The Rudolf Steiner Archive

If, as I have have proposed, we are to continue our study of certain matters relating to St. Mark's Gospel, we shall have to give a very wide interpretation to this aim; and it may be only after a considerable time that we shall see where a particular line of study belongs. To-day we shall speak of matters which, although they may seem to be remote from the main theme, will be of great help later on.

In the first place I want to emphasise that those who are not actually Members of our Movement, as long as they have not to some extent familiarised themselves with the real trend of spiritual-scientific thought, will always fail to understand what meaning and value any investigation based upon clairvoyance can have for people who as yet have no such faculties. It may well be asked: How can any belief in or conviction of spiritual truths come to those who cannot see into the spiritual worlds? Here we must keep on repeating that although it is not possible to see into the spiritual worlds as long as the eyes of clairvoyance are unopened, nevertheless the effects and manifestations of what is within those worlds are continually in evidence. For instance, when it is stated on the basis of clairvoyant investigation that man consists of four members—physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego—someone to whom clairvoyant investigation means nothing, might say: I see only the physical body; how can I convince myself that what is said about the etheric and astral bodies is true before my karmas makes it possible for me actually to see them? Now it is easy enough, if you so wish, to deny the existence of the astral body and etheric body; but the consequences of processes taking place in those bodies cannot be argued away because they are quite apparent in life. And in order that you may gradually come to understand that the structure of man's being and constitution is taken for granted in many expressions used in the Gospels, I want to-day to show you how the consequences of processes in the etheric or the astral body, for example, are clearly evident in everyday life on the physical plane.

Let us first of all consider the difference between a man who is full of idealism, who sets himself high ideals, and one who, generally speaking, lacks any such inclination, who acts only in response to external stimuli, eating when he is hungry, sleeping when he is drowsy and allowing instinct or desire or passion to drive him to whatever action he may take. Naturally there are any number of intermediate stages between the two types of men—those of the kind last described and those others whose purposes, thoughts and ideals infinitely transcend anything they are able to achieve in everyday life. Idealists such as this are in a peculiar position. They have to learn and to accept as a fact that in life on the physical plane our actions can never wholly conform with our highest ideals. An idealist always has to accept the fact that actions must inevitably fall short of his ideals. Strictly speaking, then, it must be admitted that in ideals there is always something loftier than actual deeds. From the standpoint of Spiritual Science the mark of the idealist is that his thoughts are loftier than his deeds.

Of the other type of individual the opposite can be said, namely, that his thoughts are of less account than his actions. A man who acts only out of instincts, passions, desires or similar urges, lacks the quality of thought that would be capable of comprehending the results of his deed at any particular moment; happenings to which he gives no thought at all ensue from what he does on the physical plane. His purposes and thoughts are narrower in scope and more restricted than his actions, his deeds, on the physical plane.

The clairvoyant has something to tell us about these two types of men. When we perform a deed in life that is of greater importance than our thoughts, this deed always casts a reflected image, a mirror-picture, into our astral body: indeed after every single deed we perform an image, a picture, is left in the astral body. This image subsequently imprints itself on the etheric body and in that form remains perceptible in the Akasha Chronicle, so that a clairvoyant is able to see the reflected pictures of what a man has done during the course of his life. Similarly, when actions fall short of the fulfilment of the ideals, reflected pictures are left in the astral body and again impressed upon the etheric body. But there is one great difference between the reflected pictures of actions springing from instincts, desires and passions, and the reflected pictures of actions which are the outcome of idealism. The first contain something which endures as a destructive element in a man's whole life; they are images held in the astral body which react upon the whole human constitution and gradually undermine it; they are closely connected with the way in which a man in his life on the physical plane slowly undermines his forces until he dies. On the other hand, reflected pictures or images springing from thoughts that are loftier than our actions have life-giving properties. They are particularly stimulating for the etheric body and continually bring new life-giving forces into our whole constitution.

Thus according to the findings of clairvoyance we have within our constitution on the physical plane forces which destroy and also forces which continually impart new life. As a rule the effect of these forces in our lives can be easily observed. We meet human beings who are surly, hypochondriacal, morose in temperament, unable to come to terms with their own soul-life which in turn reacts upon their physical organism. They become apprehensive and uneasy, and anxiety, if it is persistent, manifestly undermines their physical health. In short, there are individuals who in their later years become melancholic, sullen, unable to adjust themselves inwardly and are in many respects unbalanced. If we were to look for the cause of bearing and conduct of this kind we should find that such individuals had little opportunity in earlier life to experience how idealistic thought can be loftier than action.

In everyday life these things are often unnoticed, although the effects cannot be denied. Many individuals feel the effects very strongly as the prevailing mood of their whole life of soul; they may even feel them in their bodily constitution. The existence of the astral body may be denied but not its consequences, for they are matters of actual experience. And when things of this kind can be observed in ordinary life, people ought to realise that it is not, after all, so very foolish to assert that although supersensible happenings and facts can be observed only by a clairvoyant, anyone can perceive their manifestations in actual life.

On the other hand, actions which inevitably fall short of their corresponding thoughts leave impressions which manifest themselves in later life as courage, confidence, balance. These qualities work right into the physical organism; but the connections will be perceived only if life is observed not in short sections but over a lengthy period. The error of many scientific observations is that conclusions about some effects are drawn on the basis of what happens in the course, say, of the next five years, whereas in many cases the effects show themselves only after decades.

But as well as individuals who are idealists, whose thoughts are loftier than a particular experience there are others whose thoughts always fail to keep pace with their experiences. There are very many experiences which can be grasped in thought only with the greatest difficulty. We eat and drink every day by instinct or as the result of desire: but it takes a very long time, even for one who is undergoing spiritual development, to relate these things too to the spiritual life. In point of fact, everyday things are more difficult than any others to bring into relation with the spiritual life. In the case of eating and drinking we shall have achieved this only when we have discovered why, in order to serve the course of the world's evolution, we have to take physical substances into ourselves in a rhythmic process, and what connection these physical substances have with spiritual life. We then find that metabolism is not a physical process only, but by virtue of its rhythm also has in it something essentially spiritual.

Now there is a way in which things not merely demanded by external necessity can be gradually spiritualised. When we are eating fruit, let us say, such spiritual knowledge as we possess enables us to form an idea of how the fruit—an apple, for instance—is related to the universe as a whole. Admittedly, however, this takes a long time. We can also train ourselves to regard eating as being something more than a merely physical activity and to remember how the spirit participates by way of the sun's rays in the ripening of the fruit. We can thus spiritualise the most material, everyday processes and learn to penetrate them with our thoughts. I can do no more than indicate here how thoughts and ideas can penetrate into processes of this kind. It is a long business and in our time very few people indeed can develop adequate thoughts about eating.

We shall therefore admit that there are individuals who act purely on the basis of instinct and others who act on the basis of ideals. The life of every human being divides itself in such a way that in some cases the thoughts cannot keep abreast of the actions and in others the range of the thoughts and ideals is greater than that of the actions. We have within us, on the one hand, forces which lead our life into decline and work in such a way that our physical organism matures through inner causes towards death. And we have within us other forces which bring life to our astral and etheric bodies and shine out within them like a new light. It is these latter forces which remain in our etheric body as life-giving forces. When at death the spiritual part of our being abandons its physical sheath, the etheric body is still around us during the first few days, making it possible for us to have the backward survey over our whole life of which I have often spoken.

The most valuable thing remaining to us as an inwardly formative, upbuilding power are these life-giving forces, originating from the fact that our ideas have transcended the bounds of our actions. These forces continue to work in us after death and actually provide further life-giving forces for the following incarnation.

Life-giving forces, then, implanted by ourselves, remain in the etheric body as an element that is always young. And although we cannot thereby prolong our life, we can enable the freshness of youth to remain for a longer period by ensuring that our thoughts transcend the range of many of our actions.

If we ask what is the best way of acquiring ideals which transcend our actions we shall find it possible if we devote ourselves to Spiritual Science. When, for instance, we learn from Spiritual Science of the evolution of man, forces are set astir in the higher members of our being and this gives rise to idealism in the most concrete, most balanced form. One of the achievements of Spiritual Science is to pour fresh, youthful, fertile forces into our astral and etheric bodies.

The very different attitudes to Spiritual Science adopted by individuals in this modern age are due not to the fact that these individuals have no clairvoyant faculties but that in everyday life their observation is not sufficiently exact. Otherwise they would see in what different ways the human soul and spirit manifest themselves in the physical organism. People who thoroughly disbelieve in Spiritual Science may hear that the physical body of man is somehow permeated by certain higher members. Let us take them together and simply call them the soul-and-spirit. But present-day materialists will not believe in the existence of this man of soul-and-spirit: they believe only in physical man and are in this respect particularly materialists. By ‘materialists’ people often mean simply the theoretical materialists, who believe only in matter. But as I have said again and again, these theoretical materialists are by no means the worst. A materialist may use his intellect just to create concepts; they will in any case be very limited in scope and this form of materialism is not so very harmful. But when materialism is reinforced by other factors it can be very detrimental to the man's life as a whole—especially if the inmost, spiritual core of his being becomes dependent upon his material constitution. And nowadays, especially, how dependent men are upon matter! Theoretical materialism leads thoughts astray and is fatal to the ties that link souls together. But external life too is greatly influenced by the fact that so many people put materialism into actual practice. I mean by that, individuals who are so dependent upon their physical constitution that they can spend only a few winter months in their offices and in summer find it necessary to go off to the Riviera. The fact is they are so utterly dependent upon what is material that the soul has to subject itself to the needs which life dictates to it. That again is a different kind of materialist from a man who is materialistic only in his thoughts and ideas. Theoretical idealism may lead to the conviction that theoretical materialism is all wrong. But to cure practical materialists, to cure complete dependence upon the substances of the physical body, is possible only through genuine absorption in Spiritual Science.

If people could bring themselves to think—that is if their thoughts came not just from their intellect but were connected with reality—they would recognise from perfectly ordinary, everyday facts that there is a great difference between the various parts of man's being, for example between the hands and other parts of the body—the shoulders, let us say. A purely external investigation of man's physical body reveals differences in the action of the nerves. But it must be remembered that we can exercise a certain influence here. If the behaviour of the nerves were decisive for the soul we should be dependent upon material effects, for the action of the nerves is a material effect. But we are certainly not dependent in this respect, for influences of every kind can be brought to bear on the action of the nerves. The reason, quite simply, is that the etheric and astral bodies—the soul-and-spirit part of man—work in such very different ways. It is not enough to say that the physical body is filled with the etheric and astral bodies, for there is a difference that varies with the part of the body under consideration. We can easily convince ourselves that spiritual influences acting upon different parts of the body produce different effects. But we must be quite clear that what happens in life is under the sway of necessity. When there is something unusual about the direction taken by a current of air the physicist can apply his laws to discover the reason. But why is it that people do not reflect about the significance of the fact that they wash their hands far more often than any other part of the body? You will think it strange to introduce such matters; but it is these everyday phenomena that confirm the communications of a clairvoyant. It is also a fact that there are individuals who enjoy washing their hands as often as possible, and others who do not. Understanding of such an apparently trivial fact actually demands very advanced knowledge. To a clairvoyant the hands of a man are remarkably different in a particular respect from all his other bodily members. Luminous projections of the etheric body stream out from the fingers, sometimes glimmering faintly, sometimes flashing far into the surrounding space. The radiations from the fingers vary according to whether the man is happy or troubled and there is also a difference between the back of the hands and the palm. For anyone able to observe clairvoyantly, a hand, with its etheric and astral parts, is a most wonderful structure. But everything in our environment, material though it be, is a revelation, a manifestation, of the spirit. You should think of matter as being related to spirit as ice is to water; matter is formed out of spirit—call it ‘condensed spirit’ if you like. Contact with any material substance means contact with the spirit in that substance. All our contact with anything of a material nature is in fact—to the extent that it is purely material—maya. In reality it is spirit with which we come into contact.

If we observe life with sensitivity, we shall realise that washing the hands—especially if it is done frequently—brings a man into contact with the spirit in the water and has a considerable effect upon his whole disposition. Some individuals have a great fondness for washing their hands; directly the least speck of dirt gets on their hands they must be washed! Such characters either have, or will develop, a very definite relation to their surroundings, a relation not entirely the outcome of material influences. It is as if delicate forces in matter were working upon such individuals when there is this relationship between their hands and the element of water. Even in everyday life you will find that these people have an entirely healthy kind of sensitivity and more delicate powers of observation than others. They are at once aware, for instance, whether someone standing near them has a brutal or a kindly disposition. On the other hand, individuals who do not mind their hands being dirty are actually of a coarser disposition and erect a sort of barrier between themselves and their environment. This is a fact and can actually be observed as being characteristic of certain groups. Travel through certain countries and observe their inhabitants. In regions where people tend to wash the hands more frequently, you will find that relations between friend and friend are very different from what they are in regions where people wash their hands less often and erect a sort of barrier between one another.

These things have the validity of natural law, though the details may be affected by various circumstances. If we throw a stone into the air the line of projection is a parabola; but if the stone is caught by a gust of wind there will no longer be a pure parabola. This shows that all the relevant facts must be known if certain relationships are to be accurately observed. As to the hands, clairvoyant consciousness reveals that they are permeated by soul and spirit—to such an extent, indeed, that a definite relationship of the hands to the water is established. This holds good less in the case of the human face and less still in the case of the other parts of the body. This must not, however, be interpreted as an objection to washing or bathing but rather that we must keep our attention fixed on the relevant circumstances.

The point here is to show how very differently the soul and spirit are related to and express themselves in the various parts of the body. You are not likely to find that anyone does harm to his astral body by washing his hands too often, but the point must be considered in its widest range. The relationship between hands and water may exercise a healthy influence on the relation between man and his surroundings, that is to say, between his astral body and his environment; and for this reason things will not readily be carried to extremes. But those who think materialistically and allow their thoughts to be attached solely to matter will say that what is good for the hands must be good for the rest of the body. This would show that differences depending on delicate perceptions entirely escape notice; the consequence and it is abundantly in evidence—is that for certain purposes the same treatment is applied to the whole of the body. For instance, frequent cold baths and constant cold water frictions are recommended as a particularly effective treatment, even for children. Fortunately, because of obvious effects on the nervous system, doctors have already begun to realise that these treatments have been carried to absurd extremes. What is right for the hands because of their particular relation to the astral body can become an injurious experiment when applied to parts of the body having a different relation to the astral body. Washing the hands may bring about a healthy sensitivity to the environment; but an excessive use of cold baths and the like may cause an unhealthy hypersensitivity which, especially if such treatment is applied in childhood, lasts for the whole of life.

