas can indeed be illuminated by spiritual science, but that, conversely, they cannot be used to enlighten spiritual life. Then spiritual science shows further that what flows out of the unconscious or subconscious into the human imaginative life actually has the eternal in human nature as its actual subject; only in both the dream life and in the somnambulist is the spiritual inclined towards the bodily.

In the artist, the spiritual-soul is inclined towards the spiritual. While it is inclined towards it, it remains in the unconscious. Then it enters in a proper way, so that the whole physical is taken up. While in sober consciousness such things are forgotten by the spiritual, in the artist the spiritual is carried in, but in such a way that it is not absorbed by a part of the physical, as in somnambulism, and thus weakened, but is brought into the right relationship to the ordinary course of life. Thus, in artistic creation, the eternal is unconsciously inclined towards the spiritual; the eternal towards the eternal. But because the human being is not consciously aware of what he experiences in the eternal, he brings it into the ordinary consciousness and transforms it, and thus it will take on an individual character.

This is the spatial difference between what is artistically created and what the seer, who is immersed in the spiritual world, has before him. The seer has something impersonal before him; he has something around him that has just as little to do with his individuality and just as much to do with it, namely, seeing from a point of view like the external sensory world. The one who perceives unconsciously what the seer sees in the spiritual world with an immediate part of consciousness and brings it into the ordinary world becomes an artist, a poet. That is why people have the well-founded opinion that true artists bring messages of the eternal into the sensual world, that the supersensible reveals itself out of the unconscious through true art into the sensual, into the life of ordinary consciousness.

Then, as I have indicated, the human being experiences his destiny in a peculiar way, consciously and unconsciously. Through what Scher experiences, something is now raised from the unconscious into the conscious that would otherwise always remain unconscious. In ordinary life, we are actually only fully aware of one part of our being, namely our perceptions and ideas. You can see this for yourself from a scientific description such as that of Theodor Ziehen. In contrast, what is called the emotional and will life remains down in the half or completely unconscious. What does the human being know in his ordinary consciousness that only takes place when he moves his hand! Theodor Zichen characterizes correctly when he says: We only have the ideas of what is taking place. That which mysteriously vibrates into the hand as we raise it is as unconscious to us as the events in sleep in ordinary waking day life. The whole real essence of the life of the will, which indeed rules in us, which permeates our eternal being, nevertheless remains unconscious, becomes conscious only through the representations of the arising ordinary consciousness, just as a dream becomes conscious out of sleep in ordinary consciousness; but what we know of the will is not what goes on in the will itself. What we know is as much as we know of a dream when we are awake.

Our emotional life, in which we are equally immersed, is not as unconscious as a dream. It is partly conscious and partly unconscious. The great esthete Vischer already suspected that the emotional life is related to the soul in the same way as the dream life. While the dream life unfolds in images, the emotional life unfolds in feelings, but these feelings arise from the subconscious. We form ideas about them, but we do not get closer to the reality of these feelings than we do to the reality of the dream in the dream, which has its subjective origin in the eternal of the human ego.

Thus, a person is only really aware of half of their waking day-to-day life; the other half remains subconscious. The seer brings it up. He perceives, not only through ordinary conceptions, what lives essentially in feeling and will, but he also forms, through the senses, what he sees in them. But then this experience is a very peculiar one, one that does not arise as it does in dreams or in the recollection of ordinary life, when the shearer follows his feelings - it is a human life or several human lives that arise before his soul; but it is not the life that he can follow when he looks back to birth; it becomes clear to him that past earthly lives play into this earthly life.

At the moment when the light of knowledge flashes through will and feeling, impulses of feeling and will from previous earthly lives make their impact felt. And what germinates in us for subsequent earthly lives flashes again in our life of will. However paradoxical it may sound, it is true that when one does not merely speak hypothetically about the will, as Schopenhauer did, but rises to an intuition of the essential nature of the will and feeling, then the repeated earthly lives become a fact within human consciousness; but then we learn to recognize how, through earlier earthly lives, we ourselves bring about, as it were, what happens to us from the outside. What we have experienced in the past forges the paths within us that lead us to our destiny. The individual earthly lives illuminate each other. What we experience as fate, half-dreamed, half-consciously, like a dream, and what befalls us as chance, all this is illuminated for us when what is unconscious reveals itself.

Talking about previous lives on earth and the lives we live in the spiritual world between death and a new birth is something that still seems as paradoxical to people today as it did in the days when people believed that the earth stood still and the sun and planets revolved around it. The reversal of this entire world view will take time. For a long time people did not want to believe it. For centuries there have been people who have regarded it as impossible; and of course there will also be people today who will receive such things, which occur in such a way, with scorn.

That may be. That is as self-evident as can be; but these things are, so to speak, at the gates of our cultural development. They are what can really illuminate the much sought-after field of revelations of the unconscious. The unconscious is a broad field. It also rests within the sensory world itself. By believing that it is not within this sensory world, one falls back on all sorts of methods to explain this sensory world from something other than the spiritual.

We can see how something like the Kant-Laplace theory comes about. I have often mentioned this before and will only refer to it today because it sheds light on our present-day field. Whether he is an astronomer or a geologist, man tries to guess from what is happening before his senses at the present time, from a calculation, what happened millions of years ago. One can do this without making the slightest mistake against any scientific laws; one can calculate a state of the earth that occurs after millions of years. Unfortunately, however, one is in the following case. For example, if you calculate from heredity what the human stomach goes through in the course of one, two, seven years, what changes it undergoes in three hundred years, you proceed in the same way as a geologist or astronomer, in the same way as the one who put forward the Kant-Laplace hypothesis. We can calculate in the same way as for the small changes that take place in the constitution of the stomach, what the stomach must have been like 300 years ago; only it had not yet come into existence at that time. In the same way, we can calculate what this stomach will be like in 300 years. The calculation may be correct, but the result is untenable. The calculation based on the changes in the rock can be correct and it can be scientifically established that the earth was in this or that state millions of years ago; only at that time the earth had not yet come into existence and will no longer exist in the millions of years that can be calculated by the same method, because it has inner laws of life through which it has developed out of the spiritual and will in turn develop back into it like man.

Today we are already on the verge of intuiting those spirits that are healthy, on the verge of intuiting a science that is meant to be spiritual science. While those who follow popular judgment in this field are far from a healthy view of these things, which healthy view would naturally lead to spiritual science, we also find others. An example may be given. Eckermann, who emerged from Goethe's view, wrote the following words: ... [space]

This is how a healthy person thinks, how someone thinks who is not completely numbed by what is officially recognized. But he who is compelled, by what his unbiased sense of truth suggests to him, to point out spiritual science in our time, also knows in what way he and his views fit into what the best minds of humanity developed, sensed and thought even before there was any science. In our time, we can repeatedly and again and again point to the prophetic way in which Goethe foresaw spiritual science. By dealing with how, through the development of the human soul, the human being comes to juxtapose the spiritual self as spirit with the spiritual, by linking what is spiritual in the universe with a bridge to what is spiritual in the human being, one is reminded of what Goethe wrote in his book on Winckelmann out of deep insight:

He who feels the healthy nature of man as a whole, who perceives himself in his environment as a great, valuable and dignified whole, would, if the universe could feel itself, reach its goal, exult and admire the summit of its own becoming and being.

Goethe, then, looked at something that can take place in the human mind, where the spirit of the universe directly beholds the spirit of the universe, where spirit confronts spirit.

Now, I can also summarize what I have said, albeit in a sketchy way, about the border areas by saying that spiritual science, when it is really strictly methodical, wants to show that even if a person only lives unconsciously, what is real is research is only raised into consciousness, that only what is always present and going on as the greatest secret in the depths of man reveals itself consciously, that the spiritual faces the spiritual, that the spiritual works with the spiritual, the spiritual recognizes the spiritual, and that the spirit creates and perceives the spiritual.

Dear attendees! Every year I have had the privilege of speaking here in this city about topics in spiritual science. Our friends in the spiritual science movement here were of the opinion that this should also be done in these fateful days. Now it will seem understandable that these days of ours require a very special kind of consideration, even for those striving in spiritual science. After all, all our feelings and emotions are intimately connected with what is happening in the East and the West in these fateful days. We must look with heartfelt sympathy at those who are faithfully obeying the demands of duty, who are giving their all, body and soul, for what has become so deeply embedded in the course of European and indeed human development. In all our thoughts, in all our reflections, there must be a connection to the great arena in which decisions are not made and judgments are not passed in words, in concepts and ideas, but where decisions are made and judgments are passed through deeds, through life, through blood, through death.

What I would like to consider before you this evening, dear attendees, is said to be so connected with the great events of the times that the question is asked, as it were, from these events themselves: What impulses, what forces, what powers in the course of human development have led, could lead to the fact that the bearers of Central European culture, that the bearers of Central European spiritual life are now enclosed as in a mighty, enlarged fortress on all sides, have to defend themselves on all sides; not only have to defend themselves, but are burdened from all sides with all possible insults, yes, defamations. Perhaps spiritual scientific conceptions, perhaps perceptions that arise from spiritual scientific feeling, are suitable for characterizing, at least in some strokes, the larger connections that have led to our fate-shaking events in the world's development up to our time.

Among the things that the materialistic age has particularly laughed at can be mentioned the idea, the concept of the folk soul, which I tried to present in my book “Theosophy”. For the spiritual scientist, this folk soul is not just an abstract, empty concept, not just an abstract summary of the characteristics of some people. This folk soul is a living, real thing.

For spiritual science – as has often been emphasized here – the concept of reality, and also the concept of personal and individual reality, does not end with the visible. Behind the visible, everywhere, the invisible reigns. If we approach nature spiritually, then, behind what nature reveals to us externally, we find spiritual entities that are effective not only for a superstitious, traditional worldview, but for real spiritual scientific research. Behind all that we ourselves are, behind all that develops in us between birth and death, there reigns that eternal, immortal self, which, however, presents itself to man in forms and entities that he ignores in everyday life. The supersensible self rules in us, passing from birth to birth and from death to death on earth. And in all historical development, invisible, supersensible, but as real as the external beings of the animal and plant world, there are real, personal, individual beings. The spiritual researcher speaks of such real, ruling spiritual beings when he speaks of the soul of a nation. And he tries to grasp the nature of these folk souls on the basis of his knowledge; he tries to penetrate into what these folk souls are, in order to gain an understanding from this penetration of how the folk souls prevail in the folk souls, in the feelings and impulses of the folk souls, and how the folk souls relate to each other through this rule.

First of all, I would like to hint at how the spiritual researcher arrives at speaking of such higher spiritual beings, including in the sense of folk souls, which would be far too involved to explain in detail. In our material life, we relate to the things of the external world, to the things of the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms; we look at what is around us within the horizon of these kingdoms; we form ideas and thoughts about them and absorb them. We know that our soul lives within us, and when we form thoughts, images and ideas, then these thoughts, images and ideas relate to beings outside of us.

What we can draw from the beings, we acquire, so to speak; we then carry this further into ourselves from the mineral, animal and plant world that extends around our senses. We form images, thoughts and ideas about the world that is below us as human beings. Spiritual research shows us – I can only hint at this today with a comparison; listeners who have heard me here often know that this is not just a comparison but a result of spiritual research – spiritual research shows us how we as human souls relate to external reality. Thus, in the invisible, there is a spiritual world above us; and what the things of the mineral, animal and plant worlds are for us, we ourselves are as souls for a spiritual world. We can say comparatively: just as the things of the sensory world become thoughts for us, so we become thoughts, so we become perceptions and ideas for the spiritual world. And the folk soul is one of the beings in the spiritual world that are closest to us. And just as we humans can relate to the external world by simply surrendering ourselves to it with our senses, giving it little thought and rarely rising to the realm of the ideal, so the folk soul can relate to the individual people of a nation by living itself out completely in the individuals, entirely [with its will impulses] – and with the folk soul it depends on will impulses – that it expresses itself entirely in the individuals, that this folk soul rises little into a spiritual realm, but rather submerges more and leads a life in the folk individuals themselves. From a spiritual-scientific point of view, we find such folk souls more among the western peoples of Europe. We find that folk souls there rise little into a spiritual realm; on the other hand, we find that they intervene decisively, tyrannically and dogmatically in the individual soul life of the members of the Western European peoples.

Another thing is conceivable and is actually in the character of the folk souls. This can be compared to when a person is more of a dreamer, when he has little eyes and little sense for the outer world; when things pass by him unnoticed, as it were, and he lives more in his own ideas. The behavior of the individual human soul towards external things can be compared to the Russian folk soul. It hovers, as it were, nebulously over the individual members of the people, does not enter into the individualities of the people; cares little about them; is only loosely connected with them.

Then there are people, and we have a representative person of this kind in the history of the development of Central Europe, who on the one hand lovingly contemplates the outside world with all his senses, but then again does not get stuck in this outside world, but develops a full ideal, spiritual-soul life, and with this spiritual-soul life plunges into what the senses around him offer and reveal. In the most eminent sense, Goethe is a representative of this kind of mind. Goethe, whose way of thinking has been called “a concrete thinking” by an important psychologist of his time, because this remarkable Goethe soul connects lovingly with everything outside through the senses, and at the same time rises so strongly to ideas. Schiller could not quite understand this in a conversation he had with Goethe, so that Goethe had to claim that he saw his ideas with his eyes. His intellectual and spiritual life was so highly developed, as was his life of the senses and outer life. The German national soul is a type of national soul that can be compared with this disposition of the individual human soul. The German national soul has proven itself as such over the centuries and millennia of German development in Central Europe.

This German national soul appears to us, on the one hand, as intimately and intimately concerned with the individual human being. On the other hand, we see how it was able to withdraw into the spiritual realms in order to open up new sources of spiritual life there, and then to go down again to the individual human beings in the German nation. A folk soul that lives in the spiritual and in the individual at the same time, that appears to us in the succession of time as if it were coming down among the people; [it appears as if it were coming down rhythmically], we see it in the decisions in which our ancestors assert themselves as opponents of the Roman development. We see how this folk soul, even then, was permeating the individual human personalities in Central Europe, how it imbued them with strength so that they could oppose in a very specific way what was intruding on them as Romanism. We then find how this folk soul withdraws, then breaks out again, submerging itself in the individual personalities, even producing a supreme one at the time of Walther von der Vogelweide [Wolfram von Eschenbach]. We find, as later when Germany was crushed from left and right, from north and south, during the Thirty Years War, this national soul gathers strength in the unseen, and then in a heyday of German spiritual development at the turn of the eighteenth, nineteenth century, it in turn submerges into the individuals.

If we observe history in its rhythmic course, we see it as alternating between the submergence of the national soul in the individualities and a return to the spiritual. And it is from this return to the spiritual that the rejuvenating forces of German development come.

If we consider the fundamental feature of this familiarity on the one hand and the soaring flight on the other of the German national soul, we understand how, within the development of German culture, what is produced as the highest , what reaches to the heights of art and intellectual life, is rooted in the simplest impulses, in the primitive of the national soul; how it was unthinkable in Germany from time immemorial that Germany's high culture was not at the same time popular culture.

And so, in these fateful times, I would like to invoke two personalities in their last moments, their dying moments, so to speak, and characterize something.

How did that which Schiller was able to be for his people settle into German hearts and minds? What worked in Schiller's mind itself? The rejuvenating powers of the German national soul! He knew himself connected to these deeper powers of the German national soul. Through one of his friends, Heinrich Voß, the son of the translator of Homer, Voß, we are led into Schiller's death chamber, as it were, and get to know Schiller's last days and last moments. There we get to know him, this Schiller, as he, so to speak, already died physically in his last days, but as he, gathering all the powers of his soul, nevertheless took part in what surrounded him. There you can see how the spirit prevailed over the worn-out body, which showed a dried-up heart at the autopsy, but in which there was a warm glow. We see that this worn-out body was maintained solely by the strong soul forces that dwelled in it.

We are told how difficult Schiller's last moments were. It is touching to see how, in these last moments, he still made an effort to say this or that, which he believed he still had to communicate to those around him so that it could be passed on to posterity. We are told how Schiller had his last, his youngest child brought to his bedside, how he looked the child in the eye for a long, long time. How he then turned to the wall. And young Voß recounts that he believed – and rightly so – that Schiller looked at his child as if to say: Yes, it would be necessary for me to be your father for much longer, because I still have so much to tell you.

And it may be said that the entire German nation can imagine that the feelings that turned to the child in these last moments were turned to the entire German nation itself; as if the German nation must feel what Schiller still had to say to it. For in Schiller, the German nation can feel how he was carried in everything by the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul.

Let us recall the words that have been quoted frequently in recent times, which Schiller, so to speak, left as a legacy, and which show how he felt connected to the German people. These words only came to light long after his death. But they show us how Schiller himself felt carried by the forces of the German national spirit.

He who forms and rules the spirit

must ultimately gain mastery, for

finally, at the goal of time, if the

world has a plan, if human

life has any meaning, finally,

custom and reason must triumph,

the brute force of form must succumb

and the slowest nation will overtake

all the fast, fleeting ones.

[...]

Him

– the German –

is destined for the highest,
and just as he is in the center of
Europe's peoples,
he is the core of humanity,
those are the flower and the leaf.

He has been chosen by the world spirit, during
the battle of time
to work on the eternal construction of human education
and to preserve what time brings,
therefore he has appropriated what was previously foreign
and kept it within himself.
Everything that was valuable in other times
and peoples, that arose, developed and faded with the times,
he has preserved,
it is not lost to him, the treasures of
centuries.
Not to shine in the moment and
play his role, but to win the great
process of time. Every people
has its day in history, but
the day of the German is the harvest of
all time.

Thus Schiller knew himself connected with the power of the German national soul.

Now we turn our gaze to another German, to a German who has risen high, one might say, into the often seemingly cold philosophical regions; we turn to Johann Gottlieb Fichte. But Fichte, who in Germany's most difficult times, when Germany was depressed from the west, tried - as he himself put it - to hold his “Discourses to the German Nation” from the innermost “root of the stirrings of life” of his people. He, the philosopher, who perhaps put forward the most vigorously willed thoughts to humanity, he who shaped the sharpest thoughts, he knew himself as being connected to all the primitive sources of the German people, and it was out of this consciousness that he delivered his “Speeches to the German Nation” at that time. But he also felt connected to everything that came from the German people and determined Germany's fate. And again this shows itself to us – we can look at it without sentimentality – it shows itself symbolically in his last moments.

He often deliberated with himself, Fichte, whether he should personally go to war. Then he told himself that he had to work through the power of his mind. His wife worked as a nurse in a military hospital in Berlin. She brought the military hospital fever home with her. She recovered, but Fichte was infected by this fever. And in his last moments – and this was strangely characteristic of this seemingly abstract and at the same time most popular philosopher – in his last days, when his crystal-clear, life-energetic thoughts feverish fantasies, he was outside with the German armies, at Blücher's crossing of the Rhine, he took a faithful part in the fighting, and felt himself in the midst of the battle. Thus, even in the feverish fantasies of the dying philosopher, the strongest German philosophy led to intimate communion with the deeds of his people. His son offered him a medicine. He pushed it away with his hand and said, letting his thoughts wander from the most human philosophy to the way he felt on the battlefields, he said: “I do not need medicine because I feel I will recover.” He recovered to death.

Such examples, esteemed attendees, show us how the forces of the German national soul were at work, where the individual souls that belong to this nation are making the way that they must describe as the most humane, as the one leading to the highest goods of humanity.

And everywhere it is shown how this German national soul does not rule over the individual in a tyrannical way, how it does not pour some kind of collective, dogmatic world view into souls; how it is experienced in the individual souls, how the individual soul feels it as its own power. And how, nevertheless, the highest developments of the supersensible spiritual life are brought into these individual souls. And again and again we see the individual soul seized afresh in all that it has to accomplish on earth, carried down from the spiritual heights by the soul of the nation.

How did this Central European people once receive Christianity! So that it was felt like the most personal impulse. We read the retelling of the Gospel stories [in Heliand, the work of the Saxon monk], we read them as something that arose directly from the most personal spiritual life, but was nevertheless the revelation of a supreme being.

And we move on. We see how later on the individual German soul is seized; so seized is it by that which encompasses the whole soul of the people, that this German soul in German mysticism in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth century feels God so that this God lives directly in all that the individual can will, feel and love, what the individual soul feels directly within itself as the eternal-living. How the words of Master Eckhart resound in us: “If you love God, then you can do whatever you want, [for then you will only want the eternal and the one, which God also wills. I will not ask God to give himself, I will ask him to make me pure, then he will flow into me of his own accord. God is a pure good in Himself and therefore does not want to dwell anywhere, for He may pour Himself entirely into a pure soul. When it is so pure that it sees through itself, then it need not seek God in the form, but it sees Him in itself and enjoys all creatures in God and God in all creatures, and whatever it does, it does in God and] God does in you.” That is to say, they maintain a familiar dialogue not only with what they are as individuals, but also with what, as the soul of the people, whispers and rests through all the minds of the people.

And think of Angelus Silesius, who lived in the seventeenth century. How he empathizes with the individual soul of the human being with the whole soul of the people. How we read there - I will quote only one saying - how Silesius, the “Cherubic Wayfarer,” has made countless such sayings.

I neither live nor die. God himself dies in me, and what I am to live, he also lives for and for.

This means feeling at one with the spirit that lives and breathes in the world. At the same time, it means carrying within oneself a supreme consciousness of immortality. When a person feels connected in their soul to the divine source of existence, they say: “I neither die nor live. God himself dies in me.” There is the certainty that God does not die; but that it is God who goes with me through death. There I feel so connected with God that through this my immortality is granted. There you see the peculiarity, how intimately the soul of the people lives with the individual mind of the people.

When we look at the human soul from a spiritual scientific point of view, then we see – not by dividing it up in the abstract, but by looking at this soul in a truly scientific way, and this is not what science does today, but it is something that the science of the future will certainly do – we see that we can distinguish three soul elements, three soul expressions in the human soul. Just as one can distinguish the different color shades in the spectrum, so one can and must distinguish quite scientifically in the human soul: the sentient soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the consciousness soul. And within each of these there is that which is called the human being's ego, the actual self of the human being. Just as light reigns in the reddish-yellow, greenish, and blue-violet parts of the rainbow, so the power of the self, of the ego of man, reigns through the sentient soul, the mind or emotional soul, and the consciousness soul.

Now the peculiar thing about trying to understand the peoples of Europe from a spiritual scientific point of view is that it shows that the soul of a nation, for example the Italian soul, relates primarily to the individual human being in such a way that the soul of the nation stimulates the sentient soul and works through the sentient soul. In the case of the French nation, the soul of the nation works through the intellectual or mind soul. In the British nation, the folk soul works through the consciousness soul. In the Russian nation, the folk soul hovers over the soul forces, leaving the soul forces in a kind of [anarchic] state. The German folk soul directly stimulates the I. It does not express itself in a particular part of the soul, but by taking hold of the whole soul; hence its rejuvenating power. Hence the possibility for the German, when seized by the power of his folk soul. [At a certain time, it lovingly seized what was offered in Italy, France, and England, but always rejuvenated it, elevating it within itself to an independent existence.] How lovingly did the German spirit of his time take hold of what was offered to humanity by Eckhart and Tauler! But how did it rejuvenate it by stimulating the whole self through the whole spectrum! How did it raise it to the most independent, personal and inward existence! How was he, with his ever-rejuvenating power of the I-seizing folk soul, how was the German in the present able to present that which encompasses the whole human being as the highest representative of humanity. No other nation could have produced a work of literature like Faust, because no other nation is so deeply moved in its immediate self by the national soul, through all the elements of the soul's spectrum. But that is also why this German essence is so little understood and so misunderstood in all directions.

If we look to the West, we see how everything that arises most deeply from the German soul, what is present there in a completely undogmatic way, always stimulating striving, is expressed in a crude way through language; how it is often not understood and is either rejected emotionally or critically. One is tempted to say: the best that the Central European folk soul instills in the people of Central Europe is “understood” in the West, even when it is tried to be understood, in such a way that precisely the immediate invigoration is lost. And this extends even to the contemplation of the figures.

We can learn a lot about the peculiarities of European cultures by considering how much is understood in the West when it is understood through the Western European strength of the national soul. Herman Grimm, the art historian, once said quite rightly [about a book about Goethe by the Englishman Lewes]: “A certain Mr. Lewes in England has written a book about a person who was born in August 1749 in Frankfurt, who died in March 1832 in Weimar, to whom Mr. Lewes attributes [“The Sorrows of Young Werther”, “Clavigo” and so on], such fates, which we know Goethe experienced. To whom he also attributes the writing of Goethe's works. But everything he describes about this man is only coincidentally connected to the man who was born in 1749 and died in 1832. For that which connects Goethe's work with the life of the Central European folk soul has not been transferred, not even in the slightest, into the book that Mr. Lewes has written about a certain Goethe, who is not, however, the creator of Faust for the Central European in reality. One can grasp the external, the coarse, that through which the other appears. But that which lives in the folk soul, animating the individual soul, is lost, one does not see it. This is perhaps a little too radically expressed in Herman Grimm. But it shows what it is about.

And so we must also find that in the way German essence is understood by French essence, there is something that proves to us that the French soul of the people is such that it enters into the soul of the mind, determining the mind's soul, directly tyrannizing the soul of the mind, so that the soul of the people thinks in the individual and radiates through the impulses of the will of the individual. While the German folk soul becomes the confidante of the individual human being.

And if we now look over to the East, to the Russian people. In Russia, much attention has been paid to Kant, to Hegel, Belinsky. But all this shows a very particular peculiarity: the thoughts of Central Europe become strangely ghostly in the East. They are felt and experienced not in the soul-elevating sensation, but like thought ghosts, conceptual ghosts; like what lives in the secular of the national groupings that lives above the individuals.