It is therefore all-important to know the limits within which methods may be beneficially applied; and this will be possible only if there is willingness to acknowledge that higher members of man's being are incorporated in his physical body. It will then be recognised that some of the inner organs used by the physical body as instruments are very differently related to the being of soul-and-spirit. It will be found, for instance, that the glandular system is preeminently the instrument of the etheric body, whereas everything associated with the nerves, for instance the brain, is intimately related to the astral body.

If these things are not kept in mind certain phenomena will always remain unintelligible. Materialists make the fundamental mistake of confining their observations to what in every case is only the instrument. For everything we experience is experienced in the realm of the soul; and our consciousness of these experiences is due to the fact that we have in the physical body an instrument which reflects them. Our physical body is only an instrument for reflecting what is going on in the life of soul. Anyone versed in Spiritual Science is clear about this. But the physical body can serve as an instrument in different ways. I need only point to one thing: the unique significance of the thyroid gland. As you know, the thyroid gland used to be considered a useless organ and in certain illnesses was often totally removed. In such cases the patients became imbeciles. The danger is substantially reduced if even a small part of the gland is left. This is evidence that the thyroid secretions are necessary for the development of certain aspects of the life of the soul. The strange thing is this: that if a secretion of a sheep's thyroid gland is administered to patients who have lost the gland, their condition is improved; if, later on, this treatment is discontinued, they lapse again into imbecility.

Materialists might find considerable support for their views in this fact. But the spiritual scientist knows how to judge it correctly. We are concerned here with an organ, the product of which can be introduced directly into our organism and be effective. But this can apply only to organs such as the thyroid gland, which are definitely related to the etheric body. Such an effect is not possible if the organ is related to the astral body. I have known poorly gifted individuals who have eaten plenty of sheep's brains but have not thereby become intelligent! This again shows that there is a great difference between the several organs, the magnitude of the difference being due to the fact that one group of organs has an inner connection with the etheric body and another with the astral body.

This reveals another important fact to spiritual observation. It seems very strange that a man may become feebleminded if his thyroid gland is removed altogether but recovers his wits if he is given an extract of the gland. It is particularly strange because there is no evidence that his brain has been detrimentally affected. Here is another case where ordinary observation should be led on to spiritual-scientific observation. Spiritual Science shows that a man does not become an imbecile because his thyroid gland is removed. ‘But’, you will say, ‘facts show that he does!’ In reality, however, men do not become imbeciles because they cannot think, but because they are deprived of the possibility of using an instrument through which they become attentive to their environment. They are not imbeciles because they lack reasoning power but because they have no contact with their environment, and this insensibility is not the same as loss of reason. It does not necessarily follow that a man has lost his reason if he fails to exercise it because of lack of attentiveness to the environment. If you do not think about a thing you cannot express yourself about it; if you want to establish relationship with anything you must think about it. When the thyroid gland is removed a man's living interest in things is undermined—to such an extent indeed that he ceases to use his reasoning power.

Here you can see the subtle difference between using parts of the brain which are an instrument for the reasoning mind and using an instrument such as the thyroid gland. Light can thus be thrown on the ways in which the physical body is an instrument; and if we observe attentively we shall also be able to differentiate accurately between the several parts of man's constitution.

The ‘I’ is related to the surrounding world in the most varied ways. We shall be concerned here with certain facts which I have described elsewhere, showing that a man may endeavour to penetrate with his ‘I’ into his inner self, seeking to become aware of his own essential being; or he may turn to the external world, seeking to establish a connection with that world. We become conscious of the ‘I’ in a certain sense when we turn our attention inwards, when we reflect upon what life gives us or has in store for us. We can also become aware of the ‘I’ when, for example, we are brought into contact with the world outside by knocking against a stone, or perhaps when we cannot settle an account! We then become aware that our ‘I’ is unable to master the circumstances of external life. In short, we can become aware of our ‘I’ both in our inner life and when we are confronting circumstances of the external world. And we become aware of our ‘I’ in a very special way when the magical relationship we call sympathy or compassion is established with human beings or certain circumstances in our environment. There is clear evidence here of a magical process operating from soul to soul, from spirit to spirit. For we actually feel within ourselves something that is going on in the world outside, is being thought and felt there: we are experiencing in ourselves something that is of the nature of soul-and-spirit in the external world. We pass into the inner realm of our being in actual fact, for sympathy or compassion is an intimate experience in the life of soul. If our ‘I’ is not really equal to these experiences and needs to be inwardly strengthened, this comes to expression in the life of soul as sorrow, and physically as tears. Sorrow is an experience of the soul which gives the ‘I’ in the face of some external circumstance a feeling of greater strength than if it had remained indifferent. Sorrow always denotes an inner enhancement of the activity of the ‘I’. Sorrow enhances the content, the intensity, of the ‘I’ and tears are an expression of the fact that the ‘I’ is at a particular moment striving to experience more than would have been possible had it remained indifferent.

We cannot but wonder at the poetic imagination that was already apparent in the young Goethe and was deeply connected with cosmic mysteries. I am referring here to the passage where Faust's weakness leads him to the point where he desires the physical extinction of his ‘I’, and he feels driven to suicide. Then the Easter bells ring out and at the sound of them the ‘I’ gathers strength; tears—the sign of sorrow in Faust's soul—burst forth and he cries: ‘Tears start; earth holds me once more!’ This indicates that what belongs to the earth has been strengthened; tears well up into the eyes, giving expression to the increased intensity of the ‘I’.

Mirth and laughter too are connected with the strength or weakness of the ‘I’ in its relationship to the world outside. Mirth or laughter indicates that our ‘I’ feels more confident of its understanding and grasp of things and events. In laughter, our ‘I’ gathers such intensity that it pours itself out over the environment. This outpouring comes to expression in mirth, in the way we show amusement. Connected with this is the fact that—for the healthy-minded at all events—the cause of genuine sorrow must be a reality. Any reality in the external world which makes us feel as we participate in it that the inner activity of our ‘I’ must be enhanced, may induce a mood of sorrow. But if sorrow is associated with something unreal, for example, with some artificial representation given merely for the sake of arousing sadness, a man whose thinking is sound will require something more. He feels that what moves him to sorrow should arouse in him the surmise that what has caused the sorrow can be overcome.—I am merely hinting at this today and will deal with it more fully on another occasion.—A healthy soul feels the urge to rise to a higher level, to conduct itself worthily in the face of misery. Only a rather unhealthy soul will be satisfied with a mere representation of misery—unless in the representation there is implicit some prospect of victory. Thus we demand that in a drama there should be a prospect of victory for the victim of misery. No aesthetic can arbitrarily decree that only the trivial things in life shall be represented. But it will become evident that a man who follows his own healthy nature will not find that the demands of his ‘I’ are satisfied by an imitation of misery. The whole weight of reality is needed before the ‘I’ is roused to compassion.

And now think of this.—Is it not exactly the opposite as regards the comic? To laugh at real folly is in a certain respect inhuman. We cannot laugh at folly when it confronts us as reality. On the other hand it is thoroughly healthy to laugh at the representation of folly; and it was a very sound ‘folk-therapy’ to present to the people in comedy and burlesque how the folly of human action leads of itself to absurdity. When our ‘I’ is able in mirth or laughter to rise above what is recognised as folly in a given situation, it is strengthened by the spectacle of an artistic representation of folly, and there is no healthier laughter than this. On the other hand it is inhuman to laugh at a predicament in which a fellow human being finds himself, or at a real simpleton. Therefore different laws hold good if representation of these things is to have its proper effect.

If our ‘I’ is to be strengthened in an act of compassion, what moves us must confront us as reality. On the other hand, as healthy-minded men we demand, when misery is portrayed before us, that we should be able to feel the possibility of victory over it. In the dying hero of a tragedy, where death is enacted before our eyes, we feel that the victory of the spirit over the body is symbolised in this death. The very opposite is the case when the ‘I’ is brought into relation with the outside world. We feel then that we cannot fitly be moved to mirth or laughter when faced with reality, but rather that laughter is proper in cases that are removed from reality. We can certainly laugh when a man meets with a misfortune which does him no particular harm and is not closely related to life. But the more closely our experiences are related to reality, the less we laugh if we truly understand them.

From this it is clear that our ‘I’ is related to reality in different ways but the very variety of the facts testifies to the existence of a relationship even with what is most sublime. You have heard in many lectures that in ancient Initiation there were two paths leading into the spiritual world: the one path was a descent into the inmost being of man, into the Microcosm; the other path led out into the Macrocosm. Now everything that comes to expression in great things is revealed also in the smallest. In ordinary life a man's descent into his inner being finds expression in sorrow, whereas the manner of his life in the external world shows itself in his ability to grasp the connection between processes that are apparently unconnected. Herein the supremacy of the ‘I’ is made manifest. And you have heard that if the ‘I’ is not to lose itself, it must be guided by an Initiation leading into the outer world; otherwise it will lose its bearings and may be led into what can only seem to be a void.

The smallest is connected with the greatest. Hence in Spiritual Science, where our thoughts are so often lifted to the highest spheres, we also concern ourselves with the most everyday matters. In the next lecture we shall turn once more to the consideration of higher things, making use of what we have been considering to-day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The seven stages are the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was intended to be the significance of these lectures.

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

This lecture is the thirteenth of nineteen lectures in the lecture series entitled, Answers to Universal Questions and Life Questions through Anthroposophy.

Today we will occupy ourselves with an important document of mankind, although it appears far removed from the realm of our present line of study, yet nevertheless stands in an inner relationship to it. It is the Ten Commandments, which we will strive to illuminate from the basis of spiritual science because perhaps through spiritual science the right light may help clarify our understanding of this document.

From the side of learned theology it is often maintained that these Ten Commandments concur with various laws and commandments of other ancient folk and don't really depict anything extraordinary. They are considered at most only noteworthy as part of a collection in which laws and orders are to be found among various ancient peoples, as for example with Lycurgus of Sparta or the law tablets of Hammurabi.

What we have examined in the developmental route of mankind in the post Atlantic time and having allowed this to work on our souls, can become a specific connecting thread allowing an understanding of the revelation regarding the greatness, the enormity, which struck mankind, in the Ten Commandments given in Sinai. Let's remind ourselves about our contemplation of the evolution of mankind during the post-Atlantic time. We saw how the five cultural epochs - the Indian, Persian, Chaldean-Egyptian-Judaic, the Greek-Roman and Germanic cultural epochs - are a gradual conquering of the physical plane by mankind. Now we stand at the end of the third and at the beginning of the fourth epoch which we could call the “Mission of Moses.” Out of what did this Mission exist?

We will strive to direct our souls more precisely to how inspiration of the Initiates actually occurred in the successive time intervals. Yesterday we spoke about the Rishis, the inspirational ones in the ancient Indian time. The Rishis announced that they were mere common people in ordinary life who became however at specific times an instrument, a mouth piece for the inspirations of higher, spiritual beings. This fact was particularly prevalent in the ancient Indian times and these ancient Rishis, these great teachers of the post-Atlantean time could speak of lofty spiritual truths. We can ask ourselves in which spiritual regions these Rishis moved when they wanted to be permeated and surged through inwardly by higher Beings, who spoke through them? The Rishis were raised up while higher forces lived within them, not only to the astral or lower Devachan planes but above, right to the upper Devachan, so their learning originated in upper Devachan. In these ancient times, shortly after the Atlantic catastrophe, the old Indian bodies still gave mankind possibilities to go out of their bodies, and thus step into a relationship with Beings of Higher Worlds.

Now the cultural epochs continued. In the cultural epoch of Zarathustra, the ancient Persian, the highest initiates certainly knew how to speak about the highest spiritual Beings but their rise could not without further ado reach to the upper parts of Devachan. They could only rise to lower Devachan. Despite that however they could be taught about the higher planes because these elevated beings of the lower Devachanic planes knew about the higher planes.

In the world in which the Egyptian initiates were mainly indigenous, they could usually rise to the astral plane and it was not only a small circle which could still rise up to the astral plane in the old Egyptian time. A relatively large number of people, through their own observation, still knew what was happening on the astral plane. At least in certain in-between conditions of life, between waking and sleeping for instance, many experienced community with these Beings who did not descend to the physical plane but were at home on the astral plane. Thus the ancient Egyptian initiates who could enter and exit the astral plane found it easy to reveal things happening in the Higher Worlds.

The more we approach the later cultural epochs, the more the veil in front of the spiritual worlds drew to a close. The number of people who were capable of making observations in the spiritual worlds diminished ever more, and as a result, from the fourth cultural epoch onwards, a particular form of proclamation was required from the Initiates. One of these Initiates, familiar with all the occult arts of the Egyptian Initiates, was Moses; he moved freely throughout the astral plane. Even his people were chosen to behold certain revelations, and were capable of being something to the people even if they could no longer see into the higher worlds. It required Initiates, although diminished in their numbers, who knew directly or indirectly about the higher worlds, because they could consciously live out of their bodies. The largest part of the people however had to restrict their lives to the physical plane. The task which mankind had to fulfil in this time when the mission of Moses began, was this: those people who were completely dependent on the physical plane were to be given a revelation out of the spirit, which stands behind the physical, according to which they could regulate their lives. How could this Mission of Moses be formulated then? Just consider the necessity to clarify to the people that what is around them, what they can see and touch, is the physical plane - here is nothing spiritual. This was not to be looked at as something representative of the spiritual, but there had to be a clear understanding that the spiritual was to be sought in the spiritual, and only a few could do this spiritual research.