In saying this, I am expressing something that is just as much a part of the strict body of knowledge as the physical, chemical and biological truths are. Even though it is more difficult to talk about these things because people are indifferent to physical, chemical and biological truths, whereas the truths presented here are related to the fate and nature of man. But we live in a time in which the human soul must rise above that which impairs the human [...] and we live in a time in which such things must be spoken, in which we must gain understanding for the impulses that are going through the world and that have brought about what is now there.

It is rightly said that the two Central European peoples have been surrounded and enclosed in the last decades, as if with iron clamps, the Central European states. But for the spiritual researcher, this encirclement begins much earlier. And the outer, one might say materialistic encirclement, which had its main organizer in Edward VII, this materialistic encirclement is the last [representative] of an ancient encirclement that began in the year 860 of our era. These connections must be borne in mind. In 860, on the one hand, the Normans were standing outside Paris and, on the other hand, the Varangians came down [outside Novgorod and Kiev] and threatened Constantinople, and then, when they pushed into the Slavic area across Russia to Kiev, to Constantinople, on the other hand, parts of the Normans pushed in [into the Romance element], and we have a coiled snake in Central Europe. Those who remained Central Europeans were to be surrounded and encircled. And in the West, we have the nations pushing in and becoming permeated by a folk soul, pushing into the Romance element, which then, from south to northwest, becomes the substance of the folk soul's nature, so that thinking becomes dogmatic, so that on this side everything must be taken dogmatically, so that we see how what is directly human, what arises from the intimate contact of the human soul with the folk soul, is taken dogmatically in the West by the intellect soul, which is permeated by the traditional Romanism. [Thus Central Europe is isolated. This must be taken dogmatically. If the world is not taken in this way, the folk soul, which is permeated with the old Romanism, will not be individualized.]

On the other hand, in the East we see how a folk soul comes into being when the Varangians, who are related to the Normans, merge with the Slavs, are permeated by the Slavs, and are permeated racially by the Byzantines in religious terms. And we see that what arises there remains at the level of the racial personality, as something aloof and unapproachable, which never comes down. Thus in the East one is dealing with that which directly asserts the racial element. Towards the West, with that which is an ancient and renewed feeling, which dogmatizes the individual. They see that one can only understand what human souls produce by doing so.

In the center we see that which is encircled and enclosed from all sides, which always wants to bring forth something new and wants to offer on the altar of human development that which can arise from the intimate connections of the individual souls with the folk soul.

Thus we experience the remarkable phenomenon that to this day, even in our most painful days, what emerges in Central Europe is observed by the West, but in observing it, it must necessarily be misunderstood because it is measured not by human experience but by one's own dogma; by what the soul of the people tyrannically commands from the soul of reason. We are experiencing some very characteristic phenomena in this regard. On the surface, people want to acknowledge that the Germans have achieved a great deal, that they have attained a high level of culture in thought, in philosophy, in poetry, and in other branches of art; but then, when a man has sipped a little and even translates it quite ingeniously into the realm of Western popular culture, as Henri Bergson did, when a man surveys something ingeniously, it is still German conceived in the French manner, German translated into the way of the West. And now he feels compelled – we had to read this around Christmas, how he spoke in the so-called [Academy of Moral and Political Sciences], we had to read it, how he tries to characterize the German character. And this German essence appears to him as if it only wanted to be embodied in cannons and rifles, in what the silly chatter calls “German militarism”; that militarism to which Germany has been forced, not by itself, but by those who surrounded it. One would like to ask such a man what he actually expected Germany to put up against its enemies other than rifles and cannons. Did he perhaps imagine that Novalis or Schiller or Goethe would be recited to the armies of Germany?

The question is: What does the Central European have to defend? What he has to defend can be seen from a consideration of what the German national soul is to the individual German. But such considerations will only become important when they can take hold of and find an echo in the reasonable people of the world within a somewhat broader horizon. Today logic is not exactly what is being whispered throughout the world. We have even had to hear that when there was a manifestation from the German side, the response from the left and right in Europe was: We did not want this war. They did not want it. Yes, from a logical point of view; that is quite correct, from a logical point of view. You can believe it. It is just as right as when a number of people surround the house of another person. He sees that he is locked in his house. He goes out and beats those who surround him. And then they say: We did not want the beating. The logic is exactly the same in both cases. Logic does not whisper today through what is called the “intercourse of nations”, especially through the newspapers. It can be seen everywhere through facts: what the German national soul says to the individual German can be grasped in the West, it can be heard, but it cannot be effective for the reasons just given.

We are experiencing strange phenomena. This power of the German national soul - in enlightened minds, in minds that want to deal with it, something of it has come to light after all. It is not exactly pleasant to speak characteristically about the Central European people in the midst of them. And so I will choose a different approach. I would like to raise the question: Has this German character really always been misunderstood, as it is now, even outside the German-speaking areas? There is a man who certainly belongs to the most important minds of the nineteenth century. And I would like to read to you a passage from a book about Goethe, who appears to him as the representative of the German character, [Emerson]. He says, a man who lives far away from Central Europe, he says about Goethe:

One [quality] in particular, which Goethe shares with his entire nation, makes him stand out in the eyes of both the French and English public.

- [A trait] is mentioned that Goethe shares with his entire nation:

that everything in his work is based solely on inner truth. In England and America, people respect talent, but they are satisfied only when it works for or against a party in line with its convictions. In France, one is delighted to see brilliant ideas, wherever they may lead. In all these countries, however, talented men write within the limits of their gifts. If what they write stimulates the discerning reader and contains nothing that offends against good manners, it is considered sufficient. So many columns, so many pleasantly and usefully spent hours. The German mind has neither the French vivacity nor the Englishman's understanding, honed to practicality, nor, finally, the American adventurousness, but what it does have is a certain probity that never stops at the outward appearance of things, but always comes back to the main question: “Where is this going?” The German public demands of a writer that he stand above things and simply express himself about them. There is intellectual activity, so what is it expressing? What are people's opinions? Where do they come from? Where do they get all these ideas?

The English [...] only see the individual, they do not know how to grasp humanity as a whole according to higher laws.

The Germans think for Europe.

The English do not appreciate the depth of the German genius.

[We see that the rejuvenating effect of the German national soul has not always been recognized.

For this reason, the terms of distinction used in higher conversation are all of German origin. While the English and French, who are mentioned with distinction because of their acumen and erudition, view their studies and their point of view with a certain superficiality and their personal character is not too deeply connected with what they have taken up and with the way they express themselves, is not too deeply connected, Goethe, the head and content of the German nation, not because he has talent, but the truth concentrates its rays in his soul and shines out from it. He is wise in the highest degree, even though his wisdom may often be obscured by his talent. However excellent what he says may be, he has something else in mind that is even better. [...] He has that awe-inspiring independence that springs from contact with the truth.

Thus, one felt what the German could achieve in contact with the truth, that is, in contact with his national soul, where one wanted to feel it.

Now one could say: That was a long time ago. And it has been said. The Germans have changed since then. Instead of poetry, they have made cannons. Now, so that this too can be countered, the saying of another man should be mentioned here, who in his way must have touched - we will soon see why - to the west that which is the German national character.

The source of the stream of

— Germany's —

spiritual and political life lies in the Reformation. But at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, a current unique in world history began to flow in a way that has been as continuous as it has been characteristic since that time. Since the days of ancient Greece, the world has not seen such a spectacle of the closest fusion of the life of the statesman with that of the thinker. The spirit of Germany today is to a large extent practical and material.

And elsewhere the same man says:

Only the influence of true knowledge can dispel the clouds of suspicion and free us from the need to prepare for attacks that no one really has in mind.

Who said that? Well, Lord Haldane said it. You may remember how he said some other things a few months ago! Not so long ago, just a few months before this war broke out, a lecture was given in Manchester by a few Englishmen who were supposed to educate English journalists about the German character. From the newspapers that are now appearing, one can see what fruit this has borne, what use it has been. But we will soon see what was said in Manchester, in England, about the German character.

Woods

- the Englishman –

essay was the forerunner of the even more epoch-making Homeric research of Wolf; and the Greek ideals of art and life became for Goethe and Schiller at Weimar, as in the case of Herder, the ideals of [primeval] song, the instruments on which the German spirit played itself up to a music that was new and yet at the same time, in the deepest sense, its own.

Now come some remarkable words:

The highly favored elite among Descartes' and Newton's countrymen knew the spirit of science unquestioningly; but the passionate urge for knowledge was taught to modern Europe, if at all, mainly by thousands of German researchers.

Spoken in Manchester to enlighten English journalists; that's why they are so enlightened now!

Imagination, feeling, will asserted their right to be heard beside or above reason, and under their transforming pressure the universe became deeper, wider, and more wonderful. The irrational was recognized as a source of illumination; wisdom was sought from the child and the flower; science, philosophy, and poetry drew near each other. In England, this revival of the imagination gave birth to noble poetry, but left science and philosophy almost untouched. One of the keys to understanding the period is the fact that, while in England and France the poetic, philosophical, and scientific movements flowed mostly in separate channels, in Germany they touched or merged completely. Wordsworth sang and Bentham calculated; but Hegel caught the genius of poetry in the net of his logic; and the thought that discovers and explains, and the imagination that creates, worked together in fruitful harmony in the genius of Goethe.

In Faust, at the end of his eventful life, we see a portrayal of present-day Germany, the Germany of restless, bold will and action, and we can understand all the better why the [great] citizen of the world, in whose eyes state and nationality were subordinate and sometimes harmful ideals, nevertheless claims his unassailable place as the highest poet of the German Empire alongside Bismarck, his creator.

And now a very curious thing. The following was also said in the same lecture cycle in Manchester shortly before the outbreak of the war:

On the whole, there is no question that the establishment of the German Reich has contributed to world peace. This explanation will seem strange to those who know nothing but the events of the present and for whom history is nothing more than an ever-changing, dazzling cinematograph. But history should be something more. It is for history to shed light on the tangled web of the present, and in that higher light, things that seem hurtful will take on a natural appearance. For when we look to the past, we find that our ancestors looked at France with far greater fear than the wildest rabble-rousers today fear Germany. And the fear of our ancestors had good reason.

So says an Englishman!

To sum up, it can be shown that the founding of the German Empire was an asset for Europe, and therefore also for Great Britain. Because the events of the years 1866-1871 once and for all put an end to the possibility of waging predatory wars against the previously unprotected center of Europe, and thus removed a temptation to war

- in this he was, however, mistaken -

which in earlier centuries had so often lured France onto the wrong track;

- that has been said, not in Berlin and not in Hanover, but in Manchester. -

they put the German people in a position to develop their previously stunted political abilities, and they helped to build a new European system on a secure foundation that preserved peace for forty years. This blessing resulted from the fact that German unity achieved in one fell swoop what Great Britain, despite all its expenditure of blood and money, had never been able to achieve, namely to secure the balance of power in such a decisive way that a major war became the most dangerous of all ventures.

This was said in Manchester, a year before the war. The matter speaks for itself, we hardly need to add anything.

We see, then, that people have sometimes known what the Central European nation has to contribute to the overall culture of humanity. Yes, sometimes they have even known it quite thoroughly. Here is another example of how thoroughly they have known it. There was a certain man, also over there in the West, who was closer to us than the others we have just spoken of; a certain man whom the world calls a mystic. The man has undoubtedly written very brilliant works. Once he expressed himself about where the deepest thoughts of his soul came from, and he cited three world-historical phenomena. The third is the German poet Novalis. When we hear his poetry, we have the immediate feeling that the rejuvenating power of the folk soul speaks intimately to his soul, so that it can express what the folk soul is telling him. Now, what does this man feel about Novalis? He says:

What people describe on earth, what poets say, a Sophocles, a Shakespeare, what these Desdemona, Ophelia, what Hamlet and so on experience, it all happens between people. But if a spirit from a different plane were to descend to earth, could this spirit of a different plane find something on earth that also interests him, the spirit who is not of the earth?

And the man now finds that what the German poet Novalis expressed could also interest a spirit who descends from another plane as a genius. He finds that Novalis touched on secrets of the human soul, which the soul must often keep silent about, because it can only find the right words in the solemn moments of life to express these secrets, these supersensible secrets of life. So says the man. And we want to write these words very deeply into our souls, for they are beautiful, these words that he says in reference to his experience of Novalis. He says:

On these heights alone are memories that the soul can form, and images that resemble it and are as compelling as itself. There, humanity ruled for a moment, and these dimly lit peaks are perhaps the only lights that announce the spiritual realm to the earth.

- and of those lights, says the man, Novalis has lit many. And he continues –

but in their works, the aforementioned people

- including Novalis -

left the little village of passions and said things that are also of value to those who are not of the earthly community.

Thus one speaks of one of the most German of Germans, Novalis. A man speaks thus, and we could assume that this man, who obviously loves the spiritual, would instruct all those who now speak of the German “barbarians” with the words: For these words, which I have now read, are also from the man of whom I will read something else:

In truth, it is difficult to question one's soul and to hear its weak, childlike voice amidst the useless cries that surround it.

Yes, it can be said that in the midst of the useless shouting that is now speaking of Germany's “barbarism,” such words as those of the man can hardly be heard. But who said all this? Maurice Maeterlinck. Well, you know how Maeterlinck himself has gone among the useless shouters in recent months. We don't need to add anything to that either.

But then, when we hear such voices, we say to ourselves: They are proof that what wells up from the German national soul into the individual German souls is already penetrating across the borders, but it cannot come into effect. And it cannot come into effect properly even where it seems ghostly. I have shown that it has a ghostly effect in the East. Yes, if one asks: What is it that people feel from this participation of the German national soul in German culture, even those who speak of Western European culture in the East? One can often hear something like the words I would like to read to you now. When Herman Grimm speaks of the alleged Goethe of Mr. Lewes in the way I have mentioned, we notice a coarsening in this Mr. Lewes; but how what one wants to absorb but cannot absorb becomes ghostly towards the East is shown to us by words that Mereschkowski spoke about Goethe. He says:

When Goethe speaks of the French Revolution, he suddenly bends to the earth, as a giant might be crushed and shriveled into a dwarf by an evil spell; from a Hellenic demigod he becomes a German burgher and – if the shadow of the Olympian will have mercy on me – a German philistine, a “Herr von Goethe”, a privy councillor of the Duke of Weimar and a decent son of the decent Frankfurt shopkeeper.

Thus Mereschkowski speaks of the poet of Faust. Nor should one be deceived by the words which Mereschkowski says about Goethe in the final sentence of his essay. If one reads the foregoing, which is inspired throughout by the same spirit, one sees that Mereschkowski cannot rise up to Goethe, that he sees him only as a ghost. And much of this kind could be cited. But of course, when one of the leading spirits of the East, about Chekhov, Mereschkowski himself has to say:

No era, no people, as if in the midst of eternity there were only the end of the nineteenth century and in the world only Russia. Infinitely sharp-eyed and bright-eared [for] everything Russian and contemporary, he is almost blind and deaf to the foreign and the past. He saw Russia more clearly than anyone else, but overlooked Europe, overlooked the world.

One can find it understandable, must find it understandable, that Central Europe is currently only a specter for the East, which is transferred up into the national soul hovering over the individual. There is not enough time to prove this in detail, but it could be proven. On the other hand, it can truly be said that what can be called “the rejuvenating power of the German national soul” not only gives us insight into the nature of the German national soul in the past, but also gives us strength, faith and hope for the German national soul in the future.

Indeed, the German knows how to take Goethe somewhat differently than the others. And for this I may cite a saying that Herman Grimm in turn has done about Goethe. This saying has been done in lectures on Goethe, in lectures that speak differently than the one whom Herman Grimm himself has dismissed in the manner indicated, Lewes. Herman Grimm perceives Goethe as a confidant of the German people themselves; but also as an impulse, as a force that works and will continue to work within German culture, just as cosmic changes in the earth must work in relation to physical conditions. Herman Grimm says of Goethe:

Goethe has worked in the spiritual life of Germany as a powerful natural phenomenon would have worked in the physical. Our coal deposits tell of times of tropical warmth when palm trees grew in our country. Our opening caves tell of ice ages when reindeer were native to our country. Over vast periods of time, dramatic upheavals took place on German soil, which in its present state gives such an appearance of eternal immutability. The comparison can be drawn that Goethe's influence on the intellectual atmosphere of Germany was roughly equivalent to a telluric event, which increased our climatic warmth by so many degrees on average. If something like that happened, a different vegetation, a different operation of agriculture and with it a new basis for our entire existence would occur.

This is how Herman Grimm feels Goethe within German intellectual life. Gradually, a different intellectual vegetation, a different intellectual climate, will occur through Goethe, says Herman Grimm.

This same Herman Grimm, in a manner that brought out the whole character of the German spirit, spoke of how the German folk soul has worked in German culture to arrive at views that seek the universal in the particular national spirit. Thus Herman Grimm demonstrated the rejuvenating powers of the German national soul by showing how he himself was attuned to the course of the world spirit at the end of the nineteenth century. For in 1895 the beautiful words were spoken that express the mood of a German who knew himself to be one with the living and breathing German national soul. Herman Grimm said:

The solidarity of the moral convictions of all people today is the church that unites us all. We are seeking more passionately than ever for a visible expression of this community. All truly serious endeavors of the masses have only this one goal. The separation of nations no longer exists here. We feel that no national difference can be maintained in the face of the ethical worldview.

Herman Grimm continues:

We would all sacrifice ourselves for our fatherland,

he says, and then the significant words follow:

But to long for or to hasten the moment when this could happen through war, we are far removed. The assurance that peace is our most sacred desire is not a lie. “Peace on earth and goodwill to men” permeates us.

But the fact that Herman Grimm saw through his time, that he was not a dreamer, that he was able to grasp reality under the guidance of the German soul, is attested by what he now says:

As a totality, men acknowledge themselves as subject to an invisible court enthroned as it were in the clouds, before which they consider it a misfortune not to be allowed to exist, and to whose judicial procedure they seek to adapt their internal dissensions. With anxious eagerness they seek their right here. How the French of today are at pains to present the war against Germany that they are planning as a moral imperative, demanding that other nations, and even the Germans themselves, recognize it.

You see, in 1895 Herman Grimm had a clear view of how things stand. Those who are accustomed to seeing things this way do not let themselves be called out: Who wanted the war!

Among the hundreds and hundreds of testimonies I could present, here is one more. A person who is not particularly fond of Germanic nature writes the following words:

As far as I am concerned, I am in no doubt for a moment that a conflict between the Germanic and Slavic world is imminent, that it will be ignited either by the Orient, especially Turkey, or by the nationality dispute in Austria, perhaps by both, and that Russia will take the lead in it on one side. This power is already preparing for the eventuality; the Russian national press is spewing fire and brimstone against Germany. [...] The German press is already sounding its warning cries. Since the Crimean War, a long time has passed and, it seems, it is now considered appropriate in St. Petersburg to take up the Oriental question again.

Yes, my dear attendees, these words were not spoken just a few months before the war. They were written in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. Even those who saw things clearly never realized that the nations pushed into the middle of Europe would be locked up like in a fortress by those who misunderstood and do not understand them on all sides.

It is curious when, in the face of such words, one tries to express the opinion that the Germans wanted this war. I would like to use the few moments remaining to me for this lecture to present something about this “the Germans wanted this war” that may speak volumes to anyone who wants to see clearly.

Let us assume that someone had observed what was going on in the weeks before the outbreak of war - in the spring of 1914, when the press was perhorresziert the political horizon - and he wanted to express that; what would he have had to say in 1914, after the events that took place? He would have had to say something like the following:

[One could see how a press campaign was gradually beginning in St. Petersburg, how strong pressure was being exerted on Austria that, if accepted, would have resulted in Austria and Germany becoming dependent on Russia. And yet one could not have contradicted the Russian friends when they said that there was no reason for a war between Russia and Germany.

Not true, in 1914, in July, it could have been expressed quite well, and it could have been applied to the immediate events of the present. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have not read you anything that was said in July 1914, but, with some modification, the words that [Bismarck spoke on February 6, 1888 in the Reichstag] to justify the military bill. And now I read his own words, so you can see that I have not only the words, but only the time somewhat rectihziert:

[...] how a kind of press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, [through which German politics was attacked], I personally was suspected in my intentions. These attacks increased during the following year until 1879 to strong demands for pressure that we should exert on Austria in matters where we could not readily attack Austrian law. I could not lend my hand to this, because if we estranged ourselves from Austria, then we would necessarily become dependent on Russia if we did not want to be completely isolated in Europe. Would such a dependency have been tolerable? I had believed earlier that it could be, telling myself: We have no conflicting interests; there is no reason why Russia should ever break off friendship with us. At least I had not directly contradicted my Russian colleagues who explained such things to me. The incident at the Congress disappointed me, and showed me that even the complete subordination of our politics (for a certain time) to the Russian politics would not protect us from coming into conflict with Russia against our will and against our aspirations.

However, if things are as they have been presented, if the national soul in the West and in the East must behave in relation to what the strength of the German national soul is, then it will be a mistake to believe that this war was wanted by Central Europe in 1914. For it has been clear for decades how everything has been done to bring about the current events.

Not only the subtle Herman Grimm spoke of the will for peace in Central Europe. It may also be recalled that not only where, like Herman Grimm, as a man ethically on the heights of his time, was in touch with the German national soul, but also where one was politically inspired by the German national soul, one spoke in a similar way.

In 1888, in Berlin, again Bismarck spoke in such a way that no desire for war was expressed. Bismarck said:

With the powerful machine that we are training the German army to be, one does not attack. If I were to stand before you today and tell you - if the circumstances were different from what I am convinced they are: We are seriously threatened by France and Russia; it is foreseeable that we will be attacked; I believe it as a diplomat after military intelligence about this, it is more useful for us to use the advance of the attack as a defense that we are now about to launch; it is more advantageous for us to wage a war of aggression, and so I ask the Reichstag for a loan of one billion or half a billion to wage war against our two neighbors today. Yes, gentlemen, I don't know if you would have the confidence in me to grant it. I hope not!

One day, my dear audience, we will come to feel, not only from reason but also from our instincts, something of the real causes of this war and the driving forces that led to it. One will sense something of the will that concentrated against Central Europe in order to stop the eternally rejuvenating German national soul in its element.

The images that can be gained by surveying the workings and weavings of European national souls in recent decades show how the storm is looming. Can we not say the following: If one wanted to delve into the goings-on and workings of the German national soul as they were in the times before this war broke out, could one not come to the following thoughts? Allow me to read this to you as well. You will see in a moment that I also have a certain idea:

German literature, German religion, German philosophy are books with seven seals for us. What we do know is how many dreadnoughts Germany has and how much its trade has increased. What is really important is not the dreadnought, but the brain of its builder, the courage and talent of its commander. What is really important is not the increase in sales, but the human qualities that prompted it. [...]

Forty years ago, Germany was fighting for its existence, and it is still fighting for it today. It is completely wrong to believe that Germany is already at its peak. It is fighting a quiet but determined fight against powerful rivals whose power and experience was gained generations ago. [...]

Across every border and across the water sit the adversaries, commercial and political, waiting anxiously for the moment when Germany slackens just a little, to pounce and overwhelm, and Germany knows it.

[This is how Mrs. Wylie wrote in her book “Eight Years in Germany,” which was published about two years before the war. It is quite good when such people try to delve into the German national soul.

So, these are the things that are awakened as an echo when one tries to understand what the German seeks in intimate dialogue with his national soul. And what was it that the German always tried to find in his dialogue with his national soul? It was always that which should enable the individual human being, the individual human soul, the individual human spirit to find its way to the spiritual heights of the world, where all things have their source and origin, where the eternal part of the human soul itself also has its source and origin.

Spiritual science, precisely because of its sources, must believe in the rejuvenating powers of the German national soul; believe because it is aware that in the course of world history this German national soul has always ascended to spiritual heights , descended to the human selves in order to convey to them the truth of their eternity. Spiritual science has its roots and its source in German idealism, and we can prove that spiritual science is closely related to this German idealism.

What does spiritual science say, not in the abstract but in concrete terms, about the future of the human soul? That in this body lives an immortal self that goes through births and deaths again and again; that when spiritual initiation is attained, when spiritual knowledge and spiritual reality are attained through research, the soul is grasped outside of the body; that it looks back at this body as if at an external object, so pre-sensing that which the human soul experiences when it has passed through the gate of death. Spiritual science does not speak in general terms that the human soul is eternal, but in such a way that it clearly points to what, after death, looks back on what lived in the body. Spiritual science describes this very specifically. And only today can it do so.

And true spiritual science, as we in Central Europe consider it to be, is aware that it owes the powers of research only to the connection of the German national soul with the German philosophers. If someone who professes spiritual science today wants to use a comparison in the truest sense of the word for something that has passed and must find its future, if someone who is a true believer in spiritual science wanted to say: I think something completely new must be introduced into humanity, something that is still met with many prejudices today; but to me, these prejudices seem like what the soul of the corpse feels when it looks back at the corpse after death.

One might think that only a spiritual researcher could make such a comparison, because only recently has spiritual research been able to confirm that the soul really does this after going through death. I will present such a comparison to you:

Time appears to me like a shadow that stands over its dead, from which an army of diseases has just driven it out, and laments and cannot tear its gaze away from the formerly so beloved shell and desperately tries all means to get back into the dwelling of the plague. The invigorating breezes of the other world, into which the departed spirit has entered, have already taken her up and surround her with a warm breath of love; the secret voices of the sisters already greet her and welcome her; she is already stirring and expanding within herself in all directions, to develop the more glorious form into which it is to grow; but it has as yet no feeling for these breezes or hearing for these voices, or, if it had, it is absorbed in pain over its loss, with which it believes itself to have been lost at the same time.

Today, one really believes that only a spiritual researcher could speak in this way. It is Fichte who spoke in this way in his “Speeches to the German Nation”; addressing the corpse as he would a corpse in what he wants to replace the old German education with a new education.