In ancient Indian times, when the holy Rishis spoke out of the upper parts of Devachan, images were given which could be seen as outer symbolic pictures in comparisons and indications coming from Upper Devachan. Images and portraits could be given and it was relatively easy for people to understand: we give you as it were images but because you see the outer world as an illusion, as Maya, these images are nothing more to you than images, reflections of the supersensible world.—In no way was there a danger leading to worship of these images. How could it have been with a people where everything sense perceptible was seen as Maya, illusion? These people could never practice worship. That only came much later. Certainly later in the oriental culture symbols and images of God appeared in some places. It was easy however for the holy Rishis to make it clear to the entire Indian people: that which we revealed, originated out of the higher planes of Devachan, while the visible or physical is a symbol for something so high and serene that it can only be taken in as a symbol.

During the Persian cultural epoch however, the students of Zarathustra couldn't proceed in the same way. They could only establish a kind of relationship between the people and the lower parts of the Devachanic planes. They were only capable of talking of images, spiritual images, of the supersensible. They referred to no sensory image. Above all they spoke amongst their people of an actual, spiritual, good being, who they called Ahura Mazdao, the being who had his outer corporeality in the sun and who connected himself with mankind and against the dark spirit: Ahriman. This was presented in a sensory-supersensory image so to speak, to the people. They had to imagine him for themselves as a spiritual light Being. However, not a finished image, not a portrait should they fashion. At most they could imagine this godly Ahura Mazdao as precursor within fire, for example, and not as a stiff, outer, sensory image. Everything which appeared as sensory pictures or idols came at a much later time. The ancient Persian culture had pictorial precursors which had to reveal the super-sensory. That was the progress.

Now we come to the third cultural epoch which we encounter mainly in the Egyptian time. Here stands the form of Osiris, as we know, at the central point of all religious thought and feeling. We can easily understand what now has to be said. What kind of being is Osiris, mainly in his godly form? Consider what the Egyptian cultural leaders said to the people: when you really fulfil your tasks in the physical world, when you have done everything related to your soul striving towards becoming a worthy person, then you will be united with Osiris after death. - On the other hand they are told: Osiris had only a short life on earth, because he was conquered by his brother Typhon - Seth—and has been living for a time in the worlds which are celestial, above the ground. His lower regions are no longer the physical but the astral plane, he will not descend lower. It is no longer possible for Osiris to step on the physical plane. Therefore people can't meet Osiris in life. After death however, when they have become sufficiently worthy, they will be united with Osiris because then they are within the world in which Osiris stays. A person can therefore meet Osiris, either after they have died or if they enter as an Initiate into the astral plane. Through this the disciples of the Osiris religion were prepared: the supersensible to which you are related, should place before your soul nothing other than pictures which your own soul imagines, ‘soul’ as is imagined under the concept of the astral body. Osiris became considered the ideal human form, possessing all possible virtues, and while desires as well as virtues exist in the astral body, so the human astral being was thus represented as the Being of Osiris.

For the Semites who gradually went through the Egyptian schools and who had to prepare the great event through which the spiritual, the Christ, descended into the physical world - not like Osiris to the astral plane, but like Christ, who came right down to the physical plane - they dared to live with God as a parable, a symbol, just like in the ancient Indian epoch they dared worship a god in a sensory-supersensory image, just like in the Persian culture in images of an astral presence, and in the Egyptian culture, now single and alone beneath the non-sensory imagination of the “I” (Ich). All images, originally given in ancient Indian times with which to imagine the spiritual, were of the physical world, borrowed from the mineral kingdom; they were images in distinct physical-mineral forms. The form through which the Initiates of the Persian culture made the supersensible clear to their people was removed from that which also lives in the human astral body, the lively etheric, because Ahura Mazdao also became visible to them as a result of his etheric form, the sun aura, becoming known to them. Osiris was represented by the Egyptians in an astral form. That divinity however, which the Jewish people proclaimed, had to have no other qualities than the “I,” the fourth member of the human being. Under the “I” we grasp something which only we can call “I.”

This is connected to something else. At this point people had to allow the Mission of Moses to flow into them; he had to be the representative of the image of the “I” of God. From that moment onwards people had to be told: Just as an “I” lives in every person and is the ruler of the members of human nature, so you must imagine the Being who weaves in the world as creative Being, who lives, rules and prevails over everything that's been and is created. Nothing sensory, neither etheric nor an astral image can represent this. Merely under the form of the “I,” only under the name “I am the I-am” should you imagine this highest Being. - In the “I am” itself every person should experience a reflection of the godhead. It was the Mission, the proclamation of Moses to say: Look within ourselves, only there will you find the real image of the pure godhead. - As a result all activity amongst people should from this moment onward only be from one “I” to another “I.” This had to be prepared through the Mission of Moses.

Let's place ourselves once more in the Egyptian culture. Much activity took place but it didn't move from one “I” to another “I” but from one astral to another astral body. What is this called? Just think how one of the gigantic pyramids were built. A great army of people was needed to bring such a pyramid into existence. The construction workers of such pyramids followed the order of the master builder and those were the temple priests, the spiritual guides of culture. Don't believe that these orders were given as they are today, from one “I” to another “I.” That was not the case. You will most easily understand what was happening when the word “suggestion” is implied. Physical powers of nature were employed to guide the masses. The Egyptian priests controlled such powers to a high degree. They didn't work on the “I” by saying: Do this or that - but they controlled the masses by managing their physical powers, so that the people meekly followed the priests who bypassed the “I.” These priests stood as Initiates in lofty service. They were incapable of abusing these powers; they placed themselves in service of the Good. Thus it was inspired, physically inspired, through them working; the freedom of the “I” in opposition to the priests of the temple was not in question. If you understand that, then you will also understand how in ancient India the Holy Rishis applied even higher spiritual powers. With them it was as follows: when they appeared and gave meaningful proclamations from the spiritual worlds, it was self-evident that the entire folk would follow meekly. Just as the hand follows the head, so the masses followed their leaders, the Initiates. This diminished ever more, the further humanity sunk into the physical plane, but in ancient Egypt there was still great effectiveness of these physical forces. To withdraw people from this kind of involvement and the predictive manifestation in the ego-opposition, was the Mission of Moses. For each human being to search for the godly fountainhead, the great World-I, that the realm of the surging, wafting “I” can be perceived as the archetypal image of the individual “I,” that was the great call which is linked to the Mission of Moses.

From these viewpoints we will understand how this great World-”I” had to be proclaimed through Moses. In this way we must translate the announcement of the “I”-Laws into everyday language, in order to really go through what was felt, experienced and thought when for instance the First Commandment was heard at that time. All lexicographic translations give the most inconceivable inaccuracies. Now I want to present the first commandment to you as it really needs to be translated, to bring it to such an expression as people then imagined they had heard.

First Commandment: I am the everlasting Divine, which you experience within yourself. I have led you out of the land of Egypt where you couldn't follow me within yourself. Henceforth you will not place other gods above me. You will not acknowledge gods as higher, who show you an image of something which appears above in the heaven, which works out of the earth or between heaven and earth. You shall not worship what is beneath the divine which is within you. I am the everlasting in you and a continual divinity. If you don't recognise Me within you, I will disappear as the divine in your children, parents and grandparents and their bodies will become stultified. If you acknowledge Me within you, I will live forth in you for up to thousands of generations and the bodies of your people would prosper.

This gives us the indication how the single “I” is within the archetypal “I,” how to recognise the after-image of the archetypal divine “I” and also, the indication of how, through acknowledgement of one's own “I” as divine, the way is given to become free from the opposition experienced between people and their leaders in ancient Egypt. “I have led you out of the lands of Egypt, where you can follow Me within you. The will of the Initiate followed you there, and there you were not free.” These Initiates applied their psychic powers which the people followed. The first dawning of this human freedom, which rose as the freedom of mercy in Christianity, shows itself in this reference: “I led you out of the Egyptian lands where you couldn't follow Me within you.” “Henceforth you shall not place other gods above Me.” Therefore, in order for the Jewish people to become the most prepared people for the proclamation in Christendom, it had to be made clear that all other representatives of the divine, the archetypal images of the “I,” had to fall away. Outer representations of the divine, even the signs of the Zodiac or something else, had to fall away. Nothing was to illustrate the divine, because people had to, in order to become free, find the source of everything within them: everything which was to be experienced regarding the divine had to be after-images of the great World-I and experienced in their “I.” “You should not acknowledge anything higher than the Divine, who appears as an image of something which shines above in the heaven, which originates from the earth or is active between the heaven and the earth.” An image-free divine! The only legitimate expression for this is the human “I,” the image of the “I am the I-Am.” “You shall not worship anything which is beneath the godly which is within you.”

We have emphasized: out of the physical body the image was taken in ancient India, out of the ether body in the Persian culture, out of the astral body with the Egyptians. Those all stand below the “I.” From out of this no image should be taken and called divine. We know that the physical body was formed from mineral nature, the ether body from the etheric in nature, and the astral body from that realm where the animal astral body is also formed. From all which exits in the members of human nature, having originated from the rest of nature, from all that which is below the “I,” nothing should be worshipped. “I am the everlasting in you and a continual divinity.” Here we have an important sentence. This was given to the Jews as a commandment, which was previously a fact. We have already remarked that when common blood flows in any people, a particular awareness runs through the generation, how the son feels bound through the blood with his father and grand-father. Common blood felt like a common “I.” This “I” lived through generations. The god who announced himself primarily as an “I” to the Jews, had to announce Himself by saying the He was this, which worked as God through the generations. “When you really understand Me, then you will understand what continues to work from generation to generation.” This has been translated with: “I am a striving God,” or even “I am an angry God,” while the actual meaning is: “I am the god working continually from generation to generation.”

“Don't seek to find an incorrect imagination of Me, protect the truth within you, as an imagination of Me, then you plant within the blood enduring health from gender to gender.” A real medicinal imagination is linked to that which this commandment gave, linked to the imagination that when the human being has a pure imagination of his relationship to the divine, then a healthy “I”-image will flow through the blood and people will remain healthy from one generation to the next. We don't come to a real understanding of the lively form in which Moses presented this to his people when he announced the laws, if we only think abstractly about what he said. No, it was said under the presupposition that correct thoughts are an active reality. “When you create a false imagination of the Divine, then you will, from gender to gender, bequeath it into an expression of disease and infirmity.” Correct thoughts activate health, false ones, illness. This is in the genuine sense an anthroposophic or occult image. This has to be thought about or otherwise no real understanding can be reached, no real picture formed regarding this First Commandment. The Jewish people were instructed: Don't place your God under false images. When they knelt in front of the golden calf, a false image flowed from the gods into them and this false image of god produced, because it works through the blood and goes down the generations, the effectively continuous sin which translates into illness. “If you don't recognise Me within you, I will disappear as the divine in your children, parents and grandparents and their bodies will become stultified.” You produce children, parents, grandparents capable of surviving, when you take up the correct imagination of the Divine, otherwise that which depends on the blood will die out. By truly acknowledging Me within you, the source of the “I,” the power transmits from one generation to the next because I am a continually effective Divinity. I will disappear from the bodies if I live in you as a false image. This is again quite an occult and medicinal indication. “If you acknowledge Me within you, I will live forth in you for up to thousands of generations and the bodies of your people would be purified and therefore would prosper.” Thus the physical will prosper, in the genuine occult sense, when the human being forms the true spiritual imagination. Through this a simultaneous breath of human freedom is drawn in human development: right at the peak, so to speak, of the continual “I” the human being is placed and then formed with the divine “I.” One can't allow comparisons with any other legislation; it is real dilettantism to place the Ten Commandments beside other legislation and compare it one-sidedly, just because they are outwardly similar in words, they can be seen as the same. The legislation of the Ten Commandments from Sinai is unique and only allows illumination through the unique Mission of Moses. As with this First Commandment, so it is with all the other Commandments when they are correctly translated. It becomes clear to us from the spirit of Moses' Mission, with reference to the “I”-impulse, how this now had to be poured into humanity.

Second Commandment: You will not speak in error of Me in you, because every error about the “I”-in-you will corrupt your body. - Thus the necessity for the correct thought process is established, the actual creator of the real healthy body. Errors about the ruler of the highest divine in you produce sickliness in the body to the fullest degree. It is extraordinarily important to have insight into the content of the Second Commandment: “The error about the “I” in you will be spoilt.” There is a further saying: In a beautiful body lives a beautiful soul. - Modern materialistic humanity now and then interprets it as: if I take good care of my body, then I will have a beautiful soul. - It actually means that a soul is inwardly strong because it has brought something from previous incarnations which has inspirationally worked through the soul and is now the correct creator for the sheath of a healthy, vigorous body. The body does not create the soul, exactly the opposite. So we see that sometimes it doesn't at all come down to stating a precise wording. Every time it is according to impulses in your life to find a different interpretations of the same wording. Depending on how you feel or are disposed, so it is interpreted. Accordingly one doesn't always have the correct proof that you are indicating an equivalent wording, but only through penetrating into the soul of the time and thoroughly seeking understanding for this or that word.

Third Commandment: You shall separate the workday from the festive day, so that the image of Your Being becomes the image of My Being. Because, what lives in you as My “I,” has built the world in seven days and lives within it on the seventh day. Thus your actions and your son's activities and your daughter's actions and your servant's activity and your cattle's actions and everything that is with you, is within the outer boundary of the six days, but on the seventh day your gaze should seek My gaze within you. - This is the kind of absolute translation corresponding to the Third Commandment. Not in outer images should the Divine within people be portrayed as the archetypal-”I,” but through what the “I” does, the archetypal-”I” must be portrayed and how this archetypal-”I” had created the world in six world days and on the seventh day found rest, so mankind must separate workdays and festive days, six days for creation and the seventh day to seek the Divine with the help of the “I.” So we see in what a wonderful way This Third Commandment is the portrayal of the archetypal-”I” in us and is placed there as guiding God.

In these three first Commandments we have indications of how the human being related to divinity, during the time of the Mission of Moses, which was revealing itself in a new way. In the fourth Commandment we go out on to the physical plane. The first three Commandments sets out how the human being can relate in the right way towards the higher Worlds through the activities of his “I.”

The Fourth Commandment says: Work forth with your fathers and mothers in mind, so that you retain possession of the property you acquired through the power which I have built in you.