Thus, whatever can be desired today is rooted in the germs that German idealism sought from the union with the German national soul, from these rejuvenating powers of the German national soul.

And if we want to have confidence that spiritual science can really unfold as a new fruit on the tree of German development, we need only look at what can be seen as the true essence of the German national soul, as the rejuvenating power of the German national soul. The true essence of the German national soul is precisely this ever-rejuvenating power.

And when we look at the fateful events of today, we feel them like a twilight. But we look into the future and want to understand that a horizon warmed and illuminated by the sun must arise from this twilight; that the German national soul will have the strength to rejuvenate German character and German striving. And whatever is undertaken against this German essence, against this German striving, will not be able to rob it of its breath of life, because that which is present as the highest life in the German essence is the ever-rejuvenating powers of the German national soul. If it has produced so many rungs in German culture, it must also produce new fruits. That is our hope, and that is not something vague, that is something well-founded! We look hopefully towards the horizon, which will show us precisely one of the fruits of German development: a spiritual-scientific worldview that will flow through all hearts and souls and will connect spirit and body. When people see the spiritual as a reality, when they know how the spiritual passes through the gate of death, when they look at the spiritual as science today looks at the external physical forces, when they know that nothing is lost, then they will know that the countless spiritual parts that now pass through the gate of death from young bodies cannot be lost. They, these soul-like human faculties, which could have continued to serve the body for decades to come, will not only be felt in the abstract sense as something eternal in the future, as was possible according to ancient knowledge, but they will be felt as something that lives on, that those who have followed the duties of the time through the gate of death or suffering have incorporated into the spiritual stream of existence.

And they will feel a concrete connection when times of peace come again out of this twilight of war. Those who have borne the best fruits of the German character will feel a special connection with all those who have gone through the gates of death.

So it can be said, summarizing what I have tried to express before you today: Yes, this German spirit has not yet fully accomplished what its mission in the world was. It is connected with the rejuvenating power of the German national soul. And if you look at the true nature of the German national soul, then you know: the driving forces are there, the invisible forces of German life are unchanged among us. And to all those who today speak of Germany's weakness or of a weakening or destruction of the German character, to them the one who objectively recognizes what the rejuvenating power of the German national soul whispers to individual Germans, to them he calls out into the world the meaning that he perceives from the work of the German national soul:

The German spirit has not completed

what it is to accomplish in the course of the world.

It lives in the future, hopeful,

It hopes for future deeds full of life;

In the depths of his being, he feels a mighty

secret that is still to take effect as it matures.

How can a mind, uncomprehending,

Wish for its end to come:

As long as life reveals itself to him,

Which holds him in the roots of creation?

Dear attendees!

In our immediate present, the object of today's consideration of the human soul should be very close indeed. At a time when the essential processes raise such great questions, at the same time as everything painful and at the same time as everything uplifting, in such a time the riddle of the human soul and the question of the eternal powers that may be present in it present themselves to this soul with particular force. Even though this riddle, which is the subject of today's meditation, is of course always one that must occupy human thinking and human feeling in the deepest sense. Over many years I have spoken about the question that underlies today's reflections from many different points of view, all of which are within spiritual science, the nature and character of which I have often had the honor of speaking about. And today, this theme will be treated from a particular point of view. Much of what the honored listeners, who have often attended these lectures, have already heard, will appear again today within a certain context, but I will try to treat much of what has been touched upon over the years from a different point of view.

When the question arises as to what lies in the human soul, for example through birth and death, as something beyond the temporal, as eternal forces, then man usually thinks that this eternal in the human soul must be explored on the basis of what man finds when he looks at his soul or the soul process of human events in the world in general. As is well known, the more or less grossly materialistic or positivistic approach, or the approach that fancies itself as being strict in natural science, is opposed to such a consideration, if it comes to the conclusion that something eternal is expressed within the human soul life — human thinking, feeling and willing as they express themselves in time. It has been emphasized here often enough that spiritual science, as it is meant here, does not want to develop any kind of opposition to the great achievements of today's scientific world view. On the contrary, it wants to fully recognize the deeply justified nature of the scientific world view, that it wants to be a continuation of the scientific attitude, of the scientific way of looking at things, beyond the sensory into the spiritual. If we turn to that which unfolds in the human soul in everyday life, as the content of thinking, as the content of feeling, as the impulses of its will, then, relatively speaking, the scientific way of thinking will have an easy time of it, in the face of all that is put forward by a more or less spiritually oriented soul science. It will have an easy time of objecting. Conversely, this or that world view, which also considers itself spiritual, takes the scientific objections far too lightly. We must always bear in mind that the scientific objections that speak against a soul being that exists separately in man – against a soul being that existed before man entered into a sensual existence through birth or, let us say, conception and remains present when man has passed through the portals of death. These objections to the acceptance of such a soul-being, raised from the standpoint of natural science, which seeks to develop into a world-view, are certainly not to be lightly dismissed. For if one simply concludes by judgment, with the ordinary means of today's thinking and research, to recognize an eternal being from these or those peculiarities of the soul life, then for the one who has become familiar with, has become accustomed to, natural scientific thinking - and I say expressly, in a justified way, the objections that one might make in such a way that one says: Yes, certain spiritually oriented thinkers claim that a special soul being exists that is to be thought of separately from the physical body in man. And yet, the whole consideration, the course of human life, shows how closely connected the soul phenomena are with the physical life. One can observe how, under the development of bodily processes from early childhood, the spiritual-soul processes also develop to the same extent, as the physical changes, transforms, and - as one often also says - , although this is a relative concept; so one sees how with all of this, the powers of imagination, the powers of memory, the purposeful and the meaningful also fully develop. And when one sees that another thing develops in parallel to a certain series of phenomena, so that it also appears ever more clearly and distinctly how the first series of phenomena - in this context the physical sense world - must be there as a basis for the other, for the second series of phenomena , for the soul and spiritual, then one is justified - I would say - in thinking of the soul and spiritual phenomena as dependent on the physical body, just as the light of the flame is necessarily bound to the candle. And when we then see how the violation of the physical body in this or that form simply switches off certain soul and spiritual powers, when we can follow clinically how illnesses of this or that bodily organ, of the nervous nervous system, the brain, certain soul processes are simply switched off, then one is justified in speaking of how dependent the soul-spiritual is on the physical-bodily as a function, as a result, as one says. I can only hint at the general direction of thought that this implies, the direction of the objections that can be raised against a slightly exaggerated psychology. And we must listen very carefully to such objections in the face of the great, powerful, incisive, humanly progressive results of natural science. Yes, one can say even more. These objections, which could of course be multiplied, these objections, if one goes into them, that is, if one really learns to think scientifically, they eliminate much from the field that is traditionally put forward for the independence of mental and spiritual phenomena and for the assumption of a special soul being, for the reasons that one so often has.

Now, spiritual science, as it is meant here, is not at all based on such a point of view, from which science must be contradicted in some way. And, as we shall see in a moment, it proceeds in a completely different way from much of what is also advocated in the traditional way by the viable doctrine of the soul. Spiritual science, in a certain sense, fully agrees with natural science when natural science presents everything that it has to present through careful observation about how thinking, feeling and willing, as they reveal themselves within the human being, depend between birth and death on the physical organization, on everything that develops within this physical organization.

Spiritual science will not directly confront any of the objections or conclusions that are brought from this side against some of the things that are put forward from the point of view of a viable doctrine of the soul. For spiritual science can say “yes” to what is put forward in a positive sense by natural science. Spiritual science takes the view that everything that can be intuitively grasped about the human soul within the ordinary course of life is indeed connected — just as natural science thinks it is, and as it will think ever more clearly as as it will increasingly realize as it develops further. Everything that takes place in the soul life over the course of time between birth and death is connected to the body in the way that natural science initially thinks when it develops into a worldview. And with the means of thinking, feeling and willing, with the means of soul development, which are also those of ordinary psychology or soul science, one does not come close to that which underlies the temporal of the human soul life as eternal. The temporal of the human soul life is bound to the physical organization, even for spiritual science. Just as sound, if it is to be physically audible, is bound to the instrument and otherwise cannot be brought into the physically audible world, so the soul life that one knows first is the soul life that is present in our physical life; this soul life is bound to the bodily instrument and also depends on this bodily instrument for its properties, for its healthy and sick course.

But spiritual science shows - and here it becomes something similar in a higher, a spiritual field, to the way natural science has become under the influence of newer research directions in the sensual field; it becomes a spiritual art of experimentation, only that the object of the experiment is one's own soul-life, and that one does not perform external acts or accomplish external tasks, but that the object of the experiment is the soul-life itself. And the processes that come to light in the experiment are intimate, inner, soul processes, soul processes that all have a common character; the common character that they lead, in research, beyond that which represents the course of everyday soul life. If we keep thinking, feeling and willing within the limits in which we need them for our external physical life, then we can gradually penetrate with these thinking, feeling and willing into those regions in which the eternal of the human soul comes to revelation. The forces that we have in ordinary life must, I would use the expression, be inwardly strengthened, inwardly changed, developed into something other than what they are in everyday life, in order, when they have become something different , when they appear in the soul in a different metamorphosis than they are in everyday life, in order to then enter into those areas of existence in which that which underlies the human soul as eternal can reveal itself.

First of all, we can consider one of the basic forces of our soul life, thinking itself. This thinking, which serves us in our everyday, physical life, is capable of development. It can be developed. Just as one can bring the forces of nature under certain conditions so that, in the course of an experiment, they reveal the secrets of nature or the laws of nature, so one can bring thinking into certain conditions where it reveals and discloses something other than it can reveal in its, I might say, self-given form. For this to happen, it is necessary that, above all, this thinking is made present in our soul life in a stronger, more intense way than is good and necessary and useful for everyday life.

I have often said here that in spiritual science, this intimate inner activity is called “meditation” – it is a technical term, like another term. The spiritual researcher must strive for that intimate inner activity that thinking must undertake with itself, so that it leads beyond itself, so that a thought becomes present in the soul in a way that it is not otherwise present. And it does not matter that the thought as such is present with its content, but that the thought - I will say a certain thought, for example - is held longer than we are otherwise accustomed to. To hold thoughts in our soul, so that the person becomes aware of holding this thought, which inner activity is necessary to, if I may say so, be thinking. That is what it comes down to: to persist in thinking differently, to be thinking differently than one is otherwise in everyday life and [also] in ordinary scientific life. When you place a thought at the center of your mental life – and it does not matter whether this thought reflects something externally real or not – when you place a thought at the center of your mental life, when you are able to concentrate all the power of your mental life on this thought, to gather it in this thought, and now hold and maintain this thought, thereby developing the possibility – and this ability can be acquired through gradual practice – to see, as it were, how to hold a thought, to persevere in the power of thought. Then one experiences – however strange this may at first seem for the outer physical life, for the usual daily life, and for the usual scientific life – one experiences something special with this thinking.

The important thing is to be careful when engaging in such an inner process, and not to draw a thought that has been chosen at random from the rest of one's thoughts. For if one simply draws such a thought, there is a possibility that all kinds of things connected with this thought in the soul will come up with it. And then one can succumb to all kinds of illusions and deceptions and experience something special, while only unclear, subconscious impulses of feeling or sensation attach themselves to such thinking. It is better to take a thought that one gets from somewhere, I mean through some advice or in some other way from what spiritual science brings to light, a thought that one has not otherwise connected with one's soul life, that one can see in its simplicity , to which nothing can attach itself that deceives us – if you place such a thought at the center of your soul life and repeat it again and again: it certainly takes more than a short time, it takes months, often years, before you make even the simplest observations in this area. But it can also happen very quickly, it depends entirely on the capacity for devotion that one can develop in such an inner process. If one can now really feel this special behavior of the soul inwardly, inwardly experience it, then this experience is what gets one started on the path of taking the thinking further, of taking the power that otherwise experiences itself in thinking further than it does in everyday life or in ordinary scientific life. The special aids available for carrying out such inner exercises in the right way are described in my book 'How to Know Higher Worlds' and in other books that follow on from it. The principle, the essential thing, is that the soul's inner activity is directed in a direction that is otherwise unfamiliar to it, but which is precisely the direction of concentrating on the power of inner awareness, of experiencing, which underlies thinking.

If you carry out such an exercise, which I can only ever hint at in principle, again and again, then you will indeed experience that hidden forces are present in [our soul life], forces that are indeed constantly active but that are not brought to consciousness in everyday life and in ordinary science. One does not create something new when one behaves as indicated, but one brings to consciousness what is always present. Everything depends on finding the inner composure, the inner calm, the devotion to a calm, collected mental life, in order to unfold that inner self-observation, that the indicated process, the experience of the effective powers of thought, is really something. But when one has managed to grasp that something is revealed there that was previously unknown, and when one continues to deepen this knowledge of the previously unknown, then the most significant inner processes of the human soul life will follow. Then one experiences processes that inwardly illuminate one, of which one had just as little idea as the one who has never experienced that through special processes in the physics laboratory, water can be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen – just as little as one has an idea what is in water. In the case of the physical laboratory, these are external processes; in the case of the soul life, they are internal efforts, internal developments of strength, which bring up from the dark depths of existence what is unknown. What is brought up to consciousness brings something that those who have tried to find their way to the spiritual have always actually known. The path to the spiritual worlds has always been sought, depending on the human powers at work in the course of human development. It was found differently in different ages than it must be found today. Just as nature was viewed differently in ancient times and must be viewed differently today under the influence of the newer scientific way of thinking, so too is the path to the spiritual worlds different today; and the path that can be taken today, after the point of development that humanity has reached, is what we will discuss here in particular. But on all paths that have been taken, we repeatedly encounter the fact that That there appears, as it were, an abstract word that can be glimpsed here and there when talking about mystery beings, about revelations about the unknown worlds, about the hidden worlds. It is the word that the one who really wants to explore the powers that underlie the human being as a spiritual being must approach “the gate of death” on his path of research; that he must come close to the experience of death on the path if he is to continue on the path that I have indicated.

However simple it may appear, the essential thing does not lie in what can be described as simple, but in the effort that one makes to address the soul again and again, as has been mentioned. What one arrives at in this way is indeed something that brings one to an understanding of the ancient saying: 'By exploring the spiritual foundations of the soul, one comes to the gate, to the threshold of death'.

I will now simply describe where the indicated path leads. First of all, there is a summarizing of all soul forces, and that which is summarized there is the very particularly concentrated power of thinking. One gradually experiences this summarizing of the soul life. By summarizing the soul life, one comes deeper and deeper into an understanding of one's own human nature. This knowledge is not conveyed so much through concepts as through the experience of how this strenuous, invigorating thinking brings one into a state of mind, into a soul mood, whereby one brings something into the soul experience that, I would say, brings one particularly close to what it is to be human in the world. If one gets to know thinking on its path, then one first enters into the soul life by feeling connected, I would say, from the outside, with what the human body organization is. One learns in this way, by being led through the indicated inner soul work, being led in a new way to the human being, one gets to know something in the human being that one did not know before. One gets to know, in a living way, as wonderful as it may sound, that which is connected with the human being here in earthly life between birth and death, and which always represents the sum of those power formations that we carry within us and which, by always living in the human being, wear away at the human organism and ultimately bring about death.

What one comes to is a vivid experience of the fact that, as he has to live here on earth, man always carries within himself a sum of forces, an organization of forces, a shaping of forces, which modifies itself during life but which always amounts to actually consuming the outer physical organism. And basically, it is a harrowing experience, one filled with inner tragedy, that one comes to. One gets to know something like a second person within oneself, a spiritual person within the physical person. But this spiritual person is the one who continually consumes the physical person. And now one gets to know – just as one gets to know in a physical experiment the occurrence of some substance, some element, which can only come to light through the experiment – so one now gets to know what is actually the power within one, the activity within one, which unfolds as thinking, and everything that is connected with thinking in physical life here.

When this thinking has been taken to its furthest point in the manner described, then one learns to recognize what thinking depends on as thinking. It depends on the fact that within the complex of forces that consumes us as physical human beings, that consumes us as physical human beings, there are such forces that underlie thinking. And one learns to grasp the great truth that thinking depends on those forces that gradually consume the human being and even bring about his death. We become familiar with the close connection between thinking — we start from ordinary, everyday thinking, we only take it to an extreme point, so to speak — and the destructive, consuming forces of the human being. We make the discovery of the relationship between death and the highest thing that we are presently unfolding in the physical world, namely, thinking. That is why this experience is so harrowing. We cannot help but fully acknowledge the point of view of spiritual science in the living inner experience of natural science.

In this living inner experience we learn that we are actually only able to think because we have brought the dying forces to a special point of development, beyond the rest of the living world. But this creates a special inner mood in the spiritual researcher. It produces in him everything that arises from inner experience: with your thinking, as you can develop it here in the physical-sensual world, with this thinking you are bound to the physical body. As long as this physical body can endure being used up, being used up by certain formative forces, so long can you develop your thinking!

But then, once one has had this experience, it becomes clear that there is indeed a second person within the human being, a person who, in this physical existence, uses up the outer human nature, but who is a complete being; a second person within the human being who, just as he lives in our physical existence, lives by devoting himself to consuming, using up the physical organization. We do not produce what we experience here through thinking; we learn to observe it. We come upon something, so to speak, and at the moment we come upon it, we notice that it is always there in the human being. We come upon something; we discover this inner human being in the human being. But we also discover that this human being has nothing to do with the particular external bodily organization, but that it is active within it. That which underlies the bodily organization, and indeed that which consumes its forces, can only be discovered by pushing the ordinary life of the soul beyond itself. In this way, one discovers a second person within the person, who initially has the peculiarity of consuming the ordinary physical life. But it is precisely in this consuming that it performs the activity that forms in our ordinary life as a thinking activity from within.

But one also notices, and this can only be the result of observation, of the observation that one acquires in this way, as it has been described, but one also notices that what is gradually consumed in the physical life of the physical human organization, that it has also built it. That part of the human soul life that has gone through birth or conception in order to clothe itself with the physical body organization can only be experienced. And when one has taken experience this far, as has now been outlined, one does indeed gain insight into human nature to the extent that one can say: You have discovered within yourself that which, consuming, allows your thinking to shine forth during the life between birth and death, but which has also brought you into this bodily life; that which, before you came into existence as a thinking being, built up your physical organism for thinking.

During physical life, one always uses up thinking power, and one discovers that this power was present before thinking illuminated its first thoughts; that this power has been transformed into the power that produces thinking. But before it was transformed, it was there, because nothing in our world simply comes into being, but is transformed. That which underlies thinking before thinking has ignited, it has first built up the organism that is expressed in thinking, which it in turn removes in thinking.

And so we look beyond birth or conception into that which has entered the physical world from a spiritual world. But in the process of investigating this, I would say that what is connected with the experience of the soul's attitude is that, as long as you live between birth and death, you are bound in your thinking to the fact that this second human being is active within your physical organization. You are connected with it.

And the harrowing thing is that when you get to know the inner experiment from this side, as it has just been described, you have no prospect: where does this power go when it has consumed the physical body? At first one can only imagine it in connection with the physical body. One only knows that it is indeed the power that has brought the human being into the sensual world, into sensual existence; but how it is to go out into the spiritual world when the human being comes to death, how it is to enter the spiritual world again, one cannot yet have any experience of that. One can grasp in the indicated way how, I might say, the path of development has proceeded from the spiritual in order to build up this human being, and to bring him to the point where what has been built up is again taken away, and in this taking away the magnificent property of human thinking appears. What can be called meditation, what inner concentration, must now be developed in a completely different way if one wants to progress. It has been emphasized that the inner soul processes have been brought to a special development, to a special development of thinking, through this first experiment that I have indicated.

But one can also bring about a special development of the soul life, to a development that leads beyond the everyday and the merely scientific life, by now not developing thinking but the will, the will that underlies what enables us to go through life actively. We speak of this will in our everyday life, in our ordinary scientific thinking. But in speaking of it in this way, we do not in any way encompass everything that lies in it. Just as thinking has the hidden side that I have just described, which leads to such an end point as I have indicated, so will also has a hidden side, only this turns out to be quite different. In order to get to know the basis of the will, it is not enough to simply develop the will as it accompanies us in life when we are active; one must, so to speak, develop the possibility within oneself not only to do, not only to be active, but to be active with a much higher part of one's soul life than one is accustomed to in everyday life. One must be able to connect one's will more inwardly with the will impulse than one usually does in everyday life. One can get into the habit of this inward concentration of the will, in contrast to the earlier concentration of the thoughts, by contracting the life of the will, by creating moments, creating instants - they certainly do not have to be long, but they must be repeated again and again if the performance is to bear fruit - when you create moments in which you withdraw from the external world and look inwardly at the world of your desires, at the world of your longings, at the impulses of your will that you can unfold, at those impulses of your will that you can bring together with the great goals of humanity in such a way that they shine in the soul when the ideals of humanity shine for us – in short, when we can engage with our will inwardly in such a way that we can bring this will more strongly into the field of attention than we can when we direct this attention to the outer form we give to the world. By letting these or those impulses of will flow out into what one is doing, when, for example, one reflects in such a way that one says to oneself, “You did that” and then tries to recall the impulse of will that was involved. When you look back on your deeds in life and pay attention to how the volitional impulse has [been incorporated], when you look at how you have willed, how you have directed the volitional direction, in short, when you become intimate with the forces of will.

I will say something else that seems quite simple in its characterization: But all the fruit of the work depends on the human soul organization being led again and again into such activity, into such an experience, as it has just been indicated, as a concentration of will, so that one actually experiences what can be experienced in this way: that one experiences, as it were, a new birth within oneself; that one feels oneself permeated and strengthened by what previously escaped one's attention, by a new human being; again by a new human being, but now by a human being who lives through one like an inner will-person.

But that is not yet the important discovery. This inner warming, inner illumination, this inner strengthening of the will with the will impulses that one has become familiar with, with what will can be in a person, what will pulses into our actions, this inner interweaving, this inner familiarity, this finally leads to an unfolding of the will, so that one makes the discovery: In this will there is something like a germ, like a seed in him, which is always there, which is there when one acts in everyday life, but which escapes one, to which one does not pay attention, which remains unconscious. But it is there as a living one, but as one that must in turn evoke a very special mood of the soul, because it is again a kind of shattering experience. If one has become acquainted with the experience of death in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized it, in the way I have characterized For one does indeed live oneself into the essence of pain; into the essence of that pain which is a deprivation that has been directly intensified to the point of being vividly experienced. For that which one, like a germ, like a seed, knows how to give birth to out of one's will - by having thus experienced it - proves to be that which, in one's present life as a human being, has no place, no position.

You have the experience that arises when you have said to yourself – and you have to say this to yourself, because it imposes itself on you – then you feel: There you are with your physical organization, with what you can experience with people in general, there you stand in this life. What you have experienced through what you are, in that you are a human being of will, has produced in you a germ of will, an inner, now newly transformed human being. But this human being is inadequate for what you are now in the present. It is so inadequate that, when you become aware of it, it represents something like a knife piercing the skin.

Of course, because it is translated into the physical, it is only meant symbolically. But one gets to know how suffering is caused by something that belongs to an inner being coming into conflict with the outer form of that being, with what happens on the outside. One sees that what one can carry out here in life is basically inappropriate to what develops within as a seed of will.

Just as something that destroys the body is, I would say, inappropriate for the human organization, so is what now develops as a will germ – one cannot find a better name for it at first – as a will seed; which is always there, as unconscious pain in the depths of the soul.

But it is a harrowing experience when one discovers this capacity for pain, this possibility of pain in man. For all particular pain, all particular suffering, is of the same kind as this suffering that one discovers.

Spiritual research is not something that proceeds in such an abstractly uniform way as external research, but it is something that is connected with human feelings and inner experiences that go to the depths of life.

So the nature of suffering is learned in this way. And so one gets to know, side by side, that which is death-bringing in man and, as a death-bringing force, unfolds the most glorious powers of thinking; one gets to know that which lies in man as suffering at the very foundation of his soul and that which lives in the powers of the will; one learns to recognize that this will would not be there if unconscious pain did not lie at the bottom of the soul. But one also learns to recognize, by bringing these two poles of otherwise unconscious soul life to one's consciousness, so to speak, one learns to recognize how they belong together. And one learns in their sight - and one can only learn to recognize it through spiritual experience, one can only learn to recognize it through spiritual experience - one learns to recognize how the one must be seized by the other, so that what must be separate here in the physical life of man so that [the human being] can develop this physical life between birth and death, and that which must be separate here must mutually enrich each other, must come together so that the human being can pass through the gate of death and enter into a spiritual life after death. Because what one learns to recognize in this way is that what we have come to know as this second human being, who contains death within him, can be redeemed from the physical organization of the body.

That which can have a redeeming effect on this second human being is the will seed. And when the former, the human being who has united with death so that death slowly consumes life – when this human being is released from the physical body, when the physical body no longer serves him, then the moment has come when the will seed can take hold of this human being, and what that which otherwise only carries death, is developed into new life, which now enters the spiritual world, and carries into this spiritual world everything that the person has developed as an impulse of will, what he has brought to life in himself by being a being that wills with the senses. And also that which we develop as our most intimate soul life, for it too is connected with the will. The will radiates out into the whole soul life. What we develop through this subconscious seed-being of the will takes hold of our image-bearing human being, who has carried us into physical existence, and carries him out again, so that the human being can now pass through the spiritual world between death and a new birth. For the life that now begins after death begins in exactly the opposite way to which physical life begins here.

Through spiritual science, one can get to know the elements that make up this life. But try to see what could be characterized as the content of this living being that goes out into the spiritual world through the gate of death. What is it? It is that which one experiences when one has brought one's thinking to the utmost extreme, which – I would say – as the very, very end of the perspective of thought, the thought perspective, presents itself to the soul.

And with this, the element of will unites, that which, only in a different form of consciousness, is that which we carry with us through death. And if we now compare what we carry through death, which is initially the content of consciousness, with what we develop in our human life between birth and death, it is the case that in ordinary life we initially develop the outer physical form; only from this does consciousness emerge. However, as has been indicated, spiritual science has shown us that this physical body organization has only just been built up.

So, through birth or conception and death, we follow what the eternal forces of human nature are, which must be brought into the field of research through training, through the elevation of consciousness. Now, in this spiritual science, we are doing exactly what someone who wants to get to know the full extent of plant life does. What does he do? He sees how this plant life unfolds in the flower, in the fruit, in the seed. He then follows how from this same seed, which develops at the summit of the plant, a beginning arises, and how the beginning develops again, and he sees that the end and the beginning is the seed.

Thus, by bringing out of the consciousness that which passes through the gate of death, that which is the fruit of this earthly life, we see it in such a connection with what, as a seed, as a beginning, underlies earthly life. And we see, as we look out through the gate of death, I would say, the seed of a new life, we also see this seed coming to fruition in the life that begins here on earth. But this develops the prospect of repeated earthly lives.

What appears so grotesque to people today, but which Lessing, in the dawn of the newer spiritual life, sensed in such a wonderful way from German culture, the idea of repeated earthly lives, which Lessing's spiritual life at the end in his literary testament on “The Education of the Human Race”, to make this the scientific result, that is the task and possibility of spiritual science, in that spiritual science grasps that which works in human nature as the eternal.

And so we can say that what can be grasped as eternal is quite unlike even the most astute philosophical concepts that have been used to try to grasp the eternal in human nature. The mistake that has been made in this area, dear attendees, and which, so to speak, exposed this science of the soul, as it was, to all the challenges of natural science, which had reached such a high level of perfection, the mistake that was made, was that one kept thinking that one had to posit something more or less finely substantial – even if only as refined matter, as a refined substance – but as something in the external life that could be experienced, as the basis for the life of the soul. The mistake was that one sought the life of the soul in a stationary being, to which, as it were, the soul phenomena adhere. For that which one presupposes in the life of the soul as such soul substance cannot be found in reality; the phenomena of the soul detach one from the results of natural science. One must rather live in these phenomena of the soul and that which one then finds is a purely spiritual life, containing the eternal powers of the human soul. A purely spiritual life that can only be grasped in the consciousness of the human soul. Just when one is so thoroughly accustomed to the simplest ideas of natural science, one sees what, of course, very few people can see today: the full agreement of particularly meaningful scientific concepts with such research in the spiritual and soul realm.

Perhaps you, dear lady present, know how the entire state of motion, the force and direction, pass from one billiard ball to the other. It is precisely by knowing how the same state, which is in one, passes into the second, that one can direct the motion and direction of the two billiard balls. It would be a mistake, which of course becomes blatantly obvious, to imagine that something inside one billiard ball jumps over into the second. Nothing material, nothing substantial passes over, but nevertheless the state that passes over is determined by the state of the first ball. It is something that is completely unrelated to what happens to the first ball in the immediate sense.

So you have to detach everything that you think of as the eternal powers of the human soul from what you can somehow imagine as substantial, and what you can somehow imagine as being contained in ordinary thinking, feeling and willing. It must be developed purely in consciousness. For that which is carried into the spiritual worlds is consciousness; for they are indeed nothing but elements of consciousness. And what an ordinary pantheism, for example, cannot grasp is that it is precisely consciousness that passes through the gate of death. And so how - this thought could now indeed be carried out in the widest sense, for spiritual science is capable, with its means, as I have already often indicated, as it can in later lectures, to also pursue the realm of the supersensible worlds further, to show in detail - how now this human soul between death and a new birth develops those powers again: Just as the seed develops and unfolds the forces of the new plant, so, when passing through the purely spiritual world between death and a new birth, it unfolds that which a human organization - corresponding to the forces of the previous human organization of the previous life on earth - will in turn develop in a new life on earth.

We look beyond the individual life on earth to the repeated lives on earth. And through what has been described as an inner soul experiment, through that, it is really strictly transferred - corresponding to the scientific attitude and the scientific way of thinking - to the spiritual side of human life.

As unusual as the results of the natural scientific way of thinking were to people relatively recently, so that everything that was accustomed to old ideas resisted them – as unusual as these ideas were, so unusual are the results of spiritual science for present-day thinking, of course. But anyone who follows the development of truth through the development of mankind and gets to know the laws of the development of truth can imbibe the awareness that just as the scientific way of thinking has worked its way through against all opposition, against prejudices and against all opposition, spiritual science will also work its way through.

Of course, to someone who believes that they are firmly grounded in natural science, the spiritual-scientific world view, as it often appears today, must seem much more paradoxical than Copernicanism seemed to people who, in their earlier way of thinking, believed that the earth was at the center of the universe and that this universe was bounded at the top by the blue vault of heaven. I have said this here before. But what these people had overcome: to believe that the celestial world in which they live is bounded at the top by the blue firmament – how these people had overcome it and how they had convinced themselves that this blue firmament is actually no boundary, that the spatial world is infinite, that worlds upon worlds are embedded in space; how they came to know that this blue firmament is the product of their own imagination, which only extends to that point – in this way people will learn that what presents itself in the life of the soul between birth and death is only limited between birth and death because human imagination itself initially limits itself. Such a spiritual firmament exists, but it is actually a nothing. Beyond birth and death, the powers of the human soul lie embedded in the infinity of time. And just as world after world can be observed in space, so human life after human life can be observed in the infinity of the succession of time, some belonging together, some developing apart.

Of course, anyone who, through what he recognizes as the results of spiritual science, is imbued with the truth of these results of spiritual research, can very well understand how opposition to this spiritual science must develop even today. Better than others who do not stand on the ground of the spiritual researcher, the spiritual researcher can understand when someone, after perhaps hearing for the first time or at the very beginning what seems so grotesque, perhaps so foolish, so fantastic, - if he has heard it, if he says afterwards: It is really strange, what grotesque fantasies, what swamp flowers of the human imagination emerge today in our so-called progressive culture! Such opposition can be understood quite well, as one could understand everything that was raised against Galileo, against Copernicus and their world view. – Which, of course, is not meant to suggest any kind of historical comparison.

But not only what has just been mentioned, but also many other things come into the horizon of human consciousness, so that what otherwise strikes our soul like an inexplicable riddle of life becomes explicable.

Let us see how spiritual research leads us to these concrete results: that there is a second person within the human being who, as it were, carries death. When we see this, then we can also approach such a result with – I would like to say – an abnormal life riddle.

And today, when presenting spiritual-scientific results, one need not shrink from putting forward something that might seem rather wildly fantastic to one or the other, even if one is completely serious about such research results.

Human life does not end only because this inner man, whom I have described, gradually consumes life in order to connect with the will seed, go through the portal of death, and make preparations for a new life in a spiritual world between death and new birth. We see such deaths a hundredfold, a thousandfold happening around us in our present time, which forcibly end a person's life from the outside, by making a person a victim of a great, meaningful context. Then we see that what there is as a formative context, like a second human being - but one who, so to speak, ceases to be alive between birth and death, so that he can only just come to life at the moment of death through the seed of will - like this second human being, before his life cycle on earth is complete, before he has brought forth out of himself in thought everything that he can develop as thinking in the way indicated today, that this second human being separates himself from the physical body.

Then we have the remarkable fact that the outer physical organization is torn away from the second person, that is, through outer physical connections before time, by a bullet or the like from the outside – this must of course not arise through one's own decision – as happens to so many flourishing human lives in our present time. That the outer physical organization is taken away from the second human being, that what is enlivening connects with this second human being, with the human being of death. In other words, we see that which had the potential in physical life to express itself as further thinking, to enter the spiritual world prematurely. But it is the same in the spiritual world as in the physical world. As we know it for the physical world, since we have learned about the law of conservation of energy, how heat is produced from work, how work is transformed into heat, how everything is transformed, nothing actually comes into being in the sensory world, but everything is transformed – so it is in the spiritual world. That which was present in terms of forces, so that these forces could have continued to live out for a long time, remains present, but it changes. And now arises – as I said, I will say it again: it may seem quite paradoxical, quite strange, quite wildly fantastic, but it is an honest product of the way of thinking that develops on the ground, which I have tried to characterize from a certain point of view with a few strokes today – for those who honestly research in this field, other phenomena arise in addition to the premature deaths that arise in this way in human life.

Is it really so strange, esteemed attendees, that through the kind of research that has been characterized here this evening, that through this kind of research a connection is created for our observation, for our consciousness, between the expanding physical and the spiritual world? And is it not clear to any reasonably thinking and feeling person that spiritual elements are constantly entering our physical world, that these spiritual elements support and enliven physical life? In a particular area, we see, I would say, a beneficial influence of the spiritual on physical human development, for the sake of human progress.

When we consider human life as it has developed from historical epoch to historical epoch, we see that the way in which human beings create out of their powers is composed of two elements. One kind of power we acquire through being educated as children, through our powers being developed, through our gradually acquiring them; so that we know exactly what we have done, either what the educator has done or what we have achieved through self-education, through self-discipline, in order to arrive at this or that development of the soul's powers.

But there is another realm of powers to which we as human beings are particularly grateful, feeling that a completely different world extends into these powers.

And when the spiritual researcher, having developed his soul to such an extent that he can now observe this phenomenon, such as the experience of the forces of genius, with the opened spiritual eye, which he receives when he can observe such, as has been indicated, then a special connection arises between the forces that work in a genius and the sacrificial deaths, the martyr deaths. Just as in direct observation one finds the seed of will in the individual human soul life, which invigorates that which is a carrier of death in the individual human physical organization, so one notices, when one looks with the soul eye, which has been trained through meditation, as it has been described, on the connection between what wants to live out in history as ingenious forces - to use this expression - one notices the connection between these forces, which appear as ingenious, and what has ruled as sacrificial deaths.

As mysterious and wonderful as this connection is, it is a connection like that of cause and effect. One learns this, which is still so unusual for today's human conception of the world, one learns this, that one can look with respect to the divine, wisdom-filled connection in historical life as well. One learns to recognize that sacrificial deaths, martyrdoms, and the early withering away of human life form causes. Behind the sensual and intellectual connections, it is revealed that these sacrificial deaths, these martyrdoms, merge into the effect of those abilities that express themselves as ingenious abilities in the course of human development, thus gradually revealing the mysterious.

And just as one recognizes that which is also presented in nature as an effect of a completely different kind in its connection with the completely different cause, so one gets to know cause and effect in the individual human life, insofar as it is rooted in its eternal forces and passes through birth and death, but also that which stands in the historical context.

And so it is that a view is opened up from the perspective of spiritual science on the significance of such eras as ours is. In a completely unbiased, by no means forced way, it results - I would like to say - an inner understanding of what happens in such eras. And an inner understanding arises as to why causes must be created through sacrificial deaths for something that will later arise in human life as forces that will serve the welfare and progress of this human life.

Truly, by getting to know the connections of human life through spiritual science, understanding spreads to much that is otherwise incomprehensible and painful. The basis of the hopes that now permeate the Central European population is an infinitely wide field of pain and suffering.

Now spiritual science is truly not suited to make people dull-witted by trying to console them in a trivial way for their pain. We have just seen that suffering must be recognized as one of the elements that lead the human being into the spiritual life, on the basis of the soul. By becoming acquainted with the eternal forces of the human soul, which it passes through the gate of death under all circumstances, by becoming acquainted with the significance of those forces, which have been left unconsumed in life, of people who pass through the gate of death through an early death, by seeing them in a great historical context, so that he can say to himself: If a dear friend must also die, the wise guidance of human progress requires me to do so. When a person says this to himself, he certainly encompasses this rule of wisdom in all world phenomena. But it must not be taken as a trivial consolation, as a banal consolation. The individual pain that we feel is justified; the individual suffering that permeates our soul is justified; we will indeed learn to be strong in suffering when we are given a glimpse of the world that spiritual science shows us; we will be strong in suffering. We will learn the meaning of suffering, but we will not be tempted to dull life by trying to console ourselves in an easy way. Not flattened, but rather deepened, is all joy, but also all pain in life, when we get to know the depths of life through spiritual science.

I have only been able to hint at how man can find the way by being led to look at the processes in spiritual life in an equally clear - one might say scientific - way, as in today's time the outer natural processes are looked at. And it is a completely different way of looking at things, which must first develop out of the human soul.

The best who have lived in the development of humanity have pointed to this way of looking at things. Our time is called upon to draw humanity's attention to this way of looking at things, to incorporate the results of this way of looking at things into cultural life. What Goethe called the eyes and ears of the spirit, and what develops out of the spiritual organization of the soul just as the physical eyes and physical ears develop out of the bodily organization, is meant. It arises in the same spiritual and soul-like way that the bodily organization arises in a natural way. And when it is said in this context that the human being's ability to perceive clairvoyance and clairaudience must be developed so that he can look into the spiritual world, it must never be forgotten that what is meant here as truly spiritual-scientific clairvoyance and clairaudience is the complete opposite of what is so often referred to as clairvoyance or even clairaudience. The spiritual scientific result is already inclined, dear honored attendees, to be belittled by many people, in that there is talk of special, slumbering abilities in the soul, through which the eternal powers of the human soul can be explored. And it is indeed something that is the result of the scientific attitude to refer what in the ordinary, trivial sense is called clairvoyance and clairaudience to the realm of hallucinations, to the realm of illusions, and in any case not to seek paths that lead into the spiritual world through the development of such abilities, which in ordinary life are called clairvoyance and clairaudience. Here too, I would like to say, spiritual science is completely in line with the healthy scientific method of research, because those abilities that really unfold as new soul abilities on the path that has been indicated today, and which, as I said, can be found in detail in the books mentioned, are spiritual abilities; they are abilities that the soul develops precisely when it becomes independent of the body, when it is no longer active with the help of the bodily organization. While that which can occur in ordinary life, morbidly, as hallucination, as illusion, consists precisely in the fact that it is, as it were, the caricature, the shadow image, of true clairvoyance, of true clairaudience. Yes, spiritual science leads us precisely to recognize that the right way to know the spiritual worlds is to unfold the forces that can fight the ordinary clairvoyance, the trivial clairvoyance in man, so that it does not show itself, that which is usually known as clairvoyance.

For the clairvoyance that has been spoken of today as the true clairvoyance can only be known through the paths indicated. The clairvoyance that is commonly known consists precisely in the fact that its powers are developed within the physical body; that they are powers that come into existence precisely because the spiritual has a stronger destructive effect on the physical than in ordinary thinking. Ordinary thinking represents the normal: how the second human being works and must work destructively so that human life can develop in the right way. The development of so-called clairvoyance, which goes into the hallucinatory, the illusory, the visionary, is shown by spiritual science [as described by me here] to be something that must be characterized: that this second human being develops stronger destructive powers. But what can be experienced in this caricature, in this shadow image of true clairvoyance, is much more intensely connected with the human being in time than ordinary thinking, everyday thinking, is connected with this human being. If a person, through coming to morbid hallucinations, to morbid illusions, to some often admired education of the soul life, then that which can be brought into his soul in this way is something much more fleeting than the ordinary, fleeting ideas and things of life. One can only reach the eternal powers of the human soul when thinking and willing have been developed in the indicated manner to a higher level, to a supersensible point, not to an infra-sensible one.

There is an inner connection, dearest ones, between what I said yesterday and what I am saying today. Although I am not referring to anything that has emerged in the development of world views over time, , this that has been developed today nevertheless has a certain objective connection with what was discussed yesterday, with that which was linked to the world view of German idealism. Not in a connection that would necessarily result logically, let me now point out the relationship of what was considered yesterday to what was considered today. The connection lies rather in the feelings that can flow into our souls today. Therefore, I apologize if the transition to the conclusion today is not chosen with strict logic, but rather chosen in such a way that it is formed out of the feelings that must bless us today if we are feeling human beings, if the transition to the conclusion is formed out of these feelings.

Yesterday we saw how German idealism expresses a striving, so that one of its leading figures, the most nationalistic German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, seeks a strong development of the will element, which, progressing from moment to moment, creates the human ego. And now we see, within the scope of the world view of German idealism, a striving that emerges directly, as described yesterday, from the substance, from the spiritual substance of the German national character; we see a striving that points to meditation of the will. World history has for once established the fact that the soul can follow a path that we today call meditation of the will.

And if we look at the other pole, at Hegel, within the world view of German idealism, we see in his thinking - which takes logic so far that even the world spirit, with which the human ego wants to unite, becomes a pure logician - we see this thinking taking the path that only needs to be followed further. And this thinking does not lead to where it led Hegel at a certain point in his psychology, but it leads into the very weaving of the spiritual life to which Hegel did not yet arrive, but to which his striving leads if it is continued with this energy. And in a similar way, Schelling – indeed, every personality who develops within the true world picture of German Idealism – also stands in relation to what the spiritual researcher must today consider the path to spiritual science itself. This is how world-historical events present themselves to us, and our time will excuse us for drawing attention to these world-historical events. Wherever one may place oneself in the spectrum of world spiritual culture, wherever one may look for something that so intensely represents a striving that can only find its continuation in spiritual research, one does not find it in such an inwardly intense way as in the world view of German Idealism.

One sees that which, out of the need of developing humanity, the spiritual researcher must strive for today; one sees it shining forth as in a kind of dawn in Hegel's pure thinking, in Fichte's meditation on the strong will, which even within Fichte himself has come so far that Fichte once spoke of the sense by which one investigates [supersensible] things, which could be recognized just as little — as Fichte expressed himself to his audience in his last Berlin lectures, which he gave — as the sense of ordinary people needs to be recognized by the blind, as color is recognized. If we allow this thought to penetrate our soul, we can arrive at a further development of the thought, which may mean: If we try to understand spiritual research today, as an element that must be dear to us if we want to introduce it as a new element into the spiritual progress of humanity , one tries to characterize it properly, and one finds it justified in its necessity, historically justified, when one looks back at the development that the German national spirit took at that time, when - as was indicated yesterday - the world view of German idealism was most gloriously, most highly developed. It seems as if the German national spirit itself, through the personalities characterized yesterday, fell into meditation in order to make the first approach to something that will carry the future, and so what is being achieved on the stage of German idealism. Does not this German idealism, does not this meditation of the German national soul, speak to us in such a way that we have to say: it carries within itself the forces of many far-reaching future developments?

Does the fact that the German national spirit, the German national soul, has developed such meditation over time, has taken such an approach to something that presents itself as the seed of a fruit of the future, does that not mean that the vitality, the ability to live, the moral strength of the German national spirit, of this German national soul, is present? Do we not already see the seed germinating into what must be the fruit of the future? Can it be allowed to perish through a world of enemies, that which bears fruit by the very fact that it contains them as seeds? That which is predisposed, which therefore bears within itself the necessity of its development, will develop, will form itself in the world, even if its existence is contested by enemies who rise up against it.

Thus the German national spirit in every feeling German soul feels itself united with the forces that live into the future, and thus it hopes for its development in the future, thus it hopes for its victory over all opposition, thus it lives full of confidence in the future in every German who can feel this.

[Dearly beloved!]

It is not possible to determine exactly when the Book of the Dead was written. In any case, it is one of the most important documents, because it shows us that in such early times in Egypt a world view, a deepening, prevailed which aimed strictly at a unified world and which, on the other hand, already had the strange urge in itself to understand death as a symbol, to understand death in such a way that it does not appear as the terrible in itself, but that it appears as that which can be seen as a symbol, as a mere allegory, which still stands high above [life]. If death is to be overcome, it is certain that death can only be overcome spiritually. It essentially deals with the transition from physical life to life after death - and that means nothing other than life in general. We can describe even more precisely what is contained in the Book of the Dead. It contains chants, hymns to the sun god Ra, to Osiris, the son of the sun god, hymns which are preferably put into the mouths of the dead. These dead who have made their way to the afterlife, these dead are to experience something, they are to gain knowledge [of what they have seen and what they are aware of from those who are no longer bound to the body. That is the first part. The second part consists of the dead person being held up to account in a kind of judgment for the debts he has incurred. He is weighed, and depending on the findings, his value appears in the overall structure of the universe. Those who have reached a high level will not - as is often said - come to Osiris, but they will become "Osiris. It is curious that the book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the [sun] god Ra, the second part deals with human destiny, the third part then shows the path to reach Osiris, the path that leads to deification. This book thus represents the path to life, the path from the individual life to the total life, which is achieved through the realization and deification of man.

The details of the Book of the Dead are important in the most diverse ways for the history of the development of world views. In the Book of the Dead, for example, we find the myth of Osiris' battle with Typhon, Osiris' enemy, hatred. Isis had to find Osiris again in the universe, and she then brings forth the younger Osiris, Horus, whom she describes as the deification of the universe. We find this in the Book of the Dead.

But then we also find the doctrine of the seven-part man in it. The Egyptians thought of man as being made up of the body, the spiritual body and the mummy.

So we have three stages:
[1.] Heart, sensation or mind,
[2-] Genius and creation,
[3-] the Holy Spirit and intelligence.

These are roughly the details of this Book of the Dead, which was in any case much better known in antiquity than in later times. In later times, the awareness of the teachings as they are expressed in the Book of the Dead has been lost. However, we often find the teachings of the Book of the Dead again in Greece, and the entire Greek spiritual life in the post-Pythagorean period can only be understood if one assumes that [its] views were the teachings of this Book of the Dead, the tripartite division of the human path of knowledge and the eventual merging into the Osiris nature. If one assumes that they were transplanted to Greece and that essentially the same views lived there. However, it must be noted that the Egyptians did not have an intermediate stage that played a greater role among the Greeks, namely the myth developed with [a certain sense of] beauty. The Greeks loved to embellish everything with beauty. We have therefore been compelled to regard the entire Greek religion, the entire Greek world view, which stands between Pythagoreanism and Platonism, as an aesthetic one. We can do this if we see it as born out of Greek myth, but in its spiritualized form.

We know the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, the myth of the Argonauts and so on. However, we can always assume - and we have to hold on to this - that the myth exists in a threefold meaning:

[1] The first meaning is that in its immediate form as the purely naturalistic conception,
2. then as a human, as a symbol and
3. thirdly as the divine.]

And the third, the divine, was the concept that was taught only to a select few, only to a few who had prepared themselves for it. We can already prove this historically. We are told of Samothrace, an island, that the deities there were nothing other than names for other deities. However, it is not to be believed that they were the same as the names of Greek or Egyptian deities. For outsiders, they had the same names. But for the insiders, they were deeper understandings of the entire myths and stories of the gods.

The best-known Greek myth is that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone and then the myth of Dionysus, which has already been mentioned several times. Demeter, one of the supreme female Greek deities, was first understood in a naturalistic sense. She had a daughter with Zeus, Persephone. She was stolen by Hades, the god of the underworld. Hades had asked to be allowed to take this daughter as his wife in the underworld. She was only to remain in the upper world temporarily. She was to remain two thirds in the upper world and one third in the underworld. This myth, which is alive everywhere in Greece in its naturalistic meaning, was also that which was to be found in certain mysteries, namely that on which the Eleusinian Mysteries were based. This myth also had a threefold meaning. The naturalistic meaning lies simply in the fact that one understands the actual as such, that one has a mythological history of the gods. The second conception would then be something that took place in [Greek] life, and that was the marriage of the Ionian spirit with the Doric.

The Greek people were divided into tribes. Among the most important were the Dorians and the Ionians. The myth of Demeter had originated among the Dorians, and the Ionians had adopted it and mixed it with the myth of Dionysus. We are interested in the Dionysus myth because it leads to an esoteric view. Dionysus is also a son of Zeus and Demeter. He was torn to pieces and only managed to save his heart. From this, Zeus had formed the younger Dionysus. But he could no longer take the limbs. It is therefore the case that the world represents the scattered limbs. This therefore represents the marriage of the Dorian Persephone with the Ionian Dionysus. The fusion of these two views has thus taken place in this myth.

But what remains to be noted is the third, the divine conception. We can only understand this historically if we stick to the sparse information we have. We are first referred to the temple in which the service of Demeter takes place. This Demeter service is a service in which we encounter the three deities mentioned. Demeter herself is one of the greatest deities of Greece, symbolically shaped, with the inscription: "I am the origin of the soul, I am the origin of the spirit." At her side, Persephone is presented to us with the inscription: "I am death and carry within me the secret of life." Her brother Dionysus is presented to us with an even stranger inscription: "I am death, I am life, I am rebirth and adorned with wings." - If we understand this, we come to the interpretation of one of the most important Greek myths. Demeter loses her daughter. She has to give her Persephone to Hades. She could return to her mother if she had not already partaken of the fruit of the pomegranate with Hades and was therefore unable to return completely. This Persephone is supposed to save her brother. Only this makes it possible - now in a deeper sense - for Persephone to return, for Dionysus to sacrifice himself. We have to look at these two in context again. We must recognize that sacrifice is what matters here. This is shown to us by the fact that Orpheus - who is originally credited with having communicated the deeper content of this to the Greek people - was also sacrificed, for he is also said to have been torn apart and to have lived on as a spirit by having flowed out into the world matter. The child of eternal life must be sacrificed to Hades, to Pluto. We can only understand this if we see the material world in Pluto. Thus, according to the esoteric view, we see in Demeter the universal spirituality, the primordial mother of intelligence, and in Hades the material world. In the whole Persephone myth we see the necessity of Persephone's falling away from her mother. The daughter must enter matter. She must partake of the pomegranate of the underworld. Now she can no longer save herself from matter and therefore a second sacrifice is necessary. Persephone's brother, Dionysus, must sacrifice himself again. He must allow his [own] spiritual nature to flow out into the gross nature, so that Persephone now enters into a spiritual marriage with her brother, but can flow back again to the original spirit of the primordial mother, Demeter. This mystery of the spirituality's necessary departure from itself, this immersion of the spirits in the material and this longing of the spirit to return to the spiritual is expressed in the Demeter myth.