Here you have the meaningless: “Honour father and mother, that you may fare well and live long on earth.” It is about actual outward action which really sprouts from what had been planted spiritually in the “I” within man, as we have understood, how the divine works medicinally, like a drop. This Fourth Commandment is a practical commandment. It says: Observe your descendants as your ancestors; then you as a descendent stand in contrast to them—a peaceful, beneficial, continual development will never take place. Just as you inwardly convey the “I” through the blood, so also must that, which you posses after your “I” has worked through it, be maintained. The strong “I” that was created, flowed from the one side through the blood in the generations; on the other side however had to, in order for the human being to strengthen the “I,” work in the outer world. What had been founded as a strong “I” had to be preserved and evolve continuously, without interruption. Work forth with the fathers in mind in order to maintain coherence in the work your father and mother did in creating your “I.” - This shows you how also the outer rules of conduct are given in order not to destroy from outside the creation of a new culture, given as an inner impulse.

Now we come to the Commandments where your independent “I” is confronted by the “I” of others, and how this should in fact rule in the social world. This is actually a repeat of what Paul said, which the Bible gives as: Love they neighbour as thyself (Gal.5,14).—See in other people the same “I” as in yourself. - In an extraordinary way this old Hebraic folk received the impulse to pursue the godly right into the weaving of the “I” within the human soul. Therefore this people had to preserve the Commandments, which do not only prescribes the protection of their own “I” but also prescribes respect and protection of the “I” in the other.

Fifth Commandment: Murder not.

Sixth Commandment: Don't break the marriage.

Seventh Commandment: Don't steal.

All three expand on the one commandment: Recognise in your fellow men the “I” which you have in yourself!

In this deed the Jewish people were led from the lands of Egypt, enabling them to also recognise the “I” in others through the evaluation of the other's “I,” for in Egyptian lands one didn't work through the respect of others but through the suppression of the “I” through suggestion. Now further:

The Eighth Commandment: Do not undermine the worth of your fellow men by telling untruths about them. - Not only through deeds could one damage and impair the rights of the “I” within the other, but one should not once in a spoken word diminish the worth of his “I.” One should not state untruths about the “I” of another. Whoever states an untruth about the “I” of another, does not realize that the “I” of the other is the same as your own “I.” So it proceeds systematically with the Ten Commandments. Reference is made [to] what you express damagingly in community of life from one “I” to another “I.” A deed penetrates directly, damagingly into the sphere of the “I” of the other, but a word more secretively. However, if you want to earnestly acknowledge the “I” of the other, then you also do not dare intervene from the basis of your wants and desires into the sphere of your fellow man. [It is] Not only through this that you rob him, but already through also desiring something of his, do you penetrate into his “I”-sphere. You acknowledge the full equal evaluation of the other's “I” through not allowing yourself to desire what he has. Now the two last Commandments:

Ninth Commandment: Do not look grudgingly at what your fellow man possesses as property.

Tenth Commandment: Do not begrudge your fellow man his wife nor the helpers and others through whom he gains his earnings.

The only way to find healthy relationships between one person and another is by not resenting what the other person owns. So a person is placed beside others in order for him or her to notice and venerate the divine image in every “I.” Thus the existence of the single “I” amongst others is regulated. This was one of the biggest spiritual impacts which entered into mankind. Yet, what had to come through Christ was not pronounced, yet lay within the words here, that each one can find the interrelation with the Father-God. “No one comes to the Father but through Me.” At this time the legislation was given in relationship to the communal “I” which flowed through the generations. Yet at the same time the earlier proclamation was given, that the “I” is not only an image of the Divine, but that God Himself is a living Being within this “I.” The “I” is substance and Being identical to the Father. “I and the Father are one.”

So we see how the impulse, conveyed through the world's development, follows one after the other. It is easy to say: In the world's development all causes and effects are connected by a wisdom-filled world guidance and world command but nothing is visible. - When we however look back in world evolution, as we have done in this examination, we arrive at the notion that at the right time the right thing always happens to direct human development further, then, I may say, nothing else is left over than to acknowledge the wisdom-filled directing and guidance in world development.

When one sees through occult research how at the exit of the third cultural epoch into the fourth time period the proclamation of the Ten Commandments took place in order for people to have time to prepare for the greatest event, the Mystery of Golgotha, then one sees exactly what a great expression of wisdom this is within world guidance.

In the entire tone of the Ten Commandments, when we really understand them, we see how the Divine reveals itself in an archetypal way in images in preparation for the moment when the Divine Spirit will really be embodied in an individual. In order for people to be steered towards an understanding of God in the flesh, an incarnated God, they must first learn to grasp God's substance and Being within their deepest, innermost soul. Considering this document of mankind, the Ten Commandments, we notice from the entire tone, that God speaks through it to mankind and that this address throughout is in line with the ever further emergence of people on the physical plane and that this can only really happen when the Divine is grasped in the right way. Repeatedly it is pointed out that bodies prosper when the Divine is properly grasped. Indications are given that to venerate the Divine also brings prosperity to outer things on the physical plane. In the correct way it is pointed out that a gradual, healthy development must ensue, in order for the outer social relationships to prosper.

Through the Mission of Moses it is regulated that the Divine remains protected within the Being of man, while man's conquering of the physical plane can be carried out in the right way in the sense of the post-Atlantic development remaining in harmony with the Divine.

We have seen that there is a significant difference between knowledge of the spiritual world such as has existed through all the ages and the particular form of knowledge of the Divine-Spiritual to which the organic constitution of the Hebrews enabled them to aspire. Through their progenitor Abraham they had inherited a physical constitution in which there had been implanted an organ whereby, to, the extent possible through knowledge transmitted by way of the senses, men were to be able to have actual experience of the Divine-Spiritual, not merely vague inklings. Knowledge of the Divine-Spiritual has existed everywhere and at all times, but this knowledge of the Eternal was attained in the Mysteries, on the path of Initiation. A distinction must be made between knowledge acquired as the result of individual development through specially devised methods and knowledge of the spiritual world that is normal in some particular epoch and connected with the fulfilment of a definite mission in the evolution of humanity.

In Atlantis the normal form of knowledge was astral-clairvoyant perception of the Divine-Spiritual. But in the times of the ancient Hebrews the normal form of exoteric knowledge of the spiritual world became dependent upon a particular physical organ. It has already been said that in the people of Abraham this knowledge arose in the form of a feeling that the Divine was united with their inmost being. It was therefore inner knowledge, a realisation of the Divine in the deepest core of being that had been made possible.

But this inner realisation of the Divine-Spiritual did not immediately enable a man to say: When I sink into my own being, striving to fathom its depths, I find the drop of the Divine Spirit that can give me knowledge of the Divine-Spiritual by which the outer world too is permeated.—This experience was not immediately possible—not, indeed, until the appearance of Christ in the evolution of humanity. The Hebrew people could experience the Divine only through participating in their Folk-Spirit. When a man felt himself to be a member of his people as a whole, as distinct from a separate individuality, when he felt that through his blood he belonged to a sequence of generations—then he became aware of the presence of the Divine; his consciousness of Jahve lay in the Folk-consciousness, in the very blood of his people. Hence in the spiritual-scientific sense it is not correct to speak of the God Jahve or Jehovah merely as the God of Abraham. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—he is the Being who passes on from generation to generation, manifesting himself in the Folk-consciousness in and through individual men.

The great advance of this form of knowledge to thc Christian form lies in the fact that the latter recognises in each single individual what ancient Hebrew knowledge could reach only by contemplation of the Folk-Spirit, of the Spirit flowing in the blood of the generations. Thus Abraham might have said: According to the covenant that has been made with me, I shall be the founder of a people through my descendants; in the blood flowing down the generations descending from me there will live the God we venerate as the Highest, who reveals himself to us in our Folk-consciousness.—This became the normal experience of that time.

As already said, at all times and through all the epochs there has existed higher knowledge of the Divine-Spiritual. This knowledge, acquired in the Mysteries, is not dependent upon any of the other, special forms of cognition. In ancient Atlantis every human being was endowed with a certain astral-etheric clairvoyance enabling him to gaze into the divine-spiritual ground of existence; by developing his inner faculties he could then acquire knowledge that was. available in the Mysteries or Oracles. Also during the epoch when the spiritual knowledge characteristic of the Hebrews was the normal form, it was still possible in certain sanctuaries for man to experience the Divine while out of the body but not while in the body as in the case of the people of Abraham; in the eternal part of his being a man could rise to vision of the Divine-Spiritual.

You can readily imagine that one thing was essential for Abraham. He had experienced the Divine-Spiritual in his own special way, through knowledge acquired by means of a physical organ; this was how he had learnt to know the supreme God. To become a living power in evolution, however, it was infinitely important for him to know that the God revealed in the Folk-consciousness of the Hebrew people was identical with the God venerated in the Mysteries of all ages as the creative Deity. It was therefore necessary for Abraham to be able to identify his God with the God revealed in the Mysteries, and that was only possible upon one very definite premise. Upon one very definite premise the certainty could be given him that the powers manifesting themselves in thc Folk-consciousness were identical with those ma.nifesting in a higher form in the Mysteries. To understand what this certainty implied, we must turn our minds to a fact closely connected with the evolu-tion of humanity.

In the book Occult Science you can read that in ancient Atlantis there were Initiates known as “Priests of the Oracles”—the actual names are not of essential significance. One of these great Initiates was the leader of all the Atlantean Oracles; he was the Initiate of the Sun-Oracle, in contrast to the subordinate Oracle-centres to which the Mercury-, Mars-, Jupiter-, Initiates, and so forth, belonged. I have said too that this great Initiate of the Sun-Oracle was also the leader of the civilizing colony which, having moved from the West across to the East, from Atlantis to the interior of Asia, spread out from there to inaugurate post-Atlantean culture and civilization. This mighty Initiate—for such he was, already at that time—withdrew to secret centres in the heart of Asia, and made it possible for the wise men known as the holy Rishis to become such illustrious Teachers of their people. And it was he, this great and mysterious Initiate, who conferred Initiation upon Zarathustra.

The Initiation conferred upon Zarathustra was not the same as that received by the Rishis, for their tasks were different. Through their Initiation the Rishis were able, when their inner faculties had further developed, to give utterance as it were out of themselves to the great secrets of existence. Thereby they became the illustrious Teachers of pre-Vedic, ancient Indian culture. Though their powers were awakened by means specially devised, they were otherwise on a par with thc old Atlantean clairvoyant faculties, but they were distributed among the seven Rishis individually. Like the leaders of the several Oracle-centres, each of the seven Rishis had his own particular sphere and task. But a whole collegium spoke when any onc of the seven voiced what he knew of the primeval wisdom. The grcat Sun-Initiate who brought the old Atlantean wisdom from the West across to the East passed it on in a particular form to those who were to become the bearers of post-Atlantean culture. He imparted it to Zarathustra in a different form, enabling him to speak in the way I have already indicated.

The Rishis declared that in order to reach the highest realm of divine-spiritual existence, everything in the surrounding world, everything presented to the outer senses, must be regarded as maya or illusion; man must turn away from this outer world and sink into his inner being: then there will dawn in him a world entirely different from the one out-spread before him in everyday life.—To ascend into the spheres of divine-spiritual existence by turning away from the illusory world of maya, by developing the inner life—such was the teaching of the Rishis of ancient India.

In contrast to this, Zarathustra did not teach men to turn away from what is outwardly manifest. He did not say: everything external is maya and we must turn away from it. He said : this maya is the revelation, the actual garrnent of divine-spiritual existence. We may not turn away from it—on the contrary, it is our duty to fathom it. We must conceive of the Sun's body of light as thc outer texture in which Ahura Mazdao lives and weaves!

In a certain sense, therefore, the gist of Zarathustra's teaching was the opposite of that given by the ancient Rishis. The essential significance of post-Indian civilization lay in the fact that its task was to impress upon the outer world the fruits of man's spiritual activity. As we heard, Zarathustra transmitted to Hermes and to Moses the greatest gifts that were his to bestow. In order that the wisdom of Moses might become fruitful in the right way and work as a seed, it had to take root in the people who were the descendants of Abraham. Abraham was the first into whom was implanted the organ for acquiring consciousness of Jahve; but it was essential for him to know that the God who could announce his presence inwardly to physical faculties of cognition, was speaking with the same voice as the eternal, all-pervading God of the Mysteries, save that he was revealing himself here in the form in which Abraham was able to understand him. It is not possible for a Being of such lofty rank as the great Atlantean Sun-Initiate to speak without more ado in words that are intelligible to those who live at some particular time and have a special mission. An Individuality as exalted as the great Sun-Initiate is one who leads an eternal existence, of whom it was truly said—indicating the hallmark of eternity—that he was without name or age, ‘without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end of life’. (Heb. VII, 3). A figure of this eminence in the evolution of humanity is only able to manifest by assuming a form whereby he can establish relationship with those to whom he is to reveal himself. Thus in order to impart the necessary enlightenment to Abraham, the great Teacher of the Rishis and of Zarathustra assumed a form in which he bore the etheric body of Abraham's original forefather; it was the etheric body of Shem, the son of Noah, and it had been preserved as the etheric body of Zarathustra had been preserved for Moses. The great Initiate of the Sun-Mystery used the etheric body of Shem in order to reveal himself to Abraham and be understood by him. This meeting between Abraham and the great Sun-Initiate is referred to in the Old Testament as the meeting of Abraham with Melchisedek, or Malek-Zadek as it has become customary to call him—the ‘king and priest of the most high God’. (Gen. XIV, 18; Heb. V, 6, 1o ; VII, 1-3). It was a mecting of supreme, world-embracing significance. In order that Abraham should not be utterly dumbfounded, the great Sun-Initiate manifested himself in the etheric body of Shem, the progenitor of the Semites. And the Bible points, most significantly, to something that is unfortunately all too little understood, namely, to the source of that which Melchisedek was able to impart to Abraham. What was this? He could impart the mystery of Sun-existence which Abraham could naturally only under-stand in his own way. The same mystery lay behind the revelation that had been announced, as a prophecy, by Zarathustra.