This was the vivid experience that was to be taught to those who were introduced to the Eleusinian Mysteries. They were to be given the urge to find their way back from matter to the spiritual primordial mother. This is what lived in Greece in the spirit of a few chosen ones and what carried the whole world view between Pythagoras and Plato. What lived as the deeper spirit in these personalities from Empedocles through Anaxagoras to Socrates and Plato sometimes appears to be merely a logical chain of thought, as presented to us by the philosophers. But it is an exposition of Greek myth, an exposition that was cultivated wherever a deeper foundation was sought. This is what appears to them as a mere logical chain of thought.

I would like to point out another myth, which was cultivated even more frequently than the Demeter myth, which is perhaps easier to understand, and which was cultivated in order to gradually lead initiates into a deeper spiritual understanding of the world. I would like to refer to the myth of the Argonaut voyage. This shows in each of its individual sentences that it can only be understood as the symbolic clothing of a deeper wisdom. Phrixos and his sister Helle set off on the ram [...] to the barbarian king. On the way, Helle falls into the sea and Phrixos alone reaches the coast on the ram. When they reached the barbarian people, the ram was sacrificed to the king. But the ram's skin was hung up in the sacred grove of the gods and guarded by a great dragon. Jason, together with Orpheus, Heracles, Theseus, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, Peleus, Neleus, Admetus, Pirithoos and many others, undertakes to retrieve this ram's skin [- the golden fleece]. These are the great heroes of Greece. It is significant that Jason, with the representatives of the highest Greek spirituality, undertakes to retrieve the skin. He actually wins the skin and brings it back. The dragon guarding the skin is defeated by Jason. The dragon's teeth are then sown, and out of these grow fierce men who fight each other. Finally, in short, he gets the fleece with the help of the sorceress Medea. On the way back, however, Medea decides to dismember [her] little brother Apsyrtos. The father Aietes collects the pieces and therefore does not reach the fugitives. The fleece is brought back to Greece.

We must also interpret this in a threefold sense. Firstly natural, secondly human and thirdly divine. [As a human event it is of no interest, but in its divine meaning this myth perhaps leads most deeply into the Greek intellectual world.] Phrixos is divine vision, that which points us to the abyss of divine being, to the premonition of an infinite depth. Nothing else is expressed in the personality of Phrixos. [Brightness is the personality, the representative of man before his fall into sin, for whom the struggle of the spirit with materiality has not yet existed] - the undivided humanity, which is connected with nothing other than the infinite vision of infinity. [Both set out on the path to the most sacred thing they have. And the representatives of the human soul first come to the sacred grove of the gods in order to sacrifice to it and to begin the path of life with this human soul]. We have only one other person in the Argonaut train. Phrixos begins his journey through life into the realm of the barbarians on the other side of the sea. This is to be understood as the realm of passions, the realm of sensuality. The human soul is to be sacrificed to the realm of materiality. It is to be sacrificed to the waves and bustle of the world. As a result, one thing is lost, the original innocence. It is initially submerged, lost. It is initially something that has flowed out into existence. [It is something that is initially completely lost, which is why it has sunk into the Hellespont. The soul is led into life, where we have nothing but a dark urge, where we must find our way back to the higher life]. But [the soul] must be redeemed anew, just as Persephone was redeemed by Dionysus. It must be redeemed. What had to be sacrificed to life must be redeemed. It must be redeemed here by Jason, the Greek hero. The ram is sacrificed to the gods. Only the ram's skin, that which surrounds the human soul as a shell, is first hung up in the sacred grove of the gods and carefully guarded by the dragon. This is initially nothing other than what is given in the Book of the Dead. [The ram's skin] is the representative of enlightenment, of knowledge. It must first be redeemed from the fury of the terrible powers that lurk before it. The king's son Jason must overcome these forces through knowledge in conjunction with spiritual and physical forces. He must lead this ram's skin back to Greece, supported by Medea, a female figure. I have already pointed out that the female figure signifies a state of consciousness in Greek. The soul must be redeemed with the help of Medea's magical power. From this immersion she can then be led back up to her deification, her divinization. That is the deeper meaning of the Argonaut saga.

The fact that the young son of Aietes, Medea's brother, has to be killed so that Medea's father cannot reach [the fleeing Jason] also has its significance. The one who has achieved this must leave behind many things that have been in his life. He has to leave some things behind, for the reason that [he cannot be caught up] on the path to deeper knowledge. This is how the saga of the Argonauts concludes. Basically, it is nothing more than a different version, more tailored to the individuality of man, of the myth that we also encounter in the Demeter myth.

This conception of the Greek myth then confronts us in a philosophically one-sided formation in a personality that represents a kind of fall from grace for the Greek world view: in Parmenides, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. He first pointed out in an intellectual or rational way that sensual knowledge cannot satisfy man. He pointed out that man cannot get to the bottom of things and that the weighing up and weighing down of the world cannot be the truth, but that the truth must be something much deeper, that it can only be purely spiritual. He first put this into this form: true existence can only be achieved through pure thinking, through the deepest knowledge, while the senses only present us with a dream. - Parmenides thus divides the whole of existence into two parts, into sensual illusion on the one hand and intellectual, mental existence on the other. But there is still something that he could not find, and that is the ego. He could not find the figure of Dionysus in the figure of Persephone, in the urge to emerge from the sensual, the spirit. Parmenides did not take this [step]. He only saw that which is enchanted in the sensual world and on the other side Demeter [and Hades], the materiality. But he was unable to find the path that unites the two.

In a slightly different form, we encounter the same thing in Empedocles, who said that the primordial being had dissolved into a series of elements, into fire, water, earth and air. In these four elements he saw nothing other than individual eternal manifestations of the primordial being, the eternal world spirit. And in every single thing he saw certain mixtures of the four elements, even in man. The fact that the human being also consists of a mixture of the same elements as the world means that the human being can understand the world. The same can be recognized by the same. This is the same thing that Goethe says:

Were not the eye sun-like,
it could never behold the sun.
If God's own power were not in us,
how could the divine delight us?

This view was already held by Empedocles. He even had the view that the essence reigns in all being, [so that] he already [anticipated] the saying in Goethe's "Faust": "Exalted Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything ..." [anticipated]. Empedocles already recognized this totality of being. He believed that before it rises to the higher, it must pass through the lower stages. The spirit must pass through the stages of inorganic, elementary existence, the stages from plant to animal existence up to the form of man, and always follow them. This is why he sees love and hate as what brings the elements together. Empedocles thus describes life as a constant struggle between love and hate. In this way, the worldly sage also repeats the battle between [Osiris-Isis and Typhon] and the battle between Persephone and [Hades].

So we see in the Empedoclean doctrine nothing other than the elaboration of what [Empedocles] could get to know in the Greek mystery schools. We shall see that he does not consider anything incomprehensible that is described to the philosophers as incomprehensible.

We are told that human existence is not completed in the single individuality, but that this human existence was already there before it entered the individual personality, and that it will also be there again in other forms and shapes after it leaves this personality. In short, [Empedocles] stands on the standpoint of the transmigration of souls, of metempsychosis. He was initiated into the teachings of the Pythagoreans. The philosophers could not understand how Empedocles arrived at this doctrine if he assumed that the soul is a mere mixture of the four elements, but still ascribes to it a special existence in that it can take on different forms. We will understand that Empedocles sees in these four elements nothing other than the one eternal primordial being that has poured itself into existence, and that we therefore have to see in them only a special form of existence that flows back again to the primordial being. Thus in the spiritual conception of Empedocles we have something higher than the merely sensual. Empedoclean philosophy is nothing more than a philosophical dissection of the Argonaut legend, the legend of Demeter and Persephone and so on.

These teachings were then adopted by Socrates and Plato, and we are not to understand the historical Socrates in the figure of Socrates when we encounter him in the Platonic dialogues. Socrates appears to Plato as the master of the school, and he represents the school in his conversations. Socrates was regarded by Plato as such a leader. In the Platonic Discourses, it is not the historical Socrates who is the main subject, but the spiritual leader, the one who leads from the lowest levels of knowledge up to the highest. We cannot understand the meaning of the Platonic Conversations if we do not understand them as a mental image of mystical instruction, as instruction and guidance from the lowest to the highest levels of knowledge.

The other day I mentioned the talk about the immortality of the soul. This is usually understood as if immortality were to be proven by a logical thread. But it is not a question of proving the immortality of the soul, and what has been written about whether the proof has succeeded or failed. If it is said that the proof is no longer congenial to us today, then the person concerned only shows that he has not grasped the whole spirit of the "Phaidon". It is not a question of proving whether the soul is immortal, but of something quite different. We can assume that Plato also went through the schools of [the] Sophists. Protagoras was the founder of the "phrase: he is portrayed [in the Platonic dialog "Protagoras"] as someone who led knowledge astray. But we must not forget that Socrates was a profound [ironist]. We must not forget that the Greeks had their own conception of irony, that they understood it as something that was necessary for the illumination of the whole world view. Socrates fought the sophists with irony. What are the sophists? The sentences uttered by Protagoras characterize them:

["Man is the measure of all things, of those that are, that they are - of those that are not, that they are not." And:] We cannot prove anything rigorously. One thing can be said of every thing, but the opposite can also be said of every thing. This seemed to be the destruction of all knowledge. Even today it seems as if the sophists were playing a vain game with ideas, as if they wanted nothing more than to talk about every thing. Vanity was their purpose, as the measure of all things was only purpose. The Sophists by no means took this absurd and downright frivolous standpoint. The Sophists are, if I may say so, the personalities within Greek intellectual life who wanted to reduce to absurdity the knowledge that flows purely from the intellect, but who also put into practice in a different way the old Apollonian sentence: "Man is the measure of all things", which means nothing other than that man has to rise and seek within himself. - Do not recognize yourself with random intellectual knowledge, but immerse yourself in your true self. - They adjusted themselves to pure logic on a trial basis in order to lead them all the more surely into error. You can prove the one, and you can prove the other. But the sophists only wanted to show the worthlessness of logic. It is worthless to stop at what we encounter externally, at purely intellectual knowledge. Man would have to be just as unsatisfied in this knowledge as he would have to be unsatisfied within a purely mindless sensory life.

Plato had become acquainted with this sophism, and he apparently fought it, not because he regarded it as a worthless phenomenon, but as an irony. He took the standpoint of Protagoras, and Protagoras always falls short of Socrates, who does not want to grasp the world through reason, but through immediate life and through the mind. But this is not a different point of view from the one put forward by the Sophists. The sophists wanted to be opposed because they wanted to expose the absurdity of these propositions in order to show where each proposition leads. Thus Socrates, by leading beyond sophistry, led to deeper knowledge. He liberates his students from the belief in reason. This redemption is expressed to us in all those conversations [in which the sophists, Socrates' immediate predecessors, are combated]. The Discourses are written for the sole purpose of disabusing people of the belief in the provability of higher knowledge. That is the purpose of the Platonic Discourse. No one will believe that a flower can be proved. No one will seek proof that a flower exists. It is enough if we experience existence. You cannot prove a thing. You can prove the connection between things. You can prove that some fact must be there, from a context that you have already perceived. But you can never prove a thing that you have absolutely not perceived. So it is not a question of proving something logically, but of expanding the field of experience, of opening up the field of experience into a metaphysical realm. Something should be opened up that lies behind experience. [So it should not say: Here you have experience, and you should pay attention to something that lies behind it. It should not be deduced logically, but experienced spiritually. It should not be proven, but experienced.

This is also the case in the "Phaidon". You have to experience what Socrates means by "soul". He does not want to prove that the soul is immortal, but he wants to lead his students to experience the soul in the same way as the body. The "Phaidon" is about the discovery of the soul. It is about experiencing the soul. When his students have really experienced "soul, then [its] characteristics will soon become clear to them. If you want to be shown a flower, you show him the flower and don't let him prove it.

This is what is meant by the Socratic method. The Socratic method is usually understood in a much more trivial way. The Socratic method means nothing other than the opening of a completely new field of experience, the opening of new senses, the opening of a new field of experience, and the teaching of Socrates is such that every person can be led to such higher [cognitive] powers. And the leading to such powers in the Socratic method is the conversation.

We will find in the conversations the most profound method and the truest mysticism, and we will see the form in which [Greek] mysticism has expressed itself in the most profound and experiential way. I am convinced that Plato's teaching can only be understood superficially, that the doctrine of ideas can only be seen as an emptiness of ideas, if one does not draw this doctrine of ideas from the depths of Greek spiritual life, if one does not take into account the tragedy of life that the myth of Demeter expresses by showing that the dearest thing Demeter has must first fall away in order to then seek the way back again. And in the Argonaut legend, it is depicted that man must lose himself on the path of life in order to be able to redeem himself again with the help of his new powers. That saga thus expresses to us the deep tragedy that lies in the fact that [knowledge] must first be lost, sunk into the depths of materiality, and that it can only be found again by way of complete self-denial - and only by giving up many a love. And this expresses that this rediscovery of the highest knowledge is linked with the true redemption of this knowledge, with the finding of the infinite in the finite, with the overcoming of individuality, that therefore this knowledge can only be achieved through one of the most original forces that rule in man; and this again expresses itself meaningfully through the emergence of human vision, that which Phrixos has to sacrifice first, the vision which leads us into the indeterminate and into the deepest depths, which leads us to the point that we can never be satisfied and that we can only find ourselves on the perpetual path back to Demeter. This realization means the infinite path to rediscover lost knowledge. This is expressed in the distinction between the lower and higher consecrations.

When Schelling passed from his youth to a later age, he distinguished the teachings of his youth, which express the most spiritual and profound. He later expressed this philosophy of his youth as a lower consecration compared to his later one, because the height of that vision had dawned on him, in which he recognized that there are abyss-like depths that can never be reached [with the ordinary powers of thought]. The realization of certain spiritual powers to encompass this world is what he calls [higher] consecration. To lose this faith altogether in comparison to the lower consecration and to believe and experience the omnipotence of the infinite depth, which has been lost to us, is the infinite love into which the divine principle has flowed and can be found again through this infinite. This is what he calls the "higher consecration."

Answer to the question:

Question about the sacrifice of Abraham.

These teachings of the Old Testament are a distortion. Jewish secret teachings then emerge, in which these things are then pulled together again. It is the same as in the legends of Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus. In them the doctrine of man is carried out in a tangible way. The Abraham sacrifice would correspond to the second stage of the human stages, the necessity of sacrificing one's loved one. It is undoubtedly taken from religious systems in which this school of thought lives.

It must be assumed for a whole series of Christian myths that in the year 1 there was no awareness of the esoteric side at all. Paul was the founder of Christianity, which has lived in the church right up to our time.

If I interpret the "Sistine Madonna" esoterically and someone tells me that Raphael knew nothing about it, I say: Yes, it doesn't need to be. If that is attempted, I have to be pleased and regard it as a perfectly justifiable thing. I am always pleased when people try to show this. The philosophers in the pulpits don't get involved in esotericism. The most important is Kühnemann.

In Empedocles, there is something we cannot understand. We can only present [it] as something incomprehensible; all modern research deals only with the purely natural conception of the matter and finally only with the question of its origin, with the question: How could something like this have developed?

In the course of the two lectures already given, we have become acquainted with certain spiritual beings which occult vision can encounter when it is directed towards the spiritual life of our planet. Today it will be necessary for us to follow another path in order to ascend into the spiritual world, for we can only form a correct conception of the nature of the spiritual beings of which we have spoken, even of the Planetary Spirit itself, when we have observed them from another side. It is always extremely difficult to describe in the words of any language these spiritual beings visible to occult perception, because human languages—at least those of the present day—are only suited to the facts and phenomena of the physical plane. It is therefore only by a description from various aspects that one can hope to arrive at anything approaching what is meant when allusion is made to spiritual beings. It will be necessary for this purpose to begin to-day from the nature of man himself and to make clear certain attributes of human nature, and we can then proceed to describe the higher beings we meet with in the higher worlds. One attribute of human nature shall be brought into very special prominence to-day, and that can be described in the following way. Man is endowed with the possibility of leading an inner life which is quite independent of his external life. This possibility confronts us every hour of our waking life. We know that as regards what we see with our eyes or hear with our ears, we have something in common with all other beings which also use their senses. As man we have a common life with other men, and perhaps also with other beings. Everyone, as we know only too well, has his own special sorrows, his special joys; his troubles and cares, his hopes and ideals; in a sense these form a special kingdom not immediately visible to the physical sight of other men, and this a man carries through the world as an independent inner life. When we are in the same space as another man, we know what he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. We may even perhaps have an idea of what takes place in his soul by what is expressed, in his face by his gestures, or his speech; but if he wishes to keep his inner life as a special world for himself alone, we can penetrate no further.

Now if we look with occult vision into the world hidden behind the first veil of the external world, we meet there with beings quite differently organized, particularly with respect to these qualities. We meet with beings not able to lead such an independent inner life as man leads. We meet as a first group with those which, when they lead an inner life, are immediately transferred through this inner life into a different state of consciousness from the one they possess in the life they lead in and with the external world. Let us try to understand this. Suppose a man so lived that should he desire to live in his inner being and not to direct his gaze to the external world, he would, simply by means of his Will, immediately have to pass over into another state of consciousness. We know that man, without his will, does pass over into a different state of consciousness in his normal life when he is asleep. We also know that sleep is the result of his astral body and his ego separating from his physical and etheric bodies. Thus we know that something has to take place in a man if he is to pass over into another form of consciousness. For instance, if a man says, “Here before me is a meadow covered with flowers; when I look at it, it gives me joy,” he does not simply on that account enter another state of consciousness; he experiences his joy in the meadow and the flowers together with his association with the outer world. Now those beings which occult vision meets with as the next category in a higher world change their state of consciousness each time they turn their perception and their action from the external world to themselves. Thus, in them there need be no separation between the different principles of their being, they simply bring about in themselves just as they are, by means of their will, another condition of consciousness. Now the perceptions of these beings, of which we are speaking as the next category above man, are not like the perceptions of man. Man perceives, because an external world appears before his senses. He surrenders himself, so to speak, to this external world. These beings do not perceive an external world in the same way as man does with his senses; they perceive it (though this is only a comparison) rather as man perceives when, for instance, he speaks, or makes a movement of the hand, or in any way externalizes his inner being in mimic art; when, in short, he gives expression to his own nature. Thus in a certain sense for these beings of a higher world of whom we are speaking, all their perceptions are at the same time a manifestation of their own being. I want you to bear in mind that when we ascend to the higher category of beings no longer perceptible to man externally, we have before us beings which perceive whenever they manifest, when they express what they themselves are; and they really perceive their own being only as long as they wish to manifest it, as long as in any way they express it outwardly. We might say they are only awake when manifesting themselves. And when of their own will they are not manifesting themselves, not entering into connection with the world around them, another condition of consciousness arises for them—in a certain sense they sleep. Only, their sleep is no unconscious sleep like that of man, it signifies for them a sort of diminution, a sort of loss of their feeling of self. They have their feeling of self so long as they manifest themselves externally, and in a certain sense they lose it when they cease to manifest. They do not sleep then as men sleep, but something arises in their own being like a manifestation of spiritual worlds higher than themselves. Their inner being is then filled by higher spiritual worlds.

Thus, mark well: When man directs his gaze outwards and observes, he lives with the outer world; he loses himself in it. In our planet, for instance, he loses himself in the various kingdoms of nature. But when he diverts his gaze from outside, he enters his own inner being and lives an independent inner life, and he is then free from this external world. When these beings of which we speak as a first category above man, are active externally, they then manifest themselves; they have their feeling of self, their actual self-expression in this manifestation; and when they enter their inner being they do not enter into an independent inner life, as does man, but a life in common with other worlds. Just as man enters such a life when he perceives the external world, so do they perceive other spiritual worlds above them when they look into themselves; they then enter this other condition of consciousness, in which they find themselves filled with other beings higher than themselves. So, as regards man we say that when he loses himself in the external world, he has his perceptions; when he withdraws from the external world, he has his independent inner life. The beings belonging to the next higher category—we call them, speaking generally, the beings of the so-called Third Hierarchy—instead of perception have manifestation, and in this manifestation or revelation they experience themselves. Instead of an inner life, they have the experience of higher spiritual worlds, that is to say, they are filled with Spirit. This is the most essential difference between man and the beings of the next higher category.

We might, by means of a crude comparison from life, define the difference between man and these beings. When a man is in a position of having inner experiences which do not coincide with what he experiences or perceives externally—in the crudest case the result is a lie. In order to make this clearer, we can express a possible peculiarity of man by saying: He is capable of perceiving something and yet of arousing contrary ideas in his inner being and even of giving vent to them externally, although they do not coincide with the perceptions. Through this peculiarity man can contradict the external world by means of an untruth. This is a possibility which—as we shall hear later in the course of these lectures—had to be given to man, in order that he might come to the truth by his own free will. When we consider man as he really is in the world we must, however, fix our attention on this quality, namely, that he can form ideas in his inner life and also externalize them, which do not coincide with his perceptions or with facts. This quality is not a possibility to the beings of the higher category spoken of here, so long as they retain their nature. The possibility of untruth does not exist in the beings of the Third Hierarchy, if they retain their nature. For what would be the result if a being of this Hierarchy wished to lie? Then, in its inner being, it must experience something which it transmitted to the external world differently from the way in which it experienced it. Then, however, the being would no longer be able to perceive this; for everything these beings experience in their inner life is revelation, and it immediately passes over into the external world. These beings must live in a kingdom of absolute truth if they wish to experience themselves at all. Suppose these beings were to lie, that is, had something in their inner being which in their revelation they would so transform that it would no longer coincide with it; they would then not be able to perceive it, for they can only perceive their inner nature. They would, under the impression of an untruth, immediately be stupefied, transferred into a state of consciousness which would be a darkening down, a lessening of their ordinary consciousness, which can only live in the revelation of their inner life. Thus we have above us a class of beings which must of their own nature live in the realm of absolute truth and sincerity. Every deviation from truth would render these beings less conscious. If they are to be observed by occult vision, the occultist must first of all find the right way in which he can meet them. I will try to describe how the occultist can find them.

The first inner experience which one who goes through an occult development must have, is the striving, in a certain sense, to subdue the inner life of ordinary normal consciousness. What we experience in our inner being we describe as our egoistic experience, as that which we wish to have from the world for ourselves alone, so to speak. The more the occultly developing student can bring himself to be passive with regard to what only concerns himself, the nearer he is to the entrance to the higher worlds. Let us take an obvious case. We all know that certain truths, certain things in the world, simply please or do not please us; that certain things affect us sympathetically, or antithetically. Such feelings with regard to the world which we only cherish for our own sake, must, by him who would develop himself occultly, be rooted out of his heart; he must, in a certain sense, be free from all that concerns only himself. This is a truth which is often emphasised, but which, in fact, is more difficult to observe than one usually thinks; for in normal consciousness man has extremely few footholds through which he can become free from himself, and overcome what concerns himself alone. Let us consider for a single moment what it actually means “to be free from oneself.” Probably to become free from what we call usually egoistic impulses is not so difficult; but we must remember that in the one incarnation in which we live, we are born at a certain time and at a certain place; that when we direct our gaze to what surrounds us, our eyes rest upon quite different things from those seen by a man, for instance, who lives in a different part of the world. There must be quite different things in his surroundings to interest him. Thus just because we are born as physically embodied human beings at a certain time and at a certain place, we are surrounded by all sorts of things which call forth our attention, our interest, which actually concern ourselves, and are different for other men. Because we, as men, are differently distributed over our planet, we are, in a certain sense, placed under the necessity of each having his separate interests, his special home upon the earth. In what we are able to learn from our direct environment we can never, therefore, in the highest sense, experience that which sets us free from our special human interests and attractions. Thus, because we are human beings in physical bodies, and in so far as we are such, we cannot possibly through our external perception, reach the portal which leads into a higher world. We must look away from all that our senses can see externally, all that our intellect can connect with the things of the external world, everything that belongs to our own special interests. But now, if we look at what we generally have in our inner being, our sorrows and joys, our worries and cares, our hopes and aims, we shall very soon become aware how dependent our inner world is on what we experience externally; and how, in a certain way, it is coloured by our experiences. Nevertheless, a certain difference exists.

We shall be willing to admit that each one of us carries his own world in his inner being. The fact that the one is born in one part of the earth at one time, and another in another at a different time does in a sense color our inner world; but we also experience something quite different besides, in regard to this inner world. It is certainly our special, in a sense, our differentiated inner world; it bears a certain coloring;—but we can also experience something quite different. If we go from the place where we are accustomed to be active through our senses, to a distant place, and there meet with a man who has had quite different experiences and perceptions from our own, we can nevertheless understand him, because he has passed through certain troubles which we similarly ourselves have passed through; because he can take pleasure, in a certain sense, in the things which please us. Many people have experienced that they may perhaps find it difficult to understand someone they encounter in a distant region or to agree with him about the external world to which they both belong, yet it may be easy to sympathize with one another concerning what the heart feels and longs for. Through our inner world, we human beings are much nearer one another than we are through the external world, and truly there would be little hope of carrying our spiritual science to the whole of humanity, were it not for the consciousness that in the inner being of every man, no matter to what part of the earth he may belong, lives something which can bring him into sympathy with us. Now, however, in order to arrive at something quite free from our own egoistic inner life, we must lay aside even that coloring of inner experience which is still influenced by the external world. That can only be when a man is able to experience something in his own inner being which does not in any way come from the external world; something which corresponds to what we may call inner suggestions, inspirations and which grows and thrives only within the soul itself. He can so transcend the special inner life that he feels something revealed in his inner being which is independent of his special egoistic existence. This is felt by men who assert again and again that over the whole earth-sphere there can be mutual understanding of certain moral ideals, or certain logical ideals which no man can doubt, and which can illuminate every man; for they are imparted to humanity, not by the external world, but by the inner world.