To his chosen pupils Zarathustra spoke of Ahura Mazdao, the spiritual Being behind the Sun's body of light, saying in effect: Direct your gaze to a power that is behind the Sun, that is not yet united with the Earth but will onc day descend to the Earth and pour into Earth-evolution!—Realising that Zarathustra could only make a prophetic announcement that Christ, the Sun-Spirit, would come in a human body, we shall be aware that even greater profundities of the Sun-Mystery had to be revealed to those who were to prepare for and subsequently be instrumental in bringing about the incarnation of Christ on the Earth. This deeper revelation was made possible because, at the meeting referred to, the same Being who had been Zarathustra's Teacher brought influence to bear upon Abraham from the same source as that from which Christ's influence was eventually to pour. This again is indicated symbolically in the Bible where it is said that Melchisedek, king of Salem, this ‘priest of the most high God’, brought to Abraham bread and wine. (Gen. XVI, 18). Bread and wine were dispensed on another, later occasion—when for those who were believers the Christ-Mystery was given expression in the institution of Holy Communion. The emphasis laid upon the similarity of the sacrificial acts points to the fact that the source of the impulses given by Melchisedek and by Christ was one and the same.

Thus through Melchisedek an influence emanating from a Power that would subsequently come down to the Earth was to be brought to bear in advance upon Abraham, the great preparer of the later event. As the result of this meeting the realisation dawned upon Abraham that the source of the power he felt within him and venerated under the name of Jahve or Jehovah as the loftiest reality of which he could conceive, was also the source of the consciousness of the supreme, all-pervading Godhead—consciousness such as was gained by Initiates in the realm of earthly knowledge too. Abraham was now able to carry this consciousness to a further stage.—A new and different experience came to him. He realised that in actual fact the blood flowing through the generations of the Hebrew people was to contain something only to be compared with what was revealed in the Mysteries when clairvoyant vision was directed to the secrets of cosmic existence and the language of the Cosmos understood.

I have already spoken of how, in the Mysteries, secrets of the Cosmos were expressed in terms derived from the stars and constellations. There were times when the teachers in the Mysteries made use of words and images taken from the courses of the stars and their mutual relationships. Such images were a means of expressing what man experiences spiritually when he attains consciousness of the Divine-Spiritual.

What was it that the Mystery-wisdom was able to read in this stellar script? The secrets of the Godhead pervading the world! The order of the stars was the visible expression of the Godhead. Men turned their gaze to the heavens, saying: There the Godhead reveals himself; the order and harmonies of the stars are for us the manifestation of the Divine. According to this view, therefore, the God of all the worlds was made manifest in the order of the stars.

Thus if the same God were to be made manifest in a special way in the mission of the Hebrew people, the manifestation must necessarily be an expression of the same order as that governing the courses of the stars in the Cosmos. Through the blood of the generations as the outer instrument of the Jahve-revelation, there must be expressed the same order as that made manifest in the courses of the stars. To put it differ-ently: in the sequence of the generations, in the blood-kinship of Abraham's descendants, there must be a mirror-image, a reflection, of the stellar script in the heavens. Hence the promise made to Abraham: The ordering of thy descendants shall be that of the stars in heaven! (Genesis, XXIII, 17.) Such is the correct version of the sentence that is usually rendered to mean that the descendants would be as numerous as the stars in heaven.—This implies number only and is not the true meaning. The true meaning is that the line of the descendants was to be in accordance with an ordcr perceptible in the groupings of the stars, which in turn arc an expression of the speech of the Gods. Looking upwards, mcn beheld an order such as is manifest in the Zodiac. The positions and relation-ships of the planets in the Zodiac formed constellations from which was drawn the language used to proclaim the deeds of the Gods in the Universe. The firm bond demonstrated in the Zodiac and in the relations of the planets to the twelve constellations was to come to expression in the blood-kinship of the descendants of Abraham.

The twelve sons of Jacob, also the twelve tribes of the Hebrew people are therefore images of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. Just as the language of the Gods is pressed in these twelve constellations, so does Jahve manifest himself in the blood flowing through the generations of the Hebrew people, divided into thc twelve tribes descending from the twelve sons of Jacob. Conditions established in the Zodiac are designated by the name of the planet concerned—Venus, Mercury, Sun, as the case may be. And we have heard how certain parallelisms can be drawn between particular periods in the historical life of the Hebrew people and the paths of the planets through the Zodiac. Thus there is a parallelism between the age of David, the royal minstrel, and Hermes or Mercury; similarly, between the period of the Babylonian captivity—when we see the forrn taken by the Jalive-revela-tion six centuries before our era as the result of a new impulse—and the planet Venus.

It was to be indicated to Abraham that there is a parallelism between the place of a personality such as David in the line of generations, and the position of Mercury in the Zodiac. The tribe of Judah corresponds to the constellation of Leo and the advent of David into that tribe would correspond, in the history of the Hebrew people, to the cosmic phenomenon of the occultation of Leo by Mercury (Mercury in Leo). Such occultations are indicated in many places: in the actual succession, in the conferments of kingly or priestly offices, in the battles or victories of one tribe or another, indeed in the whole history of the Hebrews. All this was implicit in the momentous words: Thy descendants shall be ordered in accordance with the harmony of the stars in heaven.—We must never accept the trivial interpretations so often placed upon records founded on occultism but realise their immense profundity.

Thus there is actual evidence of order prevailing in the generations enumerated in the Gospel of St. Matthew. This evangelist has shown how the blood of the body that was to receive the Zarathustra-Individuality was prepared in a very special way to be instrumental in bringing about the manifestation of Christ on the Earth.

What bad been achieved through the forty-two generations from Abraham to Joseph was that blood, blended in accordance with the laws of the stars and of the holy Mysteries, had finally been produced. In the composition of this blood—which was needed by the Zarathustra-Individuality for the fulfilment of his great mission—there was inner order and harmony, reflecting one of the most beautiful and significant principles manifest in the heavenly constellations. The blood available for Zarathustra was therefore an image of the Cosmos, having been prepared through generations in accordance with cosmic law. The basis of the record we now possess in a modified form in the Gospel of St. Matthew is this profound mystery of the evolution of a people as the image of cosmic evolution.

Those who were the first to know something of the sublime Christ-Mystery felt that the very blood of Jesus of Nazareth of whom the Gospel of St. Matthew tells was a reflected image of the Cosmos, of the Spirit holding sway in the Cosmos. And they expressed this secret by saying: The Spirit of the whole Cosmos lived in the blood wherein was to dwell the Ego who then became Jesus of Nazareth.—This physical body must therefore have been an imprint of the ruling Spirit of the Cosmos. Hence it was said originally that the power underlying the composition of the blood in the body of Zarathustra when incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, was the Spirit of our whole Cosmos, the Spirit which, in the primal beginning, after the Sun had separated from the Earth, brooded over and permeated with warmth what had emerged into manifestation in the course of the evolution of worlds. From the lectures given in Munich to which reference has already been made, we know that the sentence with which Genesis begins—B'rescht bara elohim et haschamayim w'et et ha'arets'—should not be translated into the trivial words of modern language which no longer convey the ancient meaning. Instead of ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, the rendering should convey the following meaning: In what has come over from Saturn, Sun and Moon, the Elohim pondered, in cosmic soul-activity, the outwardly manifesting and the inwardly active, throughout which darkness prevailed; but there spread out and into this, brooding over it, permeating it with warmth—as a hen radiates warmth into the egg—the creative Spirit of the Elohim, Ruach-Elohim.—This same Spirit created the heavenly order that is expressed in a certain way in the constellations of the stars. The original Initiates of the Christ-Mystery felt that the blend of blood in Jesus of Nazareth was an image of the work accomplished by Ruach-Elohim throughout the Cosmos. And of the blood that had been prepared in this way for the great event, they said: it was ‘created by the Spirit of the Universe, the spiritual Being called “Ruach” in that significant passage in Genesis beginning "B'reschit bara ...” ’.¹

Such is the sacred meaning, infinitely greater than any superficial interpretation, of ‘the conception by the Holy Spirit of the Universe’; it is also the basis of the saying: ‘And she who gave birth to this Being was filled with the power of the Spirit of the Universe.’—If we feel the sanctity of such a Mystery we shall realise that in this way of presenting it there is something infinitely higher than any of the exoteric interpretations of the Virgin Birth. Consideration of just two points in the Bible will enable us to avoid trivial interpretations of this ‘immaculate conception’. The one point is this: Why should the writer of St. Matthew's Gospel have enumerated the whole sequence of generations from Abraham to Joseph if he had wished to indicate that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth had no connection with this line of descent ? He is at pains to show how the blood was led down the generations from Abraham to Joseph; how, then, could he possibly have intended to indicate that the blood of Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to do with this blood? And the other point of which account must be taken is that in the Hebrew language the gender of ‘Ruach-Elohim’—rendered ‘Holy Spirit' ’ the Bible—is feminine.—We shall speak further of this. I only wanted now to call up a feeling of the sublimity and grandeur of the thought originally underlying this Mystery.

What took place at the beginning of our era, known only to wise men who were initiated into the secrets of cosmic existence, was expressed in the Aramaic language in the original record upon which the Gospel of St. Matthew is based. And it is possible to prove, not only through occultism but through actual philological investigation, that this record was already in existence in the year 71 A.D. The actual way in which the Gospels originated is set forth in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact.² By proceeding with exactitude, however, it is possible to show, even through philology, that statements attributing a later date to the Gospel of St. Matthew are not correct, for there is evidence that an original Aramaic script of this Gospel was already extant in the year 71 A.D. comparatively short time, therefore, after the events in Palestine. But as I am concerned here with facts of spiritual science, not of philology, I will quote only one reference in Talmudist literature, the authenticity of which is accepted by Hebrew scholars.

There is a passage in this literature to the effect that Rabbi Gamaliel II was involved in a dispute with his sister over the estate left by their father who had been killed in a fight with the Romans in the year 7o. It is narrated that Rabbi Gamaliel II appeared at the timc before a judge who, according to the account, was a so-called Jewish Christian. (Such men not uncommonly occupied offices in the judiciary courts set up by the Romans for the jews.) A strange incident occurred during the proceedings. The dispute between the Rabbi and his sister was over the inheritance of their father's estate. And before a judge who certainly had some knowledge of Christianity, Rabbi Gamaliel insisted that according to Jewish Law it was only a son, not a daughter, who could inherit, and that the estate therefore passed to him. The judge replied that in the circle where he officiated, the Thora had been set aside, and that as Gamaliel was seeking justice and a verdict from him, he would not give judgment in accordance with Jewish Law but with the Law that had superseded the Thora. As already said, this happened in the year 71—the year after the death of the father of the litigants during the persecution of the Jews. Rabbi Gamaliel's only loophole now was to bribe the judge. This he did, and the following day the judge quoted from the original Aramaic script of St. Matthew's Gospel, to the effect that ‘Christ did not come into the world to destroy the Law of Moses but to fulfil it’. The judge believed he could still his conscience for deflecting the Law by maintaining that in allotting the estate to Gamaliel his judgment was in accordance with Christian tenets.

Here we have evidence that in the year 71 A.D. there existed an original Christian script from which words now contained in the Gospel of St. Matthew were taken. The passage in question was actually quoted in Aramaic and thus we have external proof that this original text of St. Matthew's Gospel, part of it at any rate, was then in existence. We have yet to consider the findings of occult investigation on the subject. The above episode has been quoted merely in order to show that when the aid of external scholarship is sought, it is not right to adopt the usual procedure which is to collect all the literature available for a.cademic study but leave out of account the Talmudist writings which are exceedingly impor-tant for knowledge even of the exoteric aspect of these things.

Thus there are very good grounds for affixing a comparatively early date to the Gospel of St. Matthew. This alone provides certain exoteric proof that the men who participated in its compilation were living at no great distance of time from the actual happenings in Palestine; the outer circumstances in themselves, therefore, are evidence that nobody could simply have lied to people, saying that Christ Jesus did not live at the beginning of our era. For as not even half a century had yet elapsed, it was a mattcr of speaking to those who had been actual eye-witnesses and therefore could not be persuaded that certain events had never happened. Exoterically these things are important and they are mentioned here merely as evidence of that aspect of the subject.

We have seen how measures founded on mysteries of cos-mic existence were taken in the evolution of humanity in order to prepare from the 'filtered' blood of the Hebrew people—blood in which the order of the Cosmos itself prevailed—a body in which the great Initiate Zarathustra could reincarnate. For it is of the Zarathustra-Individuality, of him and no other, that the Gospel of Matthew speaks in the first place.

It must not be imagined that everything brought to light here from profound secrets of world-evolution took place quite openly, before thc eyes of all men. Even for contemporaries the events were veiled in deep mystery and comprehensible only to a very few Initiates. Hence it is understandable that such complete silence should have been maintained concerning what came to pass at that time as the greatest of all events in the evolution and history of humanity. And when historians to-clay, basing their views on the records available to them, point out that no mention whatever is made of this event, we shall not be at all surprised but on the contrary regard it as a matter of course.

Having characterized the part played by Zarathustra in the preparation of this great event, we must now consider the many other currents and influences at work immediately before and also immediately after the coming of the Christ, and all the happenings that took place around Him. Prepara-tion for the event had been in process for a long time. We have heard that preparation for the development of the outer sheaths of Jesus of Nazareth had been made by Hermes and Moses as the emissaries of Zarathustra, and by Melchisedek, the bearer of the Sun-Mystery, but there had also been preparation in a different form, constituting as it were a sub-sidiary stream. But subsidiary though it was, it nevertheless played a part in the wider stream of happenings originating with Zarathustra. This contributory stream came slowly into existence in centres of which external history informs us by calling attention to certain religious sects where men, named by Philo the `Therapeutae', were endeavouring by inner paths to purify and develop their souls, to expel any elements cor-rupted by outer concerns and external knowledge, in order thereby to rise into the sphere of pure Spirit. An offshoot of the sect of the Therapeutae, where this subsidiary stream undenvent still further development, was the community of the Essenes in Asia. All these men in the sects both of the Therapeutae and the Essenes were under a common spiritual guidance. A brief account of them is contained in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact.³ To have any exoteric knowledge of this spiritual guidance we must remind ourselves of the lectures given last year on the Gospel of St. Luke and published with that title.⁴ Reference was there made to the mystery of Gautama Buddha, the exoteric aspect of which is also presented in oriental writings, and it was said that one who is to attain Buddhahood in the course of evolution must, to begin with, be a Bodhisattva, as in the case of the Being known in history as the Buddha. He too was a Bodhisattva until the twenty-ninth year of his life as the son of King Suddhodana, and it was not until then that through his inner development he rose to Buddhahood. Many Bodhisattvas work in the course of the evolution of humanity and the Bodhisattva who became Buddha six hundred years before our era is one of those who guide and direct evolution. An individuality who rises from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha does not again incarnate in a physical body on the Earth. From the same lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke we have heard how from the day of the birth of the Jesus of the Nathan line of descent, the power of the Buddha radiated into the etheric body of this child. And we heard that this is not the same Jesus as the Jesus with whom the Gospel of St. Matthew is primarily concerned.