One province—it is, to be sure, but an arid, prosaic province—all men have in common as regards such inner manifestation. It is the province of numbers and their relation; in short, of mathematics, numbers and calculation. The fact that three times three makes nine we can never experience from the external world, it must be revealed to us through our inner being. Hence there is no possibility of disputing this in any part of the globe. Whether a thing is beautiful or ugly can be very greatly disputed all the world over; but if the fact has once been revealed to our inner being that three times three is nine, or that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, or that a triangle has 180 degrees as the sum of its angles, we know that it is so, because no external world can reveal this, only our own inner being. In dry, prosaic mathematics begins what we may call inspiration. Only as a rule, people do not notice that inspiration begins with dry mathematics, because most people take dry mathematics for something dreadfully tedious, and are therefore not very willing to let anything be revealed to them by this means. Fundamentally, however, the same thing applies to the inner revelation of moral truths. If we have recognized something as right, we say, “This is right and the contrary is wrong, and no external power of the physical plane can make us see that what is revealed to us as right, could be wrong in our inner being.” Moral truths also reveal themselves in the highest sense, through the inner being. If a man directs his spiritual gaze to this possibility of inner manifestation, with feeling and receptivity, he can educate himself in this way. Indeed education through mere mathematics is very good. For instance, if a man constantly devotes himself to the thought: “I may have my own opinion as to whether a thing is good to eat, but someone else may be of a different opinion. That depends upon the freewill of the individual, but mathematics and moral obligations do not depend on such freewill. I know of these that they may reveal something to me which, if I refuse to accept it as true, I prove myself unworthy of humanity.” This recognition of a revelation through the inner being, if accepted as feeling, as inner impulse, is a powerful educative force in the inner life of man, if he devotes himself to it in meditation. If he first of all says to himself, “In the sense-world there is much that can only be decided by freewill; but out of the spirit, things are revealed to me as to which my freewill has nothing to say, and which yet concern me and of which I, as a man, must prove myself worthy;”—if he allows this thought to become ever stronger and stronger, so that he feels overpowered by his own inner being, he grows beyond mere egoism, and a higher self, as we say, gains the upper hand; a higher self which recognises itself as one with the Spirit of the World conquers the ordinary arbitrary self. We must develop something of this sort as a mood if we wish to succeed in reaching the portal which leads into the spiritual worlds. For if we frequently devote ourselves to such moods as have just been described, they will prove fruitful. They prove especially fruitful if we bring them as concretely as possible into our thoughts and especially if we cherish and accept the thoughts which reveal themselves to us as true, and which nevertheless are in contradiction to the external sense-world. Such thoughts may at first be nothing but pictures, but such pictures can be extremely useful for man's occult development.

I will tell you of one such picture. I will show you by such a picture how a man can raise his soul above himself.

Take two glasses, in the one is water, in the other none. The glass with water should he only half-full. Suppose you observe these two glasses in the external world. Now if you pour some of the water from the half-filled into the empty glass, the latter will be partly filled, while the other then has less water in it. If a second time you pour water from the glass which was half-filled into the glass which was at first empty, the first glass will have still less water in it; in short, through the pouring-out there is always less and less water in the glass which was at first half-full of water. That is a true presentation as regards the external physical sense-world.

Now let us form a different conception. By way of experiment, let us form the contrary idea. Imagine yourself again pouring water from the half-filled glass into the empty one. Into this latter there comes water, but you must imagine that in the half-filled glass by means of this pouring out of water there is more instead of less, and that if you poured from it a second time, so that again something passed over into the previously empty glass, There would again be more and not less water left in the glass that was at first half-filled. As the result of the out-pouring, more and more water would be in the first glass. Imagine yourself picturing this idea. Of course everyone who at our present time counts himself among the thoroughly intelligent, would say. “Why, you are picturing an absolute delusion! You imagine that you are pouring out water, and that by so doing more water comes into the glass from which you are pouring!” Of course if one applies this idea to the physical world, then, naturally, it is an absurd idea; but—marvelous to relate—it can be applied to the spiritual world. It can be applied in a singular manner. Suppose a man has a loving heart, and out of this loving heart he performs a loving action to another who needs love. He gives something to that other person; but he does not on that account become emptier when he performs loving actions to another; he receives more, he becomes fuller, he has still more, and if he performs the loving action a second time he will again receive more. One does not become poor, nor empty, by giving love or doing loving actions, on the contrary, one becomes richer, one becomes fuller. One pours forth something into the other person, something which makes one fuller oneself. Now, if we apply our picture (which is impossible, absurd, for the ordinary physical world), if we apply our picture of the two glasses to the outpouring of love, it becomes applicable; we can then grasp it as an image, as a symbol of spiritual facts. Love is so complex a thing that no man should have the arrogance to attempt to define it, to fathom the nature of love. Love is complex; we perceive it, but no definition can express it. But a symbol, a simple symbol—a glass of water which, when it is poured out becomes ever fuller—gives us one quality of the workings of love. If we thus imagine the complexity of loving actions we really do nothing else than what the mathematician does in his dry science. Nowhere is there an actual circle, nowhere an actual triangle, we must only imagine them. If we draw a circle and examine it a little through a microscope, we see nothing but chalk or small specks; it can never have the regularity of a real circle. We must turn to our imagination, our inner life, if we wish to imagine the circle or the triangle or something of that kind. Thus, to imagine something like a spiritual act—such as love, for instance—we must grasp the symbol and hold fast to an attribute. Such pictures are useful for occult development. In them we perceive that we are raised above ordinary ideas, and that if we wish to ascend to the spirit, we must form ideas just the opposite of those applicable to the sense-world. Thus we find that the forming of such symbolical conceptions is a powerful means towards ascending to the spiritual world. You find this treated fully in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and How to Attain It. By this means a man succeeds in recognizing something like a world above him, a world which inspires him, one which he cannot perceive in the external world, but which penetrates him. If he devotes himself more and more to these conceptions, he finally recognizes that in him, in every man, lives some spiritual being higher than he himself, the human being with his egoism in this one incarnation. When we begin to recognizes that there is something above us ordinary human beings, that there is a being guiding us, we have the first form in the ranks of the beings of the Third Hierarchy, those beings we call Angels, or Angeloi. When a man goes out beyond himself in the manner described, he first experiences the working of an Angel-Being in his own being. If we now consider this being independently, so that it has the qualities which have been described as revelation, and spiritual enfilling: if we consider this being which inspires us, as an independent being, we rise to an idea of the beings of the Third Hierarchy, standing immediately above man. We may therefore describe these beings as those which lead, guide, and direct each individual human being.

In this way I have given you a slight description of the way in which man can raise himself to begin with to the first beings above him, so that he can gain an idea of them. Just as each individual, in this way, has his guide, and when we rise above ourselves, above our egoistic interests, occult vision draws our attention to this fact: “Thou hast thy Guide—” so it is now possible to direct our vision to groups of men, to races, and peoples. Such groups of men who belong together have also a guidance, just as individual man has his, in the manner described. These beings, however, who lead whole peoples or races, are even more powerful than the leaders of individual men. In western esotericism, these leaders of peoples or races, who live in the spiritual world, who have revelation as their perception, and spiritual enfilling as their inner life, and who find expression in the actions performed by whole peoples or whole races, are called Archangels or Archangeloi. When a man progresses further in occult development, not only may the Angel who specially leads him be revealed to him, but also the Archangel who leads the common group to which he belongs. And then when our occult development goes still further, we find beings as leaders of humanity who are no longer concerned with individual races and peoples, but are leaders in successive epochs. If the occultly-developed man studies, for instance, the period in which lived the ancient Egyptian or Chaldean, he will see that the whole stamp, the whole character of the period is under a definite leadership. If he then looks with occult vision upon what follows the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and directs it to the age in which Greece and Rome gave the tone to the western intellectual world, he will see that this leadership changes and that above the individual peoples, mightier than the Archangels who are leaders of the peoples, rule Spirits who direct whole groups of peoples connected with each other at a particular time, and that these beings are then relieved after a definite time by other Time-leaders. Just as the individual realms of the Archangeloi who guide contemporary but individual groups of men, are distributed in space, so do we find, if we allow our vision to sweep over passing time, that the different epochs are guided by their definite Spirits of the Age, more powerful than the Archangels and under whom many different peoples stand at the same time. This third category of the Third Hierarchy we call the Spirits of the Age, or Archai in the terminology of western esotericism.

All the beings belonging to these three classes of the Third Hierarchy have the attributes described to-day; they all have what has here been described as manifestation or revelation and being inwardly filled with the Spirit. Occult vision becomes aware of this when it is able to raise itself to these beings. Thus, we may say that when we observe what surrounds man in the spiritual world, and is, as it were, around man as his own individual leader; when we there observe what lives spiritually and rules invisibly, instigating us to impersonal actions and impersonal thinking and feeling, when we see this, we have there first of all the beings of the Third Hierarchy. Occult vision perceives these beings. To the occultist they are realities; but normal consciousness also lives under their, sovereignty, although it does not perceive the Angel, it is under his leadership, even though unconsciously. And so do groups of men stand under their Archangel, as the age and the men of the age stand under the leadership of the Spirit of the Age.

Now these beings of the Third Hierarchy described to-day are found in our nearest spiritual environment. If, however, we went back in the evolution of our planet to a definite point of time, about which we shall learn more in the following lectures, we should find more and more that these beings, who really only live in the process of man's culture are continually bringing forth other beings from themselves. Just as a plant puts forth seed, so do the beings of the Third Hierarchy, which I have just described, bring forth other beings. There is, however, a certain difference between what the plant brings forth as seed—if we may use this comparison—and the beings which separate themselves off from the beings of the Third Hierarchy. When the plant brings forth a seed, it is, in a sense, of as much value as the complete plant; for out of it can again arise a complete plant of the same species. These beings put forth others which are separated from them just as the seed from the plant, they have offspring, so to speak, but they are, in a sense, of a lower order than themselves. They have to be of a lower order because they have other tasks which they can only accomplish if they are of a lower order. The Angels, Archangels, and Spirits of the Age in our spiritual environment, have put forth from themselves certain beings, which descend from the environment of man into the kingdoms of nature; and occult vision teaches us that the beings we learnt about yesterday as the nature-spirits, are detached from the beings of the Third Hierarchy, of whom we have learnt to know to-day. They are offspring, and to them has been allotted other service than service to mankind, namely, service to nature. Indeed, certain offspring of the Archai are the beings we have learnt to know as the nature-spirits of the earth; those separated from the Archangels and sent down into nature, are the nature-spirits of water; and those detached from the Angels we have recognized as the nature-spirits of the air. With the nature-spirits of fire or heat we have still to become acquainted. Thus we see that in a sense, through a division of the beings which represent as the Third Hierarchy our union with the world immediately above us, certain beings are sent down into the kingdoms of the elements, into air, water, earth—into the gaseous, fluid, and solid—in order there to perform service, to work within the elements, and in a sense to function as the lower offspring of the Third Hierarchy—as nature-spirits.

The Mystery of Golgotha is the most difficult of all Mysteries to understand, even for those who have already reached an advanced stage of occult knowledge. And of all the truths within the range of the human mind it is the one that can most easily be misunderstood. This is because the Mystery of Golgotha was a unique event in the whole evolution of the earth; in the evolution of mankind on the earth it was a mighty impulse which had never before been given in the same way and will never be repeated in a similar form. The human mind always looks for a standard of comparison by means of which things can be understood, but what is incomparable defies all comparison and because it is unique will be very difficult to comprehend.

In the Anthroposophical Movement we have endeavoured to describe the Mystery of Golgotha from many different points of view, but new aspects and new features of this momentous event in the evolution of humanity may continually be presented.

One aspect will be presented today and attention directed particularly to what may in a certain sense be called the renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha in our own age.

The Mystery of Golgotha should not be regarded as an event quite separate from the evolution of humanity, as coming into consideration only during its duration of three or thirty-three years; we must remember that it occurred in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in the Greco-Latin civilisation-epoch, and remind ourselves that preparation was made for it during the whole period of the development of the ancient Hebrew people. What happened in humanity during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch was of the utmost importance in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha; so too was the worship of Jehovah which was practised among the ancient Hebrews. It is therefore essential to consider the nature of the Being who revealed himself in those times under the name of Jahve or Jehovah.

The man of the modern age brings his intellect to bear upon everything; he wants to comprehend things from the standpoint of the intellect. But the moment a man crosses the threshold leading from the world of the senses into the super-sensible worlds, at that moment the possibility of grasping reality by means of the intellect alone, ceases. The intellect can render good service on the earth, but directly a man enters the super-sensible worlds, although it can still be considered a useful instrument, it is no longer in itself a means of acquiring knowledge.

Intellect likes, above all, to make distinctions and requires definitions in order to understand things. Those of you who have often followed my lectures will have noticed the almost complete absence of definitions—because realities cannot be grasped by their means. There are, of course, good and bad definitions—some are comprehensive, others less satisfactory. In order to understand the things of the earth, definitions may be helpful; but when it is a matter of understanding realities—above all super-sensible realities—one cannot define, one must ‘characterise’; for then it is necessary to contemplate the facts and the beings from every possible vantage-point. Definitions are always one-sided and remind one who has studied logic of the old Greek School of Philosophy where endeavours were once made to define a man. The following definition was given: ‘A man is a two-legged creature without feathers.’ The next day someone brought in a plucked fowl and said: ‘This is a two-legged creature and has no feathers; it is therefore a man.’ We may often be reminded of this when definitions are demanded for something that is so many-sided and profoundly philosophical that definitions are inadequate and all that can be done is to characterise. In order to be able to distinguish the different beings in the super-sensible worlds, people would like above all to have definitions. They ask: ‘What exactly is this or that being?’ But the more deeply one penetrates into the super-sensible worlds, the more do the beings there merge into one another; there is no longer any demarcation and consequently it is very difficult to distinguish the one from the other.

Above all, the factor of evolution must not be left out of account when thinking of the name of Jahve or Jehovah, especially in connection with the name of Christ. Even in the New Testament you will find—and in my books I have often referred to it—that in Jehovah the Christ revealed Himself, to the extent that was possible in times before the Mystery of Golgotha.

If it is desired to make a comparison between Jehovah and Christ it is well to take sunlight and moonlight as an illustration. What is sunlight, what is moonlight? They are one and the same, and yet very different. Sunlight streams out from the sun but in moonlight is reflected back by the moon. In the same sense Christ and Jehovah are one and the same. Christ is like the sunlight, Jehovah is like the reflected Christ-light in so far as it could reveal itself to the earth under the name of Jehovah, before the Mystery of Golgotha had come to pass. When contemplating a Being as sublime as Jehovah-Christ we must seek in the very heights of the super-sensible world for His true significance. In reality it is presumption to approach such a Being with everyday concepts.

The ancient Hebrews endeavoured to find a way out of this difficulty. In spite of inadequacy, human thinking made efforts to form an idea of this sublime Being. Attention was not turned directly to Jehovah (a name that in itself was held to be inexpressible), but to the Being to whom our Western literature refers by the name of Michael. Naturally, a great deal of misunderstanding may arise from this statement, but that is unavoidable. One person may say, ‘This will evoke the prejudices of Christians’; another will have nothing to do with such matters. Nevertheless the Being whom we may call Michael, and who belongs to the Hierarchy of the Archangels—whatever name we may give him—this Being does exist. There are many Beings of the same hierarchical rank, but this particular Being who is known esoterically by the name of Michael is as superior to his companions as the Sun is to the planets—Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, and so on.

He—Michael—is the most eminent, the most significant Being in the Hierarchy of the Archangels. The ancients called him the ‘Countenance of God’. As a man reveals himself by his gestures and the expression of his countenance, so in ancient mythology Jehovah was understood through Michael.

Jehovah made himself known to the Hebrew Initiates in such a way that they realised something they had never, with their ordinary powers of comprehension, previously been able to grasp, namely, that Michael was verily the countenance of Jehovah. Hence the ancient Hebrews spoke of Jehovah-Michael: Jehovah the unapproachable, unattainable by man, just as a person's thoughts, his sorrows and cares, lie hidden behind his outward physiognomy. Michael was the outer manifestation of Jahve or Jehovah, just as in a human being the manifestation of his Ego is to be recognised in his brow and countenance.

We can therefore say that Jehovah revealed himself through Michael, one of the Archangels. Knowledge of the Being described above as Jahve was not confined to the ancient Hebrews, but was far more widespread. And if we investigate the last five hundred years before the Christian era, we find that throughout this whole period revelation was given through Michael. This revelation can be discovered in another form in Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, in Greek philosophy, even in the ancient Greek tragedies, during the five centuries before the event of Golgotha.

When with the help of occult knowledge we endeavour to shed light upon what actually took place, we can say that Christ-Jehovah is the Being who has accompanied mankind through the whole course of evolution. But during the successive epochs Christ-Jehovah always reveals Himself through different Beings of the same rank as Michael. He chooses a different countenance, as it were, to turn towards mankind. And according as one or the other Being from the Hierarchy of the Archangels is chosen to be the mediator between Christ-Jehovah and humanity, widely different ideas and conceptions, impulses of feeling, impulses of will, are revealed to men. The whole period which surrounded the Mystery of Golgotha can be described as the Age of Michael, and Michael may be regarded as the messenger of Jehovah.

During the period which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha by almost five hundred years and continued for several decades afterwards, the leading form of culture bore the stamp of Michael. Through his power he poured into mankind what was destined to be imparted at that time. And then came other Beings who equally were the Inspirers of mankind from the spiritual worlds—other Beings of the rank of the Archangels. As has been said, Michael was the greatest, the mightiest, among them. Therefore an Age of Michael is always the most significant, or one of the most significant, that can occur in the evolution of humanity. For the Ages of the different Archangels are repeated; and a fact of supreme importance is that every such Archangel gives to the Age its fundamental character. These Archangels are the leaders of the different nations and peoples, but because they become leaders of particular epochs, and because they were also leaders in bygone Ages, they have become in a certain sense also the leaders of mankind as a whole.¹

As regards Michael, a change has taken place; for Michael himself has attained a further stage of development. This is of great importance, for according to occult knowledge we have again, within the last few decades, entered an epoch inspired by the same Being who inspired the Age during which the Mystery of Golgotha took place. Since the end of the nineteenth century, Michael may again be regarded as the leader.

To understand this we must consider the Mystery of Golgotha from another point of view and ask ourselves: What, in this Mystery, is of chief importance? The fact of supreme importance is that the Being who bears the name of Christ passed through the Mystery of Golgotha and through the gate of death at that time. Never, throughout the evolution of the earth, could one speak of the Mystery of Golgotha without considering the fact that the Christ passed through death—that is the very core of the Mystery.

And now think of the laws of Nature. A great deal can be understood by studying them and in future time much more will be learnt, but we must be mere dreamers if we do not realise that the understanding of life as such is an ideal attainable only through actual development, never through the mere study of these laws. True, there are dreamers today who believe that through scientific knowledge a fundamental understanding of the principle of life will eventually be achieved, but this will never be the case. In the course of the earth's evolution many more laws will be discovered through the use of the senses, but the principle of life as such can never be revealed to the world in this way.

Hence life appears to us to be something which here on the earth is inaccessible to science, and just as life is inaccessible to human knowledge so is death to the true knowledge that is attained in the super-sensible worlds. In the super-sensible worlds there is no death—we can die only on the earth, in the physical world—and none of the Beings of an hierarchical rank higher than that of man have any knowledge of death; they know only different states of consciousness. Their consciousness can for a time be so diminished that it resembles our earthly condition of sleep, but it can wake out of this sleep. There is no death in the spiritual worlds, there is only change of consciousness; and the greatest fear by which man is possessed—the fear of death—cannot be felt by one who has risen into the super-sensible worlds after death. The moment he passes through the gates of death his condition is one of intense sensibility, but he can only exist in either a clear or a dimmed state of consciousness. That a human being in the super-sensible world could be dead would be inconceivable.

There is no death for any of the Beings belonging to the higher Hierarchies, with the one exception of Christ. But in order that a super-sensible Being such as Christ should be able to pass through death, He must first have descended to the earth. And the fact of immeasurable significance in the Mystery of Golgotha is that a Being who in the realm of His own will could never have experienced death, should have descended to the earth in order to undergo an experience connected inherently with man. Thereby that inner bond was created between earthly mankind and Christ, in that this Being passed through death in order to share this destiny with man. As I have already emphasised, that death was of the greatest possible importance, above all for the present evolutionary period of the earth. A Being of unique nature who until then was only cosmic, was united with the earth's evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, through Christ's death. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, He entered into the very process of the earth's evolution. This had not been the case before that event, for He then belonged to the cosmos alone; but through the Mystery of Golgotha, He descended out of the cosmos and was incorporated on earth. Since then, He lives on the earth, is united with the earth in such a way that He lives within the souls' of men and with them experiences life on the earth.

Thus the whole period before the Mystery of Golgotha was only a time of preparation in the evolution of the earth. The Mystery of Golgotha imparted to the earth its meaning and purpose.

When the Mystery of Golgotha took place the earthly body of Jesus of Nazareth was given over to the elements of the earth, and from that time onwards Christ has been united with the spiritual sphere of the earth and lives within it.

As already said, it is extremely difficult to characterise the Mystery of Golgotha because there is no standard with which it can be compared. Nevertheless we will endeavour to approach it from still another point of view.

For three years after the Baptism in the Jordan, Christ lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth as a man among men of the earth. This may be called the earthly manifestation of Christ in a physical, human body. How, then, does Christ manifest Himself since the time when, in the Mystery of Golgotha, He laid aside the physical body?

We must naturally think of the Christ Being as a stupendously lofty Being, but although He is so sublime, He was nevertheless able, during the three years after the Baptism, to express Himself in a human body. But in what form does He reveal Himself since that time? No longer in the physical body, for that was given over to the physical earth and is now part of it. To those who through the study of occult science have developed the power to see into these things, it will be revealed that this Being can be recognised in one belonging to the Hierarchy of the Angels. Just as the Saviour of the world manifested Himself during the three years after the Baptism in a human body—in spite of His sublimity—so, since that time, He manifests Himself directly as an Angel, as a spiritual Being belonging to the hierarchical rank immediately above that of mankind. As such, He could always be found by those who were clairvoyant, as such, He has always been united with evolution. Just as truly as Christ, when incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, was more than man, so is the Christ Being more than an Angel—that is His outer form only.

But the fact that a mighty, sublime Being descended from the spiritual worlds and dwelt for three years in a human body also includes the fact that during that time this Being Himself progressed a stage further in His development.

When such a Being takes on a human or an angelic form, He Himself progresses. And it is this that we have indicated in speaking of the evolution of Christ-Jehovah. Christ has reached the stage where He reveals Himself henceforth not as a human being, not through His reflection only, not through the name of Jehovah, but directly. And the great difference in all the teachings and all the wisdom that have streamed into the evolution of the earth since the Mystery of Golgotha, is that through the coming of Michael—the Spirit Michael—to the earth, through his inspiration, man could gradually begin to understand all that the Christ Impulse, all that the Mystery of Golgotha, signifies. But in that earlier time Michael was the messenger of Jehovah, the reflection of the light of Christ; he was not yet the messenger of Christ Himself.

Michael inspired mankind for several centuries, for almost five hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha, as was indicated in the old Mysteries, by Plato and so forth. Soon, however, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place and Christ had united Himself with the evolution of the earth, the direct impulse of Michael ceased. At the time when the old documents we possess in the form of the Gospels were written—as I have said in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact—Michael himself could no longer inspire mankind; but through his companions among the Archangels men were inspired in such a way that much soul-force was received unconsciously through inspiration.

The writers of the Gospel had no clear occult knowledge themselves, for the inspiration of Michael came to an end shortly after the Mystery of Golgotha. The other Archangels, the companions of Michael, could not inspire mankind in such a way as to make the Mystery of Golgotha comprehensible. This accounts for the divergent inspirations of the various Christian teachings. Much in these teachings was inspired by the companions of Michael; the teachings were not inspired by Michael himself but bear the same relation to his inspirations as do the planets to the mighty sun.

Only now, in our own age, is there again such an influence, a direct inspiration from Michael. Preparation for this direct inspiration from Michael has been going on since the sixteenth century. At that time it was the Archangel nearest to Michael who gave mankind the inspiration that has led to the great achievements of natural science in modern times. This natural science is not attributable to the inspiration of Michael but to that of one of his companions, Gabriel. The tendency of this scientific inspiration is to create a science, a world-picture that promotes understanding of the material world alone, and is connected with the physical brain.

Within the last few decades Michael has taken the place of this Inspirer of science, and in the next few centuries will give to the world something that in a spiritual sense will be equally important—indeed more important, because it is more spiritual—immeasurably more important than the physical science which has advanced from stage to stage since the sixteenth century. Just as his companion Archangel endowed the world with science, so will Michael in the future endow mankind with spiritual knowledge, of which we are now only at the very beginning. Just as Michael was sent as the messenger of Jehovah, as the reflection of Christ, five hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha in order to give that era its keynote, just as then he was still the messenger of Jehovah, so now, for our own epoch, Michael has become the messenger of Christ Himself. Just as in the times of the ancient Hebrews, times which were a direct preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha, the Initiates among the Hebrews could turn to Michael as the outer revelation of Jahve or Jehovah, so we now are able to turn to Michael—who from being the messenger of Jehovah has become the messenger of Christ—in order to receive from him during the next few centuries increasing spiritual revelations that will shed more and more light upon the Mystery of Golgotha. What happened two thousand years ago could only be made known to the world through the various Christian sects and its profundities can only be unveiled in the twentieth century when, instead of science, spiritual knowledge—our gift from Michael—will come into its own. This should fill our hearts with deep feelings for spiritual reality in our present time. We shall be able to realise that within the last few decades a door has opened through which understanding can come.