An ancient phase of evolution came to a conclusion svith this attainment of Buddhahood by thc Bodhisattva, the son of King Suddhodana. In point of fact, this phase of evolution belonged to the same stream as that of the holy Rishis of India; but it was brought to a certain culmination when that Bodhisattva attained the rank of Buddhahood.

When a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, his successor takes his place. This is also narrated in the old Indian legend where it is said that in the spiritual realms, before desccnding to his final birth, the Bodhisattva who was born as the son of Suddhodana and then rose to Buddhahood, handed to his successor the crown belonging to the office of Bodhisattva. Thus since that time the Bodhisattva who then became Gautama Buddha has been succeeded by the new Bodhisattva who had a par-ticular mission to fulfil in the history of mankind. The task allotted to him was the spiritual guidance of the movement represented in the doctrines of the Therapeutae and Essenes and it was in these communities that his influence worked. During the reign of King Alexander Jannaeus (about 103 to 76 B.c.), a certain Individuality was sent by this Bodhisattva into the communities of the Essenes to be their guide and leader. This Individuality—he is well-known in occultism and also in exoteric Talmudist literature—was the leader of the Essenes about a hundred years before the appearance of Christ Jesus on the Earth.⁵

Thus a hundred years before our era there lived a personality who is not to be confused either with the Jesus of St. Luke's Gospel or with the Jesus of St. Matthew's Gospel; he was a leading figure in the Essene communities and is known in occultism as a herald of Christianity among them. He is also known in Talrnudist literature under the name of Jesus, the son of Pandira, Jeschu ben Pandira. He was a great and noble personality, about whom inferior Jewish literature has woven all kinds of fables that have been recently revived, and he must not be confused, as some Talmudists have confused him, with the ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ of whom we are speaking in these lectures. This herald of Christianity among the Essenes is known to us too as Jesus, the son of Pandira; we also know that he was accused of blasphemy and heresy by those to whom the teachings of the Essenes were anathema, and after being stoned was hanged on a tree, in order to add to the punishment the stigma of infamy. This is an occult fact, also recorded in Talmudist literature.

In Jeschu ben Pandira we have to see a personality stand-ing under the guardianship of the present Bodhisattva. The facts are therefore clear.—A stream, as it were accessory to the main Christian stream, originated from the Buddha's successor, from the present Bodhisattva who later on will become the Maitreya Buddha and who sent his emissary into the Essene communities, where in executing his mission he achieved what we shall come to know in the following lectures.

The name ‘Jesus’ is that of the Individuality of whom the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke tell; but it was also the name of that noble personality—regarding whom everything contained in inferior Jewish literature is calumny—who worked in the Essene community a hundred years before our era, was accused of blasphemy and heresy, stoned and finally hanged on a tree.

• 1. See Genesis. Secrets of the Bible Story of Creation. Study of this cycle, particularly of the first two lectures, is indispensable in connection with the above passage.
• 2. Chapter VII.
• 3. Chapter X.
• 4. Notably Lectures Two and Three.
• 5. Appendix II, p. 236.

The secrets of space and time. The Moses and Hermes Wisdom. Comparison of the Turanians and the Hebrews.¹

In the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew emphasis is laid on the descent of the physical nature of the Jesus of this Gospel from Abraham. The fact of most importance to the spiritual scientist is that by inheritance throughout thrice fourteen generations this individual bore within him an extract of the whole race of Abraham. He is the same individual who is spoken of as Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

In the last lecture we described the external conditions in which Zarathustra worked. Something must now be said of the opinions and ideas that obtained in his immediate circle.

In that district where in very far-off ages Zarathustra worked, conceptions and ideas flourished that, in their broad outlines, were of profound importance. It needs but a few extracts from what since earliest times has been regarded as the teaching of the first Zarathustra to show how deeply these affected the thought of the whole post-Atlantean period. Even external history relates how the teaching of Zarathustra proceeded from two principles, which we describe as the principle of Ormuzd, the beneficent Being of Light, and Ahriman, the dark Being of Evil. At the same time historical descriptions of this religious system trace the origin of these two principles back to a single common principle Zeruane Akarene. It is customary to translate Zeruane Akarene as ‘Uncreated Time.’ It may, therefore, be said that the teaching of Zarathustra leads back to an original principle, in which we have to recognize quiescent Time, Time flowing on in its universal course. The very meaning of the word shows us that it is unnecessary to question further as to the origin of this Time, this revolution of Time.

True, the external abstract thinking of man will hardly ever refrain from inquiring again and again after the cause of this cause, forever driving his conceptions back, forever seeking the primal cause. But the spiritual scientist realizes through deep meditation that questionings about the beginnings of things must cease somewhere. To continue them beyond a certain point is merely to play with thinking, as is shown clearly in Occult Science. It is stated there that when wheel tracks are seen on a road it may well be asked whence they came. The answer will probably be that they were caused by the wheels of a carriage. A query as to the reason for the wheels on the carriage may produce the information that they were needed to enable it to travel along the road. A further inquiry as to the cause of this may bring the reply that someone wished to travel along the road. Ultimately we arrive at the resolve of the man which led him to travel along the road. Here it is advisable to stop, for further inquiries would inevitably lead to losing one's way in a maze of questions.

It is the same as regards great universal questions—a halt must be made somewhere; made at what lies at the fountain of the teaching of Zarathustra; at Time, calm, onflowing Time. Then, according to Zarathustra, there proceeded from Time, Ormuzd, the principle of Light, and Ahriman, the evil principle of Darkness. The profound meaning underlying this Iranian or old Persian idea is that the wickedness in the world, all that in its physical form is described as darkness, was not originally wicked, dark and evil. In the same way the wolf was originally good, but when left to itself it degenerated so that Ahrimanic forces could be active in it. To the Iranians or Persians evil came to pass through something that at one time—a time suited to it—was good, retaining its form on into a later age with which it was out of harmony. To them, all that was black and evil arose through a form which was good in one age, continuing on into a later age, instead of adapting itself to change. Through the clashing of such forms of being with the more advanced ones of a later time, the struggle between good and evil arose. Evil is therefore not absolute evil, but misplaced good, something that was good in an earlier time. There, where earlier conditions did not as yet come into collision with later conditions, enduring Time rolled on, Time that was undifferentiated, not yet separated into individual moments.

Such is the very important point of view expressed in Zarathustrianism; and this should be recognized as the fundamental principle of the teaching of Zarathustra among the earliest post-Atlantean peoples, and must be associated with the facts given in the first lecture. The people influenced by him had, above all, insight into the necessity for the birth of this duality from out the uniform stream of Time, and for the coming of opposition, which opposition would only be overcome in the course of time. We see the necessity that the new should arise and the old remain behind; that in the balance between the old and the new, the goal of the universe, and especially the goal of the Earth, will gradually be attained. It is this point of view that lies at the root of all that higher development which has sprung from Zarathustrianism.

The impression made by the influence of Zarathustra on subsequent ages was strong and deep. It was possible through the fact, that having reached the highest summit of initiation attainable at that time, he had also trained two pupils. These pupils I have spoken of before. To one he taught everything connected with the mystery of Space as it is spread around us, and therewith the mystery of all things contemporaneous. To the other he imparted the mystery of the flight of Time, the mystery of development and of evolution. I have also already indicated that at a definite point of time of such a discipleship as existed between these two great disciples and Zarathustra, something quite especial enters: the teacher can sacrifice part of his own being to his disciples. And Zarathustra, as he was in his Zarathustra-age, gave up to his pupils something of his own being, he sacrificed his own etheric and astral bodies. His individuality, his own inmost being, he retained for future incarnations; but his remarkable astral ‘garment,’ in which he had lived as Zarathustra in the earliest post-Atlantean periods, which had attained such a degree of perfection, and was so permeated by his whole being that instead of dispersing like that of an ordinary man, it remained intact—he gave this to another. The depth and power of the individuality of this great Initiate made this possible, and this is why the astral body of Zarathustra persisted. Similarly his etheric body remained also intact.

According to occult investigation, one of these pupils, the one who had received knowledge concerning the mystery of Space, of all that fills space contemporaneously, reincarnated as that personality known to history as Thoth, or Hermes of the Egyptians. Hermes had not only to establish in himself what he had received from Zarathustra in an earlier incarnation, but he had to establish it more firmly; this he was able to do in the Holy Mysteries, because he had received into himself the astral sheath of the great Initiate. Permeated by the teaching of Zarathustra, and filled by his astral nature, the individuality of this pupil was born again as Hermes, the inaugurator of the civilization of Egypt. We have, therefore, a direct member or principle of the being of Zarathustra in the Egyptian Hermes. With this principle, and with what he had brought with him of the teaching of Zarathustra, Hermes was able to give the impulse for all that was best and of greatest moment in Egyptian civilization. Naturally, a suitable race was necessary in order that the work of the messenger of Zarathustra might be effective. A race promising a fruitful soil for the development of this work could only be found among those Atlantean wanderers who had taken the more southern way and had settled in East Africa and had retained much of their old clairvoyance. The essential soul-nature of this race was quick to receive the wisdom of Hermes, and in this way Egyptian civilization arose. It was a very special type of civilization. You must try to realize how all that is included in the mysteries of contemporaneous things, of that which exists side by side in space, was contained in the wisdom of Hermes—all this had been entrusted to him as a precious gift from Zarathustra, so that in his own being Hermes possessed the most important teachings that Zarathustra had to impart.

It has often been stated that the most characteristic teaching of Zarathustra referred to the external sunlight and the external physical light-body of the Sun as the outer sheath of an exalted Spiritual Being. What was confided to Hermes was the mystery of that which as Being, underlies all Nature, all space and everything contemporaneous, yet which advances ever in time from epoch to epoch, and reveals itself in certain epochs Hermes knew what comes from the Sun, and what through the Sun continues to develop. This knowledge he implanted in the souls of the Egyptians, who retained a memory of the Atlantean Sun-Mysteries, and were, therefore, specially adapted to receive his teachings. All this, within the advancing line of evolution, was in the soul of Hermes, as well as in all those souls ripe to absorb his wisdom.

The mission of the second of Zarathustra's pupils was very different. Upon him had been bestowed the secrets of the passing of Time. He had to experience within himself the conflict between the old and the new, how in evolution something was active as opposition, as polarity. As already stated this pupil had also received part of the being of Zarathustra; on reincarnating he could therefore receive the sacrifice of Zarathustra.

Thus, while the individuality of Zarathustra remained intact, his sheaths were separated from him, they endured and were not dispersed for they were held together by such a mighty individual. This second pupil—to whom was imparted the wisdom concerning Time in contradistinction to that concerning Space—received at a specific moment of his reincarnated existence the etheric body of Zarathustra, which had been sacrificed in the same way s his astral body. This reborn pupil was none other than Moses. Moses received in quite early childhood the fully preserved etheric body of Zarathustra.

Our religious documents which are really founded on occultism contain all this, though in a veiled form. In them we find suggestions of the secrets revealed through occult investigation. As Moses was the reincarnated pupil of Zarathustra and had received his etheric body, something quite unusual had to take place in him. This is recorded in the Scriptures. Before he could receive the ordinary impressions from his surroundings like another human being, before he could descend with his individuality so as to receive impressions from the external world, there had to percolate into his being that which he was to receive as a marvellous inheritance from Zarathustra. This fact is expressed in the symbolic legend which relates that Moses was placed in a casket and lowered to the river. This should be accepted as indicating a remarkable initiation.

Initiation consists in a man being withdrawn from the world for a certain time, during which he slowly absorbs what has been given to him. While thus withdrawn, Moses was able to be united at the right moment with the etheric body of Zarathustra that had been preserved for this purpose. The wonderful wisdom concerning Time, the gift of Zarathustra in an earlier period, was then able to blossom within him; he gave this wisdom to his people in a series of pictures fitted to their understanding. Hence from Moses we have those mighty pictures of Genesis, those imaginations dealing with the wisdom of Time, of the ages as they succeed one another, received from Zarathustra. This was a re-born knowledge—a re-born wisdom—received by him, and was firmly established in his inner nature since he had received the etheric sheath of Zarathustra himself.

An initiate is not only needed as inaugurator of a new civilization for the advancement of the human race, but he must have a suitable medium in which to work, a race fitted to receive the germ of this new civilization. To understand the folk-soul, the folk-germ in which what had been received by Moses from Zarathustra was to be planted, it would be well to consider more exactly the peculiar wisdom of Moses.

In a former incarnation, Moses as Zarathustra's pupil had received the wisdom concerning Time, and that secret which we referred to as the ‘opposition between the earlier and the later’ that arises in every age. If the wisdom of Moses was to enter human evolution it had to be established as a polarity to that other wisdom, already in existence, the wisdom of Hermes. And this took place.

Hermes had received direct Sun-wisdom from Zarathustra: that is to say, through his astral body he had gained knowledge of the Being dwelling mysteriously within the outer physical sheath of Light—the body of the sun. With Moses it was otherwise. Moses, whose wisdom was connected with the denser etheric body, received the Sun-wisdom less directly. His was not that wisdom which looks up to the Sun asking: “Does not everything come forth from the Being of the Sun?”; but he was the recipient of a contrasting knowledge, the wisdom that understood earthly things, things that had become dense and fixed, and appeared old, though not degenerate—Earth-wisdom in contrast to direct Sun-wisdom. Earth-wisdom was indirect Sun-wisdom. It derived its life from the Sun, yet was of the Earth. Moses declared the mystery of the Earth's origin, of the formation of the solid Earth after the withdrawal of the Sun, and told how man evolved on it. This is revealed to our inward, not our outward, vision; and now we see how and why the teaching of Hermes presents such a vivid contrast to that of Moses.