Michael can give us new spiritual light which may be regarded as a transformation of the light that was given through him at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha; and the men of our day can receive that light. If we can realise this we can grasp the significance of the new age that is now issuing from our own; we can be aware of the dawn of a spiritual revelation that is to come in the next few centuries into the life of humanity on the earth. Indeed, because men have become freer than in former times, we shall be able, through our own wills, to progress to the stage where this revelation may be received.

Reference shall now be made to the event in the higher worlds which has led to this altered state of affairs, to this time of a renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha. When we look back we remember what came to pass at the Baptism by John in the Jordan, when Christ revealed Himself in a human form, visible on the earth among mankind. Further, we will fill our souls with the thought of how, as regards His outer form, Christ then united Himself with the Hierarchy of the Angels and has since that time lived invisibly in the sphere of the earth.

Let us remember what has been said—that in the invisible worlds there is no death. Christ Himself, because He descended to our world, passed through a death similar to that of human beings. When He again became a spiritual Being, He still retained the remembrance of His death; but as a Being of the rank of the Angels in which He continued to manifest Himself outwardly, He could experience only a diminution of consciousness.

Through that which since the 16th century had become necessary for the evolution of the earth, namely the triumph of science at higher and higher levels, something which has significance also for the invisible worlds entered into the whole evolution of mankind. With the triumph of science, materialistic and agnostic sentiments of greater intensity than hitherto arose in mankind. In earlier times too there had been materialistic tendencies but not the intense materialism that has prevailed since the sixteenth century. More and more, as men passed into the spiritual worlds through the gate of death, they bore with them the outcome of their materialistic ideas on the earth. After the sixteenth century more and more seeds of earthly materialism were carried over, and these seeds developed in a particular way.

Christ came into the old Hebrew race and was led to His death within it. The angelic Being, who since then has been the outer form assumed by Christ, suffered an extinction of consciousness in the course of the intervening nineteen centuries as a result of the opposing materialistic forces that had been brought into the spiritual worlds by materialistic human souls who had passed through the gate of death. This onset of unconsciousness in the spiritual worlds will lead to the resurrection of the Christ-consciousness in the souls of men on earth between birth and death in the twentieth century. In a certain sense it may therefore be said that from the twentieth century onwards, what has been lost by mankind in the way of consciousness will arise again for clairvoyant vision. At first only a few, and then an ever-increasing number of human beings in the twentieth century will be capable of perceiving the manifestation of the Etheric Christ—that is to say, Christ in the form of an Angel. It was for the sake of humanity that there was what may be called an extinction of consciousness in the worlds immediately above our earthly world, in which Christ has been visible in the period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the present day.

At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha something took place in a little-known corner of Palestine, something that was the greatest event in the whole evolution of humanity, but of which little notice was taken by the people of that day. If such a thing could be, need we be astonished when we hear what conditions were like during the nineteenth century, when those who since the sixteenth century had passed through death, confronted Christ?

The ‘seeds of earthly materialism’ which were increasingly carried into the spiritual world by the souls who went through the portal of death since the sixteenth century, and which caused more and more darkness, built the ‘black sphere of materialism.’ Christ took this black sphere into being in the sense of the Manichean principle for the purpose of transforming it. For the angel being in which the Christ had manifested himself since the Mystery of Golgotha the black sphere caused a ‘death by suffocation.’ This sacrifice by Christ in the nineteenth century is comparable to the sacrifice on the physical plane through the Mystery of Golgotha and can be called the second crucifixion of Christ on the etheric plane. This spiritual death by suffocation, which brought about the extinction of the consciousness of the angelic Being is a repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha in those worlds that lie immediately behind our world. It took place to make possible a revival of the Christ consciousness which was earlier hidden in human souls on earth. The revival becomes clairvoyant vision of humanity in the twentieth century.

Thus the Christ-consciousness may be united with the earthly consciousness of men from our time on into the future; for the dying of the Christ-consciousness in the sphere of the Angels in the nineteenth century signifies the resurrection of the direct consciousness of Christ—that is to say, Christ's life will be felt in the souls of men more and more as a direct personal experience from the twentieth century onwards.

Just as the few who once were able to read the signs of the times and in contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha were able to realise that Christ had descended from the spiritual worlds to live on the earth and undergo death in order that through His death the substances incorporated into Him might pass into the earth, so are we able to perceive that in certain worlds lying immediately behind our own a sort of spiritual death, a suspension of consciousness, took place. This was a renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha, in order to bring about an awakening of the previously hidden Christ-consciousness within the souls of men on the earth.

Since the Mystery of Golgotha many human beings have been able to proclaim the Name of Christ, and from this twentieth century onwards an ever-increasing number will be able to make known the knowledge of the Christ that is given in Anthroposophy. Out of their own experience they will be able to proclaim Him.

Twice already Christ has been crucified: once physically, in the physical world at the beginning of our era, and a second time spiritually, in the nineteenth century, in the way described above. It could be said that mankind experienced the resurrection of His body in that former time and will experience the resurrection of His consciousness from the twentieth century onwards.

The brief indications I have been able to give you will gradually make their way into the souls of men, and the mediator, the messenger, will be Michael, who is now the ambassador of Christ. Just as he once led human souls towards an understanding of Christ's life descending from heaven to the earth, so he is now preparing mankind to experience emergence of the Christ-consciousness from the realm of the unknown into the realm of the known. And just as at the time of the earthly life of Christ the greater number of His contemporaries were incapable of believing what a stupendous event had taken place in the evolution of the earth, so, in our own day, the outer world is striving to increase the power of materialism, and will continue for a long time to regard what has been spoken of today as so much fantasy, dreaming, perhaps even downright folly. This too will be the verdict on the truth concerning Michael, who at the present time is beginning to reveal Christ anew. Nevertheless many human beings will recognize the new dawn that is rising and during the coming centuries will pour its forces into the souls of men like a sun—for Michael can always be likened to a sun. And even if many people fail to recognize this new Michael revelation, it will spread through humanity nevertheless.

That is what may be said today about the relation of the Mystery of Golgotha which took place at the beginning of our era and the Mystery of Golgotha as it can now be understood. From time to time other revelations will be given and for these our minds must be kept open. Should we not be aware that it would be selfish to keep these feelings exclusively for our own inner satisfaction? Let us rather feel that the solemn duty we have recognized through Anthroposophy is to make ourselves into willing instruments for such revelations; and although we are only a small community in mankind which is endeavoring to comprehend this new truth about the Mystery of Golgotha, to grasp this new revelation of Michael, we are nevertheless building up a new power that does not in the least depend upon our belief in this revelation but simply and solely upon the truth itself. Then we shall realize that only a few of us are adequately prepared to declare the following to the world, in so far as the world is willing to listen.

From now onwards there is a new revelation of Christ; we will be ready to acknowledge it; we will belong to the few who will help it to become more powerful, to become lasting; we will base ourselves upon the inner strength of such a revelation, so that it may spread among mankind, for this knowledge will gradually be shared by all.

This is what we call wisdom and some may call folly. To stand firm we need only remind ourselves that this is the time of the second Michael revelation, and remember what was said by one of the early Initiates at the time of the former Michael revelation: What often seems folly to man, is wisdom in the eyes of God.

Let us try to draw strength from feelings and spiritual knowledge which must in many respects seem folly to the outer world. Let us have the courage to realize that what appears to be folly to those who depend upon the senses for knowledge, to us may be wisdom, light, and clearer understanding of the super-sensible worlds towards which we will strive with all the power of our souls and of our conviction.

• 1. See Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies, Vol. III, Lecture VII: The New Age of Michael.

For we want to approach such a creation as the sublime Bhagavad Gita with full understanding it is necessary for us to attune our souls to it, so to say; bring them into that manner of thought and feeling that really lies at the basis of such a work. This is especially true for people who, through their situation and circumstances, are as far removed from this great poem as are the people of the West. It is natural for us to make a contemporary work our own without much difficulty. It is also natural that those who belong to a certain nation should always have an immediate feeling for a work that has sprung directly out of the substance of that nation, even though it might belong to a previous age. The population of the West (not those of southern Asia), however, is altogether remote in sentiment and feeling from the Bhagavad Gita.

If we would approach it then with understanding we must prepare ourselves for the very different mood of soul, the different spirit that pervades it. Such appalling misunderstandings can arise when people imagine they can approach this poem without first working on their own souls. A creation coming over to us from a strange race, from the ninth or tenth century before the foundation of Christianity, cannot be understood as directly by the people of the West as, say, the Kalevala by the Finnish people, or the Homeric poems by the Greeks. If we would enter into the matter further we must once more bring together different materials that can show us the way to enter into the spirit of this wonderful poem.

Here I would above all draw attention to one thing. The summits of spiritual life have at all times been concealed from the wide plain of human intelligence. So it has remained, in a certain sense, right up to our present age. It is true that one of the characteristics of our age, which is only now dawning and which we have somewhat described, will be that certain things hitherto kept secret and really known to but very few will be spread abroad into large circles. That is the reason why you are present here, because our movement is the beginning of this spreading abroad of facts that until now have remained secret from the masses. Perhaps some subconscious reason that brought you to the anthroposophical view of the world and into this spiritual movement came precisely from the feeling that certain secrets must today be poured out into all people. Until our time, however, these facts remained secret not because they were deliberately kept so, but because it lay in the natural course of man's development that they had to remain secret. It is said that the secrets of the old Mysteries were protected from the profane by certain definite, strictly observed rules. Far more than by rule, these secrets were protected by a fundamental characteristic of mankind in olden times, namely, that they simply could not have understood these secrets. This fact was a much more powerful protection than any external rule could be.

This has been, for certain facts, especially the case during the materialistic age. What I am about to say is extreme heresy from the point of view of our time. For example, there is nothing better protected in the regions of Central Europe than Fichte's philosophy. Not that it is kept secret, for his teachings are printed and are read. But they are not understood. They remain secrets. In this way much that will have to enter the general development of mankind will remain occult knowledge though it is published and revealed in the light of day.

Not only in this sense but in a rather different one too, there is a peculiarity of human evolution that is important concerning those ideas we must have in order to understand the Bhagavad Gita. Everything we may call the mood, the mode of feeling, the mental habit of ancient India from which the Gita sprang, was also in its full spirituality accessible to the understanding of only a few. What one age has produced by the activity of a few, remains secret in regard to its real depth, even afterward when it passes over and becomes the property of a whole people. Again, this is a peculiar trait in the evolution of man, which is full of wisdom though it may at first seem paradoxical. Even for the contemporaries of the Bhagavad Gita and for their followers, for the whole race to which this summit of spiritual achievement belongs, and for its posterity, its teaching remained a secret. The people who came later did not know the real depth of this spiritual current. It is true that in the centuries following there grew up a certain religious belief in its teachings, combined with great fervor of feeling, but with this there was no deepening of perception. Neither the contemporaries nor those who followed developed a really penetrating understanding of this poem. In the time between then and now there were only a few who really understood it.

Thus it comes about that in the judgment of posterity what was once present as a strong and special spiritual movement is greatly distorted and falsified. As a rule we cannot find the way to come near to an understanding of some reality by studying the judgments of the descendants of the race that produced it. So, in the deep sentiments and feelings of the people of India today we will not find real understanding for the spiritual tendency that in the deepest sense permeates the Bhagavad Gita. We will find enthusiasm, strong feeling and fervent belief in abundance, but not a deep perception of its meaning. This is especially true of the age just passed, from the fourteenth and fifteenth to the nineteenth century. As a matter of fact, it is most especially true for the people who confess that religion. There is one anecdote that like many others reveals a deep truth—how a great European thinker said on his deathbed, “Only one person understood me, and he misunderstood me.”

It can also be said of this age that has just run its course, that it contained some spiritual substance that represents a great height of achievement but in the widest circles has remained unknown as to its real nature, even to its contemporaries. Here is something to which I would like to draw your attention. Without doubt, among the present people of the East, and of India, some exceptionally clever people can be found. By the whole configuration of their mind and soul, however, they are already far from understanding those feelings poured out in the Bhagavad Gita. Consider how these people receive from Western civilization a way of thought that does not reach to the depths but is merely superficial understanding. This has a twofold result. For one, it is easy for the Eastern peoples, particularly for the descendants of the Bhagavad Gita people, to develop something that may easily make them feel how far behind a superficial Western culture is in relation to what has already been given by their great poem. In effect they still have more ways of approach to the meaning of that poem than to the deeper contents of Western spiritual and intellectual life. Then there are others in India who would gladly be ready to receive such spiritual substance as is contained, let us say, in the works of Solovieff, Hegel and Fichte, to mention a few of many spiritualized thinkers. Many Indian thinkers would like to make these ideas their own.

I once experienced something of this kind. At the beginning of our founding of the German Section in our movement an Indian thinker sent me a dissertation. He sent it to many other Europeans besides. In this he tried to combine what Indian philosophy can give, with important European concepts, such as might be gained in real truth—so he implied—if one entered deeply into Hegel and Fichte. In spite of the person's honest effort the whole essay was of no use whatever. I do not mean to say anything against it, rather I would praise his effort, but the fact is, what this man produced could only appear utter dilettantism to anyone who had access to the real concepts of Fichte and Hegel. There was nothing to be done with the whole thing.

Here we have a person who honestly endeavors to penetrate a later spiritual stream altogether different from his own point of view, but he cannot get through the hindrances that time and evolution put in his way. Nevertheless, when he attempts to penetrate them, untrue and impossible stuff is the result. Later I heard a lecture by another person, who does not know what European spiritual evolution really is, and what its depths contain. He lectured in support of the same Indian thinker. He was a European who had learned the arguments of the Indian thinker and was bringing them forward as spiritual wisdom before his followers. They too of course were ignorant of the fact that they were listening to something which rested on a wrong kind of intellectual basis. For one who could look keenly into what the European gave out, it was simply terrible. If you will forgive the expression, it was enough to give one the creeps. It was one misunderstanding grafted onto another misunderstanding. So difficult is it to comprehend all that the human soul can produce. We must make it our ideal to truly understand all the masterpieces of the human spirit. If we feel this ideal through and through and consider what has just been said, we shall gain a ray of light to show us how difficult of access the Bhagavad Gita really is. Also, we shall realize how untold misunderstandings are possible, and how harmful they can be.

We in the West can well understand how the people of the East can look up to the old creative spirits of earlier times, whose activity flows through the Vedantic philosophy and permeates the Sankhya philosophy with its deep meaning. We can understand how the Eastern man looks up with reverence to that climax of spiritual achievement that appears in Shankaracharya seven or eight centuries after the foundation of Christianity. All this we can realize, but we must think of it in another way also if we want to attain a really deep understanding. To do so we must set up something as a kind of hypothesis, for it has not yet been realized in evolution.

Let us imagine that those who were the creators of that sublime spirituality that permeates the Vedas, the Vedantic literature, and the philosophy of Shankaracharya, were to appear again in our time with the same spiritual faculty, the same keenness of perception they had when they were in the world in that ancient epoch. They would have come in touch with spiritual creations like those of Solovieff, Hegel, and Fichte. What would they have said? We are supposing it does not concern us what the adherents of those ancient philosophies say, but what those spirits themselves would say. I am aware that I am going to say something paradoxical, but we must think of what Schopenhauer once said. “There is no getting away from it, it is the sad fate of truth that it must always become paradoxical in the world. Truth is not able to sit on the throne of error, therefore it sits on the throne of time, and appeals to the guardian angel of time. So great, however, is the spread of that angel's mighty wings that the individual dies within a single beat.” So we must not shrink from the fact that truth must needs appear paradoxical. The following does also, but it is true.

If the poets of the Vedas, the founders of Sankhya philosophy, even Shankaracharya himself, had come again in the nineteenth century and had seen the creations of Solovieff, Hegel and Fichte, all those great men would have said, “What we were striving for back in that era, what we hoped our gift of spiritual vision would reveal to us, these three men have achieved by the very quality and tenor of their minds. We thought we must rise into heights of clairvoyant vision, then on these heights there would appear before us what permeates the souls of these nineteenth century men quite naturally, almost as a matter of course!”

This sounds paradoxical to those Western people who in childlike unconsciousness look to the people of the East, comparing themselves with them, and all the while quite misunderstanding what the West actually contains. A peculiarly grotesque picture. We imagine those founders of Indian philosophy looking up fervently to Fichte and other Western thinkers; and along with them we see a number of people today who do not value the spiritual substance of Europe but grovel in the dust before Shankaracharya and those before him while they themselves are not concerned with the achievements of such as Hegel, Fichte and Solovieff. Why is this so? Only by such an hypothesis can we understand all the facts history presents to us.

We shall understand this if we look up into those times from which the spiritual substance of the Bhagavad Gita flowed. Let us imagine the man of that period somewhat as follows. What appears to a person today in varied ways in his dream-consciousness—the pictorial imagination of dream-life—was in that ancient time the normal content of man's soul, his everyday consciousness. His was a dreamlike, picture consciousness, by no means the same as it was in the Old Moon epoch but much more evolved. This was the condition out of which men's souls were passing on in the descending line of evolution. Still earlier was what we call sleep-consciousness, a state wholly closed to us today, from which a kind of inspiration, dream-like, came to men. It was the state closed to us today during our sleep. As dream-consciousness is for us, so was this sleep-consciousness for those ancient men. It found its way into their normal picture-consciousness much as dream-consciousness does for us, but more rarely. In another respect also it was somewhat different in those times. Our dream-consciousness today generally brings up recollections of our ordinary life. Then, when sleep-consciousness could still penetrate the higher worlds, it gave men recollections of those spiritual worlds. Then gradually this consciousness descended lower and lower.

Anyone who at that time was striving as we do today in our occult education, aimed for something quite different. When we today go through our occult development we are aware that we have gone downhill to our everyday consciousness and are now striving upward. Those seekers were also striving upward, from their everyday dream-consciousness. What was it then that they attained? With all their pains it was something altogether different from what we are trying to attain. If someone had offered those men my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds they would have had no use for it at all. What it contains would have been foolishness for that ancient time; it has sense only for mankind today. Then, everything those men did with their Yoga and the Sankhya was a striving toward a height that we have reached in the most profound works of our time, in those of the three European thinkers I have mentioned. They were striving to grasp the world in ideas and concepts. Therefore, one who really penetrates the matter finds no difference—apart from differences of time, mood, form, and quality of feeling—between our three thinkers and the Vedantic philosophy. At that time the Vedantic philosophy was that to which men were striving upward; today it has come down and is accessible to everyday consciousness.

If we would describe the condition of our souls in this connection we may say to begin with that we have a sleep-consciousness that for us is closed but for the ancient people of India was still permeated by the light of spiritual vision. What we are now striving for lay hidden in the depths of the future for them. I mean what we call Imaginative Knowledge, fully conscious picture-consciousness, permeated by the sense of the ego; fully conscious Imagination as it is described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. So much for the technical point that should be inserted here. In these abstract technicalities lies something far more important, that if the man of today will only vigorously make use of the forces present in his soul, what the men of the Bhagavad Gita era strove for with all their might lies right at his hand. It really does, even if only for a Solovieff, a Fichte or a Hegel. There is something more. What today can be found right at hand was in those ancient times attained by application of all the keenness of vision of Sankhya, and the deep penetration of Yoga. It was attained by effort and pain, by sublime effort to lift the mind.

Now imagine how different the situation is for a man who, for example, lives at the top of a mountain, has his house there and is continually enjoying the magnificent view, from that of a man who has never once seen the view but has to toil upward with trouble and pain from the valley. If you have the view every day you get accustomed to it. It is not in the concepts, in their content, that the achievements of Shankaracharya, of the Vedic poets, and of their successors are different from those of Hegel and Fichte. The difference lies in the fact that Shankaracharya's predecessors were striving upward from the valley to the summit; that it was their keenness of mind in Sankhya philosophy, their deepening of soul in Yoga, that led them there. It was in this work, this overcoming of the soul, that the experience lay. It is the experience, not the content of thought that is important here.

This is the immensely significant thing, something from which we may in a certain sense derive comfort because the European does not value what we can find right at hand. Europeans prefer the form in which it meets them in Vedantic and Sankhya philosophies, because there, without knowing it, they value the great efforts that achieved it. That is the personal side of the matter. It makes a difference whether you find a certain content of thought here or there, or whether you attain it by the severest effort of the soul. It is the soul's work that gives a thing its life. This we must take into account. What was once attained alone by Shankaracharya and by the deep training of Yoga can be found today right at hand, even if only by men like those we have named.

This is not a matter for abstract commentaries. We only need the power to transplant ourselves into the living feelings of that time. Then we begin to understand that the external expressions themselves, the outer forms of the ideas, were experienced quite differently by the men of that era from the way we can experience them. We must study those forms of expression that belong to the feeling, the mood, the mental habit of a human soul in the time of the Gita, who might live through what that great poem contains. We must study it not in an external philological sense, not in order to give academic commentaries, but to show how different is the whole configuration of feeling and idea in that poem from what we have now. Although the conceptual explanation of the world—which today, to use a graphic term, lies below and then lay above—though the content of thought is the same, the form of expression is different. Whoever would stop with the abstract contents of these thoughts may find them easy to understand, but whoever would work his way through to the real, living experience will not find it easy. It will cost him some pains to go this way again and feel with the ancient man of India because it was by this way that such concepts first arose as those that flowed out into the words sattwa, rajas, tamas. I do not attach importance to the ideal concepts these words imply in the Bhagavad Gita, but indeed we today are inclined to take them much too easily, thinking we understand them.

What is it that actually lies in these words? Without a living sympathy with what was felt in them we cannot follow a single line of the poem with the right quality of feeling, particularly in its later sections. At a higher stage, our inability to feel our way into these concepts is something like trying to read a book in a language that is not understood. For such a person there would be no question of seeking out the meaning of concepts in commentaries. He would just set to work to learn the language. So here it is not a matter of interpreting and commenting on the words sattwa, rajas, tamas in an academic way. In them lies the feeling of the whole period of the Gita, something of immense significance because it led men to an understanding of the world and its phenomena. If we would describe the way they were led, we must first free ourselves from many things that are not to be found in such men as Solovieff, Hegel, and Fichte, yet lie in the widespread, fossilized thinking of the West. By sattwa, rajas, tamas is meant a certain kind of living one's way into the different conditions of universal life, in its most varied kingdoms. It would be abstract and wrong to interpret these words simply on the basis of the ancient Indian quality of thought and feeling. It is easier to take them in the true sense of the life of that time but to interpret them as much as possible through our own life. It is better to choose the external contour and coloring of these conceptions freely out of our own experience.

Let us consider the way man experiences nature when he enters intelligently into the three kingdoms that surround him. His mode and quality of knowledge is different in the case of each. I am not trying to make you understand sattwa, rajas and tamas exhaustively. I only want to help you to come a little nearer to an idea of their meaning. When man today approaches the mineral kingdom he feels he can penetrate it and its laws with his thinking, can in a certain sense live together with it. This kind of understanding at the time of the Gita would have been called a sattwa understanding of the mineral kingdom. In the plant kingdom we always encounter an obstacle, namely, that with our present intelligence we cannot penetrate life. The ideal now is to investigate and analyze nature from a physical-chemical standpoint, and to comprehend it in this manner. In fact, some scientists spin their threads of thought so far as to imagine they have come nearer to the idea of life by producing external forms that imitate as closely as possible the appearance of the generative process. This is idle fantasy. In his pursuit of knowledge man does not penetrate the plant kingdom as far as he does the mineral. All he can do is to observe plant life. Now what one can only observe, not enter with intellectual understanding, is rajas-understanding. When we come to the animal kingdom, its form of consciousness escapes our everyday intelligence far more than does the life of a plant. We do not perceive what the animal actually lives and experiences. What man with his science today can understand about the animal kingdom is a tamas-understanding.

We may add something further. We shall never reach an understanding beyond the limits of abstract concepts if we consider only the concepts of science regarding the activity of living beings. Sleep, for example, is not the same for man and animal. Simply to define sleep would be like defining a knife as the same thing whether used for shaving or cutting meat. If we would keep an open mind and approach the concepts of tamas, rajas and sattwa once more from a different aspect we can add something else taken from our present-day life.

Man today nourishes himself with various substances, animal, plant, and mineral. These foods of course have different effects on his constitution. When he eats plants he permeates himself with sattwa conditions. When he tries to understand them they are for him a rajas condition. Nourishment from the assimilation of mineral substance—salts and the like—represents a condition of rajas; that brought about by eating meat represents tamas. Notice that we cannot keep the same order of sequence as if we were starting from an abstract definition. We have to keep our concepts mobile. I have not told you this to inspire horror in those who feel bound to eating meat. In a moment I shall mention another matter where the connection is again different.

Let us imagine that a man is trying to assimilate the outer world, not through ordinary science but by that kind of clairvoyance that is legitimate for our age. Suppose that he now brings the facts and phenomena of the surrounding world into his clairvoyant consciousness. All this will call forth a certain condition in him, just as for ordinary understanding the three kingdoms of nature call forth conditions of sattwa, rajas and tamas. In effect what can enter the purest form of clairvoyant perception corresponding to purified clairvoyance, calls forth the condition of tamas. (I use the word “purified” not in the moral sense.) A man who would truly see spiritual facts objectively, with that clairvoyance that we can attain today, must by this activity bring about in himself the condition of tamas. Then when he returns into the ordinary world where he immediately forgets his clairvoyant knowledge, he feels that with his ordinary mode of knowledge he enters a new condition, a new relation to knowledge, namely, the sattwa condition. Thus, in our present age everyday knowledge is the sattwa condition. In the intermediate stage of belief, of faith that builds on authority, we are in the rajas condition.