There are certain people to-day who consider all such problems on the principle that in the night all cows are grey. They can only see resemblances, and are enchanted when, for instance, some likeness between the Hermetic and Mosaic teachings is discovered; here they find a trinity, there a trinity, there a quaternary, and here a quaternary. This leads nowhere. It is like someone training a botanist by pointing out the likeness between a rose and a carnation, but omitting the differences. Through Spiritual Science we learn in what way both beings and forms of knowledge differ. The wisdom of Moses was quite different from that of Hermes, even though both proceeded from Zarathustra. As unity divides and manifests itself in various ways, so Zarathustra imparted to his two pupils revelations of a very different kind.

When we are steeped in the influences streaming from the wisdom of Hermes, we become aware of all that fills the world with Light, of the origin of the world, and how this was affected by the Light; but we do not learn from him how, in all development, the earlier influences the later; how this brings about strife between past and present, and the opposition of Light to Darkness. Earthly wisdom, the wisdom concerning the development of the Earth and of man after the separation from the Sun, is nowhere to be found in the teaching of Hermes. But it was the special mission of Moses to make the development of the Earth, after its separation from the Sun, comprehensible to man. Hermes brought us Sun-wisdom; Moses Earth-wisdom. Moses, with his Zarathustrian inheritance, taught of the dawn of earthly existence and of the earthly evolution of man. He starts from the things of earth, but these earthly things, though separated from the sun, still contained, if weakened, something of the nature of the sun. Therefore the Earth-wisdom of Moses had to encounter the Sun-wisdom of Hermes in concrete existence. These two streams of wisdom had to meet. This is shown most wonderfully in the initiation of Moses in Egypt, where he came in contact with the Hermes-wisdom. In the birth of Moses in Egypt, in the sojourning of his people there, in the conflict between them and the Egyptians, who were the people of Hermes, is seen the reflection in external life of the clashing of the Earth-wisdom with the Sun-wisdom. Both had originated with Zarathustra, and though they followed entirely different courses of evolution they had to work together and to coincide.

There is a certain kind of knowledge, one closely connected with the profound secrets of human and earthly existence, which in accordance with the methods of the Mysteries, is always expressed in a special way. This was referred to in Munich in the lectures on the Biblical Secrets of Creation. There it was shown how unusually difficult it is to speak in ordinary language of such mighty truths, truths comprising not only the deepest mysteries of man but of the universe. We are often hampered by words, for they have their precise meaning determined by long usage; and when endeavouring to express the mighty facts revealed inwardly to the soul, we often find ourselves in conflict with the feeble instrument of speech which is really in a certain respect so extraordinarily inadequate.

The greatest triviality of the newer culture in general that has been uttered in the course of the nineteenth century, is that every truth can be expressed simply, and that the mode of expression is the criterion of whether someone possesses this truth or not. Such a statement only shows that those who use it are not in possession of absolute truth, but only of those truths which, in the course of centuries, have been communicated in words, the form of which they only alter a little. For such people words suffice: they are quite unaware of the great struggle which must sometimes be carried on with words. This struggle becomes apparent whenever the soul strives to express what is grand and exalted. I spoke in Munich of how in the Rosicrucian Mystery Drama, The Portal of Initiation, at the end of the scene in the room provided for meditation, there was for me a very great difficulty with language. What the Hierophant had to say to the pupil could only be expressed in a most restricted way through the feeble instrument of speech.

Within the Holy Mysteries, however, the most profound secrets had to be expressed. There the inadequacy of speech to call up the images of reality was felt most strongly. Hence the age-long effort in the Mysteries to find other means to express the inner experiences of the soul. These feeble means of expression—words—have for centuries been reserved for external intercourse, but the pictures and images seen when men turned their gaze towards the heavenly spaces have proved far more suitable. The constellations, the rising of a star at a certain time, the occultation of a certain star by another at a definite time—such pictures were used to express experiences within the human soul.

Let us suppose that someone desired to say that a great event was to take place at a certain time, because at that particular moment a human soul would be sufficiently ripe to receive a great experience and to pass this on to his people; or that some nation, or a large part of mankind, having reached a certain high stage of ripeness, a certain individuality could appear among them, coming perhaps from a quite other direction. In such a case the climax of development of the individual would coincide with the highest point of development of the folk-soul. No words are sufficiently exalted to convey the full meaning of such an event. Therefore it was expressed in this wise: The coincidence of the climax of power of an individual, with the climax of power of a folk-soul, is as when the sun is in the constellation of Leo and thence sends us its light. The constellation of the Lion is here chosen to represent, in a pictorial way, something that had to be expressed as taking place with utmost power in human evolution. What could be seen thus outwardly in cosmic space was used as a means of expressing something taking place in humanity. Certain expressions found in human history have arisen in this way; they are taken from the movements of the heavenly bodies, and are the method used to denote spiritual facts.

When it is stated, for example, that the sun is in the sign of Leo, or that through some event in the heavens, such as an eclipse of the sun by a certain constellation, a fact in human evolution is symbolically expressed, it may very well happen that people reverse this and suppose, in a trivial way, that all the events relating to mankind's history were myths clothed in the motions of the stars; whereas the truth is that incidents in the life of humanity were expressed by means of images taken from the constellations.

This connection with the cosmos ought to fill us with certain feelings of reverence towards all we are told concerning the great events of human evolution, when we find these expressed in images taken from cosmic existence. But there is, nevertheless, an intimate connection between the existence of the whole cosmos and the life of man this is, that events taking place on earth are a reflection of cosmic events. Thus the meeting of the Sun-wisdom of Hermes with the Earth-wisdom of Moses in Egypt is, in a certain way, a reflection of cosmic activities. Picture to yourselves that certain forces streaming from the sun to the earth meet others streaming from the earth into cosmic space. It is not a matter of indifference where these two forces meet; but according as the meeting be near or far, the result of the outgoing and incoming forces is different.

Now the contact of the wisdom of Hermes with that of Moses was pictured in the Mysteries of ancient Egypt as representing something that, according also to Spiritual Science, had previously taken place in the cosmos. We know that early in evolution the sun separated from the earth, leaving the moon for a period within the earth. Later a part of this globe separate from the earth, and remained as the present moon. Thus the earth sent a portion of itself; as moon, into universal space, towards the sun. We may think of the remarkable occurrence of the meeting of the Earth-wisdom of Moses with the Sun-wisdom of Hermes as comparable with this streaming forth of the Earth-forces towards the sun. One might say: The wisdom of Moses, in its further course, after separating from the Sun-wisdom of Zarathustra, developed as the wisdom of the earth and of men in such a way that it drew again towards the sun, absorbing and filling itself with direct solar wisdom. The earth was destined to receive direct Sun-wisdom only to a certain extent, then to develop further alone and independently. The wisdom of Moses, therefore, only remained in Egypt until it had absorbed sufficient for its needs. Then came the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, in order that the Sun-wisdom taken up by the Earth-wisdom might be assimilated and brought to greater self-dependence.

The wisdom of Moses was two-fold. One part was developed under the sheltering wing of the Hermes-wisdom which it continually absorbed from every side, then, after the exodus from Egypt, it separated from this development, continued further within itself, and later passed through three stages. Towards what should this wisdom evolve? What is its task? Its ultimate task was to find its way back from the earth to the sun. It had become earthly wisdom. Moses was born with all he inherited from Zarathustra, as a wise man of earth. He was to find the way back, and he sought it in three stages, the first being that in which he absorbed the wisdom of Hermes. These stages are again best expressed in the images drawn from cosmic events. When what takes place upon the earth streams back in space from the earth towards the sun, it first encounters what is of the nature of Mercury (in ordinary astronomy the Mercury of astronomy is the Venus of Occult Science), then that of Venus, and ultimately that which is of the nature of the sun. The soul of Moses had to develop his Zarathustrian inheritance in inner experiences in such a way that he might return and find once more what appertained to the Sun. In order to do this he had to attain a certain degree of development. The wisdom Moses had implanted in western culture had to develop according to the way he gave it to his people. The wisdom he had gained from Hermes and which came to him like the direct rays of the sun, he had to develop anew, and reflect it back again in a changed form, after he had absorbed some part of it.

Now we are told that Hermes, who was later called ‘Mercury,’ brought to his people science and art, that is, external knowledge and art, in a form suitable to them. But it was in a different and almost opposite way that the wisdom of Moses attained to the Hermes-Mercury standpoint. Moses had himself to develop the wisdom of Hermes further. This is shown in the progress of the Hebrew people up to the age and reign of David. David, who is presented to us as the royal singer of Psalms and holy prophet, who as a man of God worked both as warrior and harpist, is the Hermes, or Mercury, of the Hebrew people. That stream of the Hebrew folk had now so far evolved that it had developed an independent form of Hermetic or Mercury wisdom. At the time of David the wisdom received from Hermes had reached the Mercury sphere, or Mercury stage, on its return journey. It then continued to the region of Venus. This came to pass for the Hebrews when the Moses-wisdom, or rather that version of it which had endured as his wisdom for hundreds of years, had to unite with an entirely different element, with a stream issuing from another direction.

Just as that which streams back in space from the earth towards the sun encounters Venus, so the wisdom of Moses encountered an Asiatic wisdom that came from another direction during the Babylonian Captivity. The Moses-wisdom came in touch with the weakened form of another wisdom in the Mysteries of Babylon and Chaldea. Like a wanderer who, having acquired knowledge of the earth, leaves it for the Mercury sphere, and thence passes on to Venus desirous of experiencing the sunlight as it is felt there, so the Moses-wisdom, having received the direct Sun-wisdom from the holy teachings of Zarathustra, passed over in a weakened form to the mystery schools of Chaldea and Babylon. The wisdom of Moses experienced this weakening during the Babylonian captivity, where it united with all that had penetrated into the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here something else happened.

In the sanctuaries which the wise men among the Hebrews were obliged to frequent during their captivity, the wisdom of Moses was directly impregnated with the qualities of the Sun-wisdom. For at this time Zarathustra was himself incarnated and taught in the mystery schools of the Tigris and Euphrates, and was known to the learned among the Hebrews. He who had relinquished part of his wisdom so that he might receive it back again, was himself teaching at this time. He had frequently reincarnated, and in this incarnation in which he was known as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he taught the captive Jews in Babylon.

Thus in the course of its further progress, the wisdom of Moses came in touch with what Zarathustra had himself become after he had withdrawn from the more distant Mystery Sanctuaries and had entered those of Asia Minor. Here he became the teacher of the initiate Chaldean disciples, as well as teacher of the Hebrews. They now received a fructification of their Mosaic wisdom by a stream they were now fitter to encounter, because what had once been given to their ancestor Moses by Zarathustra came to them now directly from himself, in his incarnation as Zarathos or Nazarathos. This was the destiny through which Mosaic wisdom passed. Originally it sprang from Zarathustra, but was then transplanted into an alien land. It was as if a Sun-being with bandaged eyes had been brought down to earth, and now, on its backward journey, had to seek all it had lost. Such a wanderer was Moses, the pupil of Zarathustra. His destiny had placed him within Egyptian civilization, so that all the wisdom given him at one time by Zarathustra might be quickened and illuminated in his inner being. He was cut off, as it were, from the sun on the fields of earth, where unaware of the source of his illumination he moved unconsciously towards what once was sun. In Egypt he was attracted towards the wisdom of Hermes, which brought to him direct Zarathustra-wisdom, not an indirect reflection like his own. After absorbing sufficiently of this, the wisdom of Moses continued its development in a more direct way. Having founded an Hermetic wisdom at the time of David, and a science and art of its own, it turned again towards the sun from which it had originally come forth, though in a way that had at first to appear veiled.

In the ancient Babylonian schools of learning where, among others, Zarathustra taught Pythagoras, his teaching was restricted by the type of physical body of the period. If Zarathustra was to give full expression to his Sun-nature through a form suited to those times, as he was able to do in that earlier incarnation when he had passed it on to Moses and Hermes, he would require a bodily instrument fitted to the new age. Restricted by a body such as could be produced in ancient Babylonia, he was only able to convey such wisdom as he passed on to Pythagoras, to the learned Hebrews and wise men of Chaldea and Babylon, who in the sixth century before Christ, were ready and able to hear it. In respect of this teaching it was exactly as if the sunlight were first taken up by Venus and prevented from shining directly on the earth; as if his teaching could not shine with its original splendour but only in a weakened form. Before the Sun-wisdom of Zarathustra could shine forth once more in its pristine power, a body suited to him must first be provided, and in a very special way. This will now be described.

In the first lecture, we told of the three folk-souls of Asia, the Indian in the South, the Iranian, and the Turanian to the North, and we described the connection of these with the Atlantean migrations into Asia. Where the northern stream which came from Atlantis met the southern stream which passed through Africa, an extraordinary mixture of races occurred. From this admixture a race developed from which later the Hebrew people sprang.

Something unusual occurred in the development of these ancestors of the Hebrews. The lower astral-etheric clairvoyance which had become so decadent among certain races because it was the last phase of external perception, had in those people who developed into the Hebrew race, turned inwards and manifested as an organizing force. That which we have described as being externally decadent, as having remained behind in certain races as a last phase of declining clairvoyance, and as being permeated somewhat by the Ahrimanic element, had progressed among the Hebrews in the right direction by becoming an actively organizing force within the human body. Through this, bodies became more perfect. What among the Turanians was decadent worked constructively and progressively in the Hebrews. Within the physical nature of the Hebrews, as propagated from generation to generation in the close bond of blood relationship, all those forces were active which had accomplished their mission in developing external sight. These were no longer required to provide external sight, so could enter on another sphere of action, thus passing into their right element. That which had given to the Atlantean the power to gaze spiritually into space and into spiritual realms, that had run wild in the Turanians, appearing as a last relic of clairvoyance—all this force worked inwardly in the little Hebrew nation. What in the Atlantean had been spiritual and divine, worked inwardly in the Hebrew race to form certain organs. It worked constructively in the body and could therefore flash forth in the blood of this people as and inward divine consciousness. With the Hebrew people it was if all the Atlantean had seen when directing his clairvoyant vision into space was turned inwards, as if it constructed inwardly an organ of consciousness which was the Jahve-consciousness—the consciousness of God within him. This people felt the God Who filled all space to be united with their blood, felt they were filled, impregnated with Him, and that He lived in the pulsation of their blood.