Knowledge in the higher worlds brings about the condition of tamas in the souls of men. Knowledge in our everyday environment is the condition of sattwa; while faith, religious belief resting on authority, brings about the condition of rajas. So you see, those whose constitution compels them to eat meat need not be horrified because meat puts them in a condition of tamas because the same condition is brought about by purified clairvoyance. It is that condition of an external thing when by some natural process it is most detached from the spiritual. If we call the spirit “light” then the tamas condition is devoid of light. It is “darkness.” So long as our organism is permeated by the spirit in the normal way we are in the sattwa condition, that of our ordinary perception of the external world. When we are asleep we are in tamas. We have to bring about this condition in sleep in order that our spirit may leave our body and enter the higher spirituality around us. If we would reach the higher worlds—and the Evangelist already tells us what man's darkness is—our human nature must be in the condition of tamas. Since man is in the condition of sattwa, not of tamas, which is darkness, the words of the Evangelist, “The light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not,” can be rendered somewhat as follows, “The higher light penetrated as far as man, but he was filled by a natural sattwa that he would not give up.” Thus the higher light could not find entrance because it can only shine in darkness.

If we are seeking knowledge of such living concepts as sattwa, rajas, and tamas, we must get accustomed to not taking them in an absolute sense. They are always, so to say, turning this way and that. For a right concept of the world there is no absolute higher or lower, only in a relative sense. A European professor took objection to this. He translated sattwa as “goodness” and objected to another man who translated it as “light,” though he translated tamas as “darkness.” Such things truly express the source of all misunderstanding. When man is in the condition of tamas—whether by sleep or clairvoyant perception, to take only these two cases—then in effect he is in darkness as far as external man is concerned. So ancient Indian thought was right, yet it could not use a word like “light” in place of the word sattwa. Tamas may always be translated “darkness” but for the external world the sattwa condition could not always be simply interpreted as “light.”

Suppose we are describing light. It is entirely correct to call the light colors—red, orange, yellow—in the sense of Sankhya philosophy the sattwa colors. In this sense too green must be called a rajas color; blue, indigo, violet, tamas colors. One may say effects of light and of clairvoyance in general fall under the concept of sattwa. Under the same concept we must also place, for example, goodness, kindness, loving behavior by man. It is true that light falls under the concept of sattwa, but this concept is broader; light is not really identical with it. Therefore it is wrong to translate sattwa as “light” though it is quite possible to translate tamas as “darkness.” Nor is it correct to say that “light” does not convey the idea of sattwa.

The criticism that the professor made of a man who may have been well aware of this is also not quite justified, for the simple reason that if someone said, “Here is a lion,” nobody would attempt to correct him by saying, “No, here is a beast of prey.” Both are correct. This comparison hits the nail right on the head. As regards external appearance it is correct to associate sattwa with what is full of light, but it is wrong to say sattwa is only of light. It is a more general concept than light, just as beast of prey is more general than lion.

A similar thing is not true of darkness for the reason that in tamas things that in rajas and sattwa are different and specific merge into something more general. After all, a lamb and a lion are two very different creatures. If I would describe them as to their sattwa characters—the form that the natural element of life and force and spirit takes in lambs and lions—I would describe them very differently. But if I would describe them in the condition of tamas the differences do not come into consideration because we have the tamas condition when the lamb or lion is simply lying lazily on the ground. In the sattwa condition lambs and lions are very different, but for cosmic understanding the indolence of both is after all one and the same.

Our power of truly looking into such concepts must therefore adapt to much differentiation. As a matter of fact, these three concepts with the qualities of feeling in them are among the most illuminating things in the whole of Sankhya. In all that Krishna puts before Arjuna, when he presents himself as the founder of the age of self-consciousness, he has to speak in words altogether permeated by those shades of feeling derived from the concepts sattwa, rajas, and tamas. About these three concepts, and what at length leads to a climax in the Bhagavad Gita, we shall speak more fully in the last lecture of this course.

The manifold studies which we have recently pursued have shown that all true Art eventually issues from the secrets of Initiation. We have frequently spoken of this fact, and we have indicated many examples. Great epochs of Art, when artistic deeds raying far and wide over humanity have taken place, derive their sources again and again from Initiation. This shows how Art brings spiritual life into the physical. Initiation opens out to man the possibility to advance from the physical plane into the spiritual worlds. That which can then be experienced, more or less consciously in spiritual worlds, true Art carries down into the physical forms wherein it finds expression.

But the inner connection of the facts to which we are here referring, cannot be fully penetrated unless we also bear in mind that the last few centuries of evolution have in reality eclipsed—made imperceptible to the vast majority of men—things that were not by any means a secret to the same extent, five, six or seven centuries ago, as they are today for those who call themselves civilised mankind.

To point to one significant example, we may choose a work of art which does indeed ray out over the ages—the Divine Comedy of Dante.

No one who lets the Divine Comedy work upon his soul will fail to perceive the spiritual note that pervades what Dante has here expressed. Nowadays, if it be a question of studying how Dante arrived at the magnificent pictures of his poem, people will readily be inclined to use the word fancy or imagination. Dante, they say, was filled with artistic imagination. They are content to leave it at that. Needless to say, I shall not deny that artistic imagination was at work in Dante. But even in the light of outer history it would be wrong to suppose that he created the whole of his magnificent poem, as it were out of the void, out of mere fancy.

Dante had a friend and teacher Brunetto Latini, who, as I think you will recognise from what we shall presently say, may be described as an Initiate in the true sense of the word. It is this connection between Dante and a man who was initiated according to the conditions of his time, which we, in the light of our ideas, must fundamentally point out.

One thing at any rate was known to that time. They knew that man, to reach the secrets of existence, must take the path that leads through his own re-birth. This above all was fully and absolutely living in that time: the recognition that the path to knowledge of the world must necessarily lead through self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, however, must not be thought of in the superficial sense in which people often speak of it today. Who does not think himself able to know about himself? By way of introduction, let me bring home to you with an example, how difficult self-knowledge is even in the most elementary matters. How little a man is inclined to set out for what can truly be called self-knowledge!

I have here a book by a famous philosopher of today—Dr. Ernst Mach, who has written a number of works highly characteristic of the present time. At the very beginning of his book on the Analysis of Sensations, dealing with the connections of the physical and the psychical, the following remark occurs: ‘As a young man,’ he writes, ‘I was once going along the street when I saw a face which was highly distasteful to me. How astonished I was when I observed that it was my own face which I had seen by the chance combination of two mirrors in a shop-window!’

Thus, as he went along the street, his karma led him past a shop where two mirrors were so inclined that he could see himself. He saw the face, highly distasteful to him, and then discovered that it was his own. We see that even with respect to this most outer aspect, it is not quite easy for us to acquire the most elementary self-knowledge. But Mach makes another remark as well. He becomes a University professor; so he has some idea of the appearance of a scholar or a pedant.

‘Not long ago,’ he writes, ‘tired after a long railway journey, I got into an omnibus. Simultaneously another man entered from the opposite side. What a wretched-looking pedant, I said to myself, and presently discovered that I had only seen myself, for a looking-glass was hanging opposite the entrance.’ ‘Thus,’ he continues by way of explanation, ‘the class-type was far more familiar to me than my own special type.’ He had formed an idea in his mind of the typical pedant. He knew that the man, getting in opposite, looked rather like an out-of-work schoolmaster. Not until afterwards did he discover that it was himself. A pretty example of the often very deficient self-knowledge of men, even as regards their outer form. As to the knowledge of the soul, it is a great deal more difficult. Nevertheless, personal and individual self-knowledge is none other than the first elementary beginning of the path which leads through man into the universal secrets of existence.

When we regard the world externally, here in the physical world we have before us only that which belongs to the outermost nature of man—to the system of his physical body. Look out over the widespread environment which we can see on the physical horizon of this world; there we have everything that is related to our own outer body—the physical human body. We know that this is only a portion of our total being. Behind it is the etheric body; but man in the first place is unaware of all that in his environment which resembles his etheric body. Still less does he surmise that which resembles his astral body and his Ego.

Man, to begin with, on the Earth, is for himself the only example—the only document he has brought over from the spiritual world. Therefore he must pass through this, the document of his own being. He must go through himself. This was always known to those who experienced anything of Initiation. Thus it was known to Brunetto Latini, teacher and friend of Dante. Moreover, it is characteristic how Brunetto Latini's Initiation, as we may call it, was eventually brought about. It happened by a particular event. That is what frequently occurs. Fundamentally speaking, every one who sets his foot on the path of spiritual science is waiting for the portal of the spiritual world to be opened to him sooner or later, as indeed it will be. It may be—indeed it often is so—that the entry to the spiritual world takes place by degrees. Then we grow slowly into the spiritual world. Nevertheless, very, very frequently it happens that the world is opened to us as by a kind of shock which breaks in upon our life—by a sudden and unexpected event.

Thus, as Brunetto Latini himself relates, he had been sent as ambassador to the ruler of Castile. On his way back he learned that his party, the Guelphs, had been expelled from Florence. Florence had utterly changed during his absence. This message brought him into confusion. Such confusion of our state of soul which is suited to the outer physical world, often goes hand-in-hand with what becomes the starting-point for an entry into the spiritual world.

Brunetto Latini goes on to relate how as a result of his confusion, instead of riding home, he rode into a neighbouring forest, quite unaware of what he was doing (or so at any rate he afterwards believed when he looked back on it). Then, when he came to himself, he had a strange and unwanted impression. He saw no longer the ordinary world of the physical plane around him, but something that looked like an immense mountain. He did not come to himself again in that consciousness which normally confronts the physical world. He came to consciousness over against quite another world than that which was physically there around him. There was an immense mountain; but these things were such that they came and went—came into being and passed away again. There at the side of the mountain stood a woman, according to whose commands that which arose, arose, and that which passed away, passed away again.

Brunetto Latini now beheld the laws and principles of Nature's working in the forms of Imagination. All Nature's laws—the living and creative essence of Nature herself—came before him in an Imagination, in the figure of a woman who gave her orders for all these things to arise and pass away again.

We must imagine ourselves living in the time of the thirteenth, fourteenth century, when the natural scientific way of thought was slowly entering. In later times, men spoke abstractly of the Laws of Nature; they would on no account imagine that there was any reality of being behind the totality of Nature's laws. Brunetto Latini, however, saw it in the form of Imagination, as a woman, out of whose spirit proceeded all that was subsequently felt as abstract Laws of Nature, like a Word that held sway throughout this Nature, which stood before him in living Imagination.

This woman, he relates, then bade him deepen the forces of his soul; so would he enter more and more deeply into himself. Here it is interesting. Raying out over him her forces, as it were, she gives him the possibility to enter more and more deeply into himself. He dives down into his own being, and the sequence he now indicates is indeed, under certain conditions, the true sequence of Initiation.

The first thing, he tells us, which he now learned to know were the forces of the soul. Diving down into himself, man does indeed learn to know what otherwise remains unconscious in him—the forces of his soul. This recognition of his own soul-forces is a thing from which man will often flee, when he draws near to it. For when we perceive the forces of the soul, it often seems to us that we say to ourselves: ‘What an unsympathetic soul that is!’ We do not like this feeling, any more than the worthy professor did when he saw his own form, which was distasteful to him. We do not want to see. For with the chorus of the soul's forces we often see many a thing we have within us, which we by no means attribute to ourselves in ordinary life. We see it as something that is at work in the totality of our own being—enhancing our being, or making it smaller; making us of greater or lesser value for the Universe.

Thus, to begin with, we rise into the soul-forces. At the next stage, we experience the four temperaments. There it becomes clear to us how we are woven together, of the choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic, and how this weaving together lies deeper down than the soul-forces.

Then, when we have gone through the temperaments, we come to what may be called the five senses—in the occult sense. For in the way man ordinarily speaks of the five senses, he only knows them from outside. You cannot learn to know the senses inwardly till you have descended through the temperaments into the deeper regions of your own self. Then you behold the eyes, the ears, the other senses from within. You experience your own eyes, for instance, or your ears—filling them from within. You must imagine it thus. Just as you came into this hall through this door, and perceived the objects and persons that were already here, so when you undergo this descent into yourself you come into the region of your eyes or your ears. There you perceive how the forces are working from within outward, to bring about your seeing and your hearing. You perceive an altogether complicated world, of which a man who only knows the outer physical plane has no idea at all.

Some, no doubt, will say: ‘Maybe, but this world of the eyes and the ears will not impress me greatly. The world of the physical plane which I have around me here is great, and the world of the eyes and ears is very small. I should be gazing into a minute world.’

That, however, is maya. What you envisage when you are within your ears or within your eyes is far greater, fuller in content, than the outer physical world. You have a far more abundant world around you there.

Then and then only, when you have gone through this region, you come into the realm of the four elements. We have already spoken of all the properties of the several elements; but it is only at this stage that you feel really within them—within the earthy, the watery, the airy, and the element of warmth.

Man ordinarily knows his senses from without. Here now he learns to know them from within. Consciously entering into the eye from within, he then breaks through the eye, and breaking through the eye comes into the four elements. But he can likewise break through the ear, or the sense of taste.

By these four elements he is perpetually surrounded, only he does not know what they are inwardly. He cannot see it with outer organs of sense. He must first get out of the sense-organs—albeit, get out of them from within. He must leave them again, as though by a gateway. He must get out, through his eye or his ear. So he slips through—through the eye, through the ear—and comes into the region of the elements. And in the region of the elements he learns to know all the spiritual beings who are living there—the manifold Nature-spirits, and Beings who belong to the Hierarchies nearest to man.

Then, going on and on, he comes into the region of the seven Planets. He is already farther outside, and learns to know what is creatively connected with man, in the great Universe. And then at last he has to cross Oceanos—the great Ocean, as it has always been called.

The Soul-forces
the four Temperaments
the five Senses
the four Elements
the seven Planets
the Ocean.

What does this passing through the ocean signify? Man can approach the planets while with the last portion of his soul's being he still remains within the physical. But when he thus goes inward through the gates of the senses, eventually he must take with him the very last relics of his soul, so that he may consciously enter the condition in which he is normally only in sleep. Ordinarily, when he is with the planets, he still remains in the body with a portion, as it were, with a fragment of his soul. But when he draws even this last out of the body, it seems to him as though he were floating through the universal ocean of spiritual being.

All this, Brunetto Latini undergoes. He tells how he undertook one after another of these steps, at the behest of the woman who appeared to him in his Imaginative cognition. Then she instructed him that he must go still farther. This, however, was at a particular moment, which again is highly characteristic.

Think of the situation. Perplexed, at a loss on account of what has happened in his paternal city, he rides into a forest. He comes to himself again, but this awakening leads him not into the physical world. It leads him through all the regions which we have here described. Then, however, the moment arises when, not by accident, not by mere chance, but by the definite summons of this woman he sees himself in the forest once more. Having undergone all these things, having passed through the soul-forces and the temperaments and through the senses outward into the elemental world, where he already perceived abundant spiritual life; having perceived the seven planets, and through them the higher Hierarchies, circle on circle; having felt himself at length not on the solid ground but swimming as it were, swimming through the great ocean; now he awakens again in the physical world.

That is the very significant thing we recognise in all these Initiations. The disciple passes through a complete cycle and returns again into the physical world.

Having lived through all this, Brunetto Latini feels himself once more in his forest. Now he is really surrounded by all that is physically about him. And anon the woman is there again at his side, albeit he now has the physical forest around him. She tells him to ride on towards the right, and she gives him instruction, how he shall come to Philosophy and to the four Virtues of man, and to the knowledge of the God of Love.

Mark what a significant truth lies behind these things! A man of today will be quick enough with his reply: Philosophy—with that I am familiar! I have studied the whole history of philosophy. I know what philosophy is, and what it teaches. As to the four Virtues—Plato already named them: Wisdom, Courage, Balance or Moderation, and Justice. And the God of Love, who does not know of Him! You need only read the four Gospels. The man of today is familiar with all these things. But it is precisely the characteristic of spiritual knowledge: we begin to see that we do not really know all these things. We must first go through the understanding of the spiritual world and then return to what the physical provides. Then only do we understand the physical world.

If Brunetto Latini were to arise again today and a very learned man of our time were to approach him—a learned professor of philosophy, a famous man, let us assume—and were to say: ‘I am familiar with the whole range of philosophy,’ Brunetto Latini would answer: ‘Yes, yes, no doubt you are, but in reality you know nothing of it. You must first learn to know the aspect of the super-sensible worlds, you must know what things are like in the super-sensible. Then you can come back again to philosophy, and it will be something quite new to you. Then only will you begin to divine what you now imagine that you know quite well.’

The same thing may be put in another way. After all, who would not think it absurd! ... A famous thinker of our time writes a philosophic book. Surely then he must understand it. How should he not understand what he himself has written? ... And yet, it is literally true: he may have written the book and may yet understand nothing of what he has written. It is not at all difficult nowadays to write a book. Books almost write themselves. One pieces together the things one has learned to repeat. One need not penetrate into the deeper meaning to do so.

That is the greatness that meets us in Brunetto Latini. What others learn to know by external study—he only will claim to know it after having penetrated through the spiritual world. Then he meets it again. He meets again what others imagine that they know of the physical world—the knowledge of Philosophy, of the four Virtues, and of the God of Love.

I should like my meaning at this point to be quite fully understood. No doubt a certain kind of knowledge is also attainable without spiritual cognition. But these things appear in a new light when one has first made oneself familiar with that which lies behind the physical. So do we see it in this example of Brunetto Latini, whom I have only cited to show how outer artistic creation is concerned with Initiation. We see it in this example, in the relation of Brunetto Latini to Dante, revealing how Dante's great work of art is connected with Initiation.

Dante could never have reached his peculiar relation to the spiritual world if he had not had Brunetto Latini for his friend and teacher, to educate him into the spiritual world.

Every age has its own way of seeking the spiritual world. Already in the centuries preceding Dante's age, we find again and again with the most varied Initiates the woman of whom Brunetto Latini speaks—the guidance of man into the spiritual world by this woman. This line of evolution reaches back to the seventh and eighth centuries. Some of them actually refer to her as Natura—the living, creative Being of Nature. Initiates of old describe her living and creative Nature—as the counsellor of nous, of the Intelligence that works creatively throughout the world, Intelligence or Reason that permeates the world. Moreover, they call her a kinswoman of Urania. Out in the Cosmos, nous is counselled by Urania; here in this earthly realm, by Natura.

When we see clearly through this, we are led into still more ancient times, when the Initiates tried in another way to come near to certain secrets of existence. We find the same woman again in Proserpine—Persephone who weaves the garment for her mother Demeter. Thus do the Imaginations change in the course of centuries, showing, however, that the secrets of Initiation are always working in the progressive stream of human evolution.

To come thoroughly near to these things, it is also necessary for us to permeate ourselves with the living feeling, that in all that happens in the world, not only those forces and beings are at work which outer senses and intellect can perceive, but that the spiritual is working everywhere. We must take this into our reckoning. What man today describes—and for some time past has described as spiritual or intellectual development, is the development of forces that are bound to the physical body. This condition has developed gradually. We know that there was in ancient times the normal condition of clairvoyance. This gradually ebbed away and died down, and what we call spiritual today is altogether bound to the physical man. It is true that with the Mystery of Golgotha something great and mighty entered the evolution of humanity—so great that it will only be able to be understood in its fullness in the course of time. What man had hitherto was a kind of tradition. With the last relics of atavistic clairvoyant power, the writers of the Gospels wrote down what had happened. That, as I say, was a last exertion of the old powers. Now we are once more beginning, with a newly awakened, newly discovered power of clairvoyance, to understand the first truths of the Mystery of Golgotha. We must realise that coming ages will penetrate more and more deeply into these secrets of the Mystery of Golgotha. We are only at the beginning, but we are indeed beginning.

The impulse, however, of the Mystery of Golgotha has been working ever since the moment when the life of Christ passed through the Earth. Had the Christ-Impulse only been able to work through that which men were capable of understanding, they would only have had very little of Christ in the past centuries.

I have often given two examples—and I might give many more—to show how the Christ works in the human soul, in that which passes through mankind's historic evolution, but of which men know nothing. Truly, what the Emperor Constantine knew of the Christ-Impulse when he himself, being converted, made Christianity the State religion, was very little. But the whole arrangement which came about by his victory—the victory of Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, over Maxentius—was such that we see the Mystery of Golgotha at work on every hand. The Sibylline Books were consulted by Maxentius. I mentioned it in the Leipzig Lecture-Cycle a year ago. They told him how he should act, over against the advancing army of Constantine. Moreover, he had a dream. In obedience to his dream and to the Sibylline Books, he, with an army many times stronger, went forth from the city to meet Constantine—a grave error, according to all the rules of war.

Constantine also dreamed. He dreamed that he would be victorious if he let the symbol of the Cross of Christ be carried before his army, and he did so.

Not through all human wisdom of which one could partake at that time, but by dreams, all these things were decided. Something was working through these dreams which could not be understood or received into consciousness. None the less, it was the living impulse of Christ. Truly, these men could not understand what was working in them—livingly, actively carrying forward the evolution of the world, determining for that time the face of the European Continent.

Again we find an epoch when we observe men—not only with reason and intellect but with their faculty of feeling—wrangling with one another about all manner of dogmatic questions. These dogmas seem very strange to the ‘enlightened’ people of today. The question, for instance, whether it is right to receive the Holy Communion in one or in two forms, and the like ... Yet we know what an important part these conflicts played, for they subsequently worked themselves out in the Hussite movement, in Wycliffe and in others. There were all these conflicts, showing how little the intellect of man could reach to what the Christ-Impulse was in its reality. Where, then, did the Christ-Impulse really appear, in an important historic moment? This, too, I have often indicated. In a peculiar kind of vision, the Christ-Impulse manifested itself in a shepherd maid—the Maid of Orleans. We must know what this signifies. It represents a kind of helping hand, held out by the super-sensible, the spiritual forces that worked into the feeling of man at a time when they could not yet work into human concepts. In Joan of Arc it is particularly interesting to see how this happened. Her inner being was opened, as it were. But it was not that part of her inner life which was bound to the physical body. It was the perception of her ethereal and astral being that was spiritually opened, so much so that we find in her case a true analogy to the events of Initiation.

Recently, you will remember, at an appropriate season we spoke of the story of Olaf Asteson, who slept through the days after Christmas and did not reawaken until the day of the Three Kings, the 6th of January. In this connection we remarked, that in the season when the outer physical rays of the Sun have the least power, the spiritual power enveloping the Earth is greatest. Therefore the Christmas Festival is rightly placed in the season when the darkness is physically greatest. Then it is that illumination comes over the soul that is capable of illumination. Therefore, the legend tells, it was just in this season that Olaf Asteson attuned his inner life of soul, so that it was taken hold of by those forces which as spiritual light pass from the Sun into the aura of the Earth, at the time when the outer forces of the Sun are weakest. Until the 6th of January he really underwent an entry into the spiritual world.

The soul of the Maid of Orleans had to be kindled for a great historic mission. There had to be present in her soul the impulses that surge and weave their way throughout the world with the Christ-Impulse. They had to be there in her soul. How should they enter her? They could indeed have entered her, if at some time in her life she had undergone an experience similar to that of Olaf Asteson; if she had slept for the thirteen days after Christmas and had awakened on the 6th of January. And so indeed it was. Though she did not do so in the way of Olaf Asteson, still in a certain sense she underwent in sleep this time which is so favourable to Initiation. She underwent it in the last thirteen days of her embryonal life. She was borne by her mother, so as to pass through the Christmas season in the body of her mother in the last thirteen days of her embryo life. For she was born on the 6th January. That is the birthday of Joan of Arc. Thus she passed through the very time in which the spiritual forces weave and work most strongly in the Earth's aura.

Therefore we need not wonder, if even outer documents relate that on that 6 January 1412, the villagers ran hither and thither, feeling that something momentous had happened,—though what it was that happened on that 6th of January they did not know until a later time, when the Maid of Orleans fulfilled her mission. For one who penetrates into the spiritual facts, it is of great significance to find it recorded in our calendar of births that Joan of Arc was born on the 6th January.

Thus, even in such facts as shine out far and wide in history, we see how necessary it is to pass through an understanding of the spiritual and thence to return to earthly affairs, for it is only then that we can fully understand the latter.

I have put this before you once more in order to show how old and dry and arid has become what is commonly known as the spiritual and intellectual culture of our time. He who can understand anything of the deeper impulses flowing through the evolution of the world and humanity, will realise that we must now be approaching a renewal, wherein we ourselves must play an active part through our understanding of and longing for the spiritual world. The more intensely we realise that a renewal is necessary, the better shall we find the possibility to co-operate.

With pale and petty changes and reforms of the old, we cannot serve this future. Radically we must renew the spiritual life of humanity. Great as is the difference between ‘spiritual science’ in our sense of the word, and that which is taught about the spiritual life in wide circles in the outer world—equally great will be the difference between the civilisation of the future and that of today. And if the people of today find it so easy to judge the pursuits of spiritual science fantastic, foolish and absurd, it only means that they describe as foolishness and as absurdity all that will dominate the spiritual culture of the future.

Yet, in precisely such a time, a rebirth of the life of the human soul must take place. All branches of human life must find their way into the impulses of this renewal, this rebirth. And among other things, all the artistic life must come near again to Initiation. These are the real reasons why we with our Goetheanum had to make the attempt to create a beginning—I have often emphasised that it is only a beginning—which, with all its imperfections, is nevertheless related in all detail to what the science of Initiation has to say for our time.

The results of spiritual science must come to life in our souls. As a living and vital result they must find expression in the outer form. By this alone can that which is arising in our Goetheanum have its corresponding value. Then it will indeed have its value—not as anything complete, but as a new beginning. Would that there were an intensive consciousness in our circle of the intimate relation that exists between the spiritual science which we have been seeking to acquire for all these years, and that which our Building contains in every line, in every feature. If we ourselves are once filled with this recognition, then we shall be able to say to the world through our Goetheanum what must needs be said. Then we shall look with satisfaction into that future which will be destined to create, out of the primitive beginnings of this Building, something increasingly complete and perfect, it is true, yet in the same style and character.