As in the last lecture we contrasted the Iranians and the Turanians we have now considered the Turanians and the Hebrews, and have seen that what in its further progress and in its essence had become decadent in the Turanians, pulsated later in the blood of the Hebrew people. All that the Atlantean had seen, lived on in the Hebrew as an inward feeling, and could be comprised in a single word: Jahve or Jehovah. The consciousness of God lived throughout the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concentrated as into a single point, invisible but inwardly felt. The God Who had revealed Himself to the Atlantean clairvoyance behind all living things was now the God dwelling in the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and led the generations of their race from destiny to destiny. The outward had thus become inward it was experienced, no longer seen; it was no longer described by different names, but by one single name ‘I am the I am!’ It had taken on an entirely different form. Whereas for the Atlantean this was found where he was not—in the external world—it was now found by man in the centre of his own being; in his ego; he was conscious of it in the blood that coursed through the generations. The mighty God of the Universe had now become the God of the Hebrews; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and flowed through the generations as the blood of the race.

It was in this way that the race was founded whose special inner mission for humanity we shall consider in the next lecture. We have thus far only been able to indicate the very earliest stage of the composition of the blood of this people, in which was concentrated everything that in the age of ancient Atlantis, humanity had allowed to be impressed upon it from without. We shall see later what mysteries were fulfilled in that which had here its beginning, and shall learn to recognize the peculiar nature of that people from which Zarathustra could take his body to become the being we call Jesus of Nazareth.

• 1. In a footnote to this lecture the reader is recommended to study these early lectures in conjunction with the author's lectures on St. Luke, in order to understand the events in the life of Christ Jesus.

The ancient Hebrew consciousness of God. The secret of the development of a people, as image of cosmic development. Principal and subsidiary currents in the preparation for the Christ-event

WE have shown that the Hebrew people had received from Abraham a physical organ, enabling them to acquire, through sense knowledge, not merely an inkling, but, as far as was possible, a real knowledge of divine spiritual things. Knowledge of the divinely spiritual there is and has been at all times and in all places. But this, what might be called eternal knowledge of the divine, was reached through initiation into the Mysteries, or at least on the path to initiation.

A distinction must be made between that knowledge of the spiritual worlds acquired by special training or initiation, and that which is normal for any age, and arises as its special mission for human evolution.

In this way the astral clairvoyance prevalent throughout the Atlantean period was normal for that age, but for the age in which the Hebrews flourished an external, exoteric knowledge of the spiritual world was normal, and was gained with the aid of a special physical organ. As already indicated, the people of Abraham arrived at this knowledge in such a way that their innermost being seemed to be dissolved within divine existence. Inner knowledge, or the comprehension of divinity in man's innermost being, became possible through this special physical organ.

But this comprehension of the divine did not make it immediately possible for men to say: ‘I descend into my own inner being, I strive to comprehend as deeply as I can my own inner nature; there I find the drop of divine spiritual existence giving me an understanding of what permeates the external world.’ This first became spiritually possible through the entrance of Christ into human evolution. The possibility of experiencing the divine was first given to the Hebrew people through their Folk-spirit, in which each felt himself not as a single individual but as a member of the whole people; he then felt he belonged through his blood to the whole line of generations, he felt the Divine or Jehovah-consciousness lived in his Folk-consciousness.

In the terms of Occult Science it would be inaccurate to describe the God Jehovah by saying, ‘He is the God of Abraham;’ but we must say, ‘He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and ofJacob—the Being Who passes from generation to generation, and Who reveals Himself through individual men in the consciousness of the race.’ The Christian perception shows a great advance over this. What the ancient Hebrew perception attained only through meditating on the Folk-spirit, by sinking within the Spirit flowing through the generations, Chistian recognizes in each single individual. I Abraham might have said; ‘In that I am chosen to be the founder of a people whose descendants will spread over the earth, a God will live in the blood flowing through the generations Whom we hold to be the most supreme, and Who reveals Himself to us in the consciousness of our people.’ This was the consciousness normal for that time.

This special form of knowledge was different from the higher knowledge of the Spirit that had been preserved in the Mysteries throughout all ages. In Atlantis, astral-etheric clairvoyance could perceive the divine-spiritual background of existence. By developing their inner life men could there attain knowledge through the Mysteries or Oracles. Even during the period when the Hebrew type of consciousness was normal, men who trained in certain sanctuaries could rise to the perception of the divine. But this was done when outside the body, not within it, as was the way of the people of Abraham. A man could rise to the perception of the eternal divine Spirit by enhancing the eternal in himself. Thus it is easily realized that one thing was necessary to Abraham. He had learnt, in a way peculiar to himself, and by means of a physical organ, to know the divinely spiritual, and in this way he had learnt to recognize the God Who guides the universe. If he were to enter with vivid comprehension into the whole course of evolution, it was of the greatest importance that he should recognize in the God Who revealed Himself in the Folk-consciousness of the people, the same God, Who had been recognized in the Mysteries of all ages as the Creative Deity. Abraham had to be quite certain of the identity of his God with the God of the Mysteries. Certainty of this was brought home to him through a very special revelation.

To understand this certainty one fact of human evolution must be kept in mind. In my book, Occult Science, reference is made to the ancient Atlantean Initiates, the ‘Priests of the Oracles’—what they were called is of little consequence—and I said there that the Sun-Initiate was the head of all the Atlantean Oracles, and must be distinguished from the initiates of the lesser Oracles, those of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, etc. He was the great leader of those people who carried culture from the West to the East, from Atlantis to Central Asia, and founded post-Atlantean civilizations. This great Initiate, for such he was, withdrew into the secret sanctuaries of Central Asia. It was he who made it possible for those mighty sages, the Holy Rishis, to become the teachers of their race and it was this great and mysterious Initiate who imparted initiation to Zarathustra. The initiation given to Zarathustra differed, however, from that imparted to the Rishis, for their missions were different. The initiation given to the Rishis enabled them, after the further development of their inner being, to declare as from themselves, the mighty secrets of existence. They became the great guides and leaders of the pre-Vedic Indian culture. Though developed by artificial means, the initiation of the Rishis was yet to them something which strongly resembled the old Atlantean clairvoyance. Each of the seven Rishis received his training separately, each had his own appointed region, and each his separate mission, just as each Oracle had its own sphere of influence. Yet, when any one of the seven gave forth knowledge of the primal wisdom of the world, he spoke with the voice of the whole collegium. The great Sun-initiate, who brought the ancient Atlantean wisdom from the West to the East, bestowed it upon the Rishis in a special manner so as to enable them to develop post-Atlantean civilization. He gave the ancient Atlantean wisdom to Zarathustra in a different form, so that he could speak as I have already indicated.

The Rishis declared ‘To reach divinity men must regard everything around them, all that is presented to their senses, as Maya or illusion; they must turn away from the outer world and direct their glance inwards then a quite different world will appear from that which is before them.’

Thus the ancient Indian Rishis taught that by turning away from the deceptive world of illusion and developing their inner life, men could rise to divine spiritual spheres. Zarathustra taught otherwise. Instead of turning away from external manifestations and regarding them as Maya he said: ‘This Maya or illusion is the revelation, the true garment, of Divine Existence; our duty is not to turn from it but to investigate it and to see in the physical light of the Sun an external garment within which Ahura Mazdao lives and moves.’

Thus in a certain sense the standpoint of Zarathustra was the opposite to that of the Rishis. The most significant fact of post-Indian culture was that what man gained through his spiritual and mental activities had to be impressed upon the outer world. It has already been shown how Zarathustra passed on his best possessions to Moses and Hermes. In order that the wisdom of Moses might be fruitful and bear seed in the right way, this seed had to be implanted in the race that had Abraham for its progenitor. Abraham was the first who acquired the organ through which the Jehovah consciousness could be evolved, but he had to realize that the God who spoke in him through his physical powers of comprehension, spoke with the same voice as the eternal all-pervading God of the Mysteries; only that He revealed Himself to Abraham in a more restricted manner, that is, in a way Abraham was able to understand.

For such a mighty Being as the great Atlantean Sun-initiate it is not immediately possible to speak in comprehensible words to those living in some age who have a special mission. A Being so exalted—one who in his own individuality leads an eternal existence, and of whom it has been rightly said (indicating his eternal nature)—that he was without name or age, without father or mother—such a great guide of human existence could only reveal himself; to those whom he sought, by assuming a form that could bring him in contact with them. Therefore in order to give Abraham the appropriate illumination, the individual who had been the teacher of the Rishis and of Zarathustra, assumed a form in which he was clothed in the etheric body of a forefather of Abraham—this was the etheric sheath of Shem, the son of Noah—a forefather of Abraham. In the same way as the etheric garment of Zarathustra had been preserved for Moses, this etheric body of Shem had persisted, and was used by the great Sun-initiate so that he might make himself known to Abraham. The meeting of Abraham with the great Initiate of the Sun-Mysteries is described in the Old Testament. It is the meeting of Abraham with the King, the Priest of the Most High God, Melchisedek or Malekzadik. This meeting of Abraham with the great Sun-initiate is of the greatest, the most universal importance. Lest his presence might overwhelm Abraham this great Being only showed himself in the etheric body of Shem, the ancestor of the Semitic race. Most significantly something is here hinted at in the Bible which is, unfortunately, seldom understood; it refers to whence that something came which Melchisedek was in a position to impart to Abraham.

What could Melchisedek give to Abraham? He could impart to him the secret of the Sun-existence which sprang from the same source as the revelations prophetically foretold, in the first place, by Zarathustra. Naturally, these could only be comprehended by Abraham in his own way. Let us picture the facts told by Zarathustra to his chosen pupils. He spoke to them of Ahura Mazdao who dwelt spiritually behind the sunlight, and said: ‘Behold, behind the sun is something not yet united with the earth, but which will one day stream forth into earthly evolution and descend to earth.’ We must realize that Zarathustra could here only be prophesying of the Sun Spirit, the Christ, of Whom he said, ‘He will come in a human body.’ If we accept this, we must also accept the fact that still deeper revelations of the Sun Mysteries had to be given to those whose mission it was to prepare for the incarnation of Christ on earth. This took place when Zarathustra's own instructor came in contact with Abraham, and the outpouring of power that came from him emanated from the same source as that which came from Christ. This is indicated symbolically in the Bible, where it says: ‘When Abraham met Melchisedek, the King of Salem—this priest of the most high God brought to him bread and the juice of the grape.’ Bread and the juice of the grape were dispensed on another occasion. In the same way as bread and wine were to become the expression of the Mystery of Christ in the institution of the Last Supper for those who believed in Him, this mystery was expressed here also. The similarity of the two sacrificial acts is described with such clearness that it shows that Melchisedek drew from the same source as the Christ.

Thus an indirect outpouring of that which was destined to come to earth at a later period took place through Melchisedek. This influence was to have direct results on Abraham, the great preparer of what took place later. The result of Abraham's meeting with Melchisedek was that he now had some understanding that the outpouring of power he felt stirring within him and which he referred to as Jehovah—the highest to which his thought could rise—had the same origin as the consciousness of the Initiates—the highest wisdom attainable by man—and that it emanated from the mighty God Who fills all worlds with life and movement. This was the new consciousness that dawned in Abraham. He now knew that in the Hebrew blood, passing down from generation to generation, there actually flowed something that could only rightly be compared with what clairvoyant vision beheld when it reached forth to the mystery of existence, and understood the language of the cosmos.

I have already said that in the Mysteries the secrets of the cosmos were expressed in a language of the stars, that the teachers there made use of words and images derived from the constellations. In the movements of the stars, in their relative positions one to another, they saw pictures by means of which they sought to express man's spiritual experiences when he raised himself to what was divinely spiritual.

What did the Mystery wisdom read in the starry script? It read there the secrets of the Godhead, of Him Who lives and weaves in and through the world. The disposition of the stars was a visible expression of this Godhead. Raising his eyes to the firmament man would say, ‘There God reveals Himself; and the way in which He makes Himself known is indicated in the order and harmony of the stars.’ Thus according to this conception, the God of the universe revealed Himself through the stars. If this God was to manifest in a special way in the mission of the Hebrew people, He must do so in accordance with the plan set forth in the starry courses of the heavens. This means that in the blood of the generations, which was the external instrument for the manifestation of Jehovah, a similar ordering should obtain as that expressed in the ordering of the stars. In the line of descent from Abraham, there had to be something which in the course of generations would be a reflection of the starry script. Accordingly, it was promised to Abraham, ‘Thy descendants shall be ordered as the stars in Heaven,’ this is the true rendering of the statement usually given as, ‘Thy descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in Heaven,’ which only refers to the number of the descendants. The statement is not concerned with the numbers but indicates how the same order should rule in Abraham's descendants as was found in the grouping of the stars—the language of the gods.

People looked up to the Zodiac; and in the position of the planets to the Zodiac, constellations were expressed in which they found a language expressing the deeds of the gods. The close connection existing in the Zodiac and in the relation of the planets to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, had to be expressed in the descendants of Abraham. Thus, in the twelve sons of Jacob, and in the twelve tribes of the Hebrew people, we have the reflection of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. As the language of the gods finds expression above in the twelve starry signs, so Jehovah is manifested in the blood flowing through the generations of the twelve tribes that descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. What was ordered within the constellations of the Zodiac we designate by the names of the planets as Venus, Mercury, Moon, Sun, etc., and that which throughout the ages played a special part in different periods of the life of the Hebrew people we have compared with the course of the planets through the Zodiac. For instance, we showed how David, the kingly singer, has to be compared with Hermes or Mercury; and the period of the Babylonian captivity, that is, the form the manifestation of Jehovah assumed through the entrance of a new impulse six hundred years before our era, with the planet Venus.

It had to be indicated to Abraham, for instance, that the position in the race held by such a personality as David, was on parallel lines with that of Mercury in the Zodiac. The tribe of Judah corresponding to the constellation Leo, the entrance of David into that tribe in the course of Jewish history, corresponded in the cosmos to the occultation of Leo by Mercury.

In every detail—in the descent, in the conferring of the kingly or priestly dignities, in the struggles and victories of one or other of the tribes, in the whole history of the Hebrew people we can see what corresponds to the occultation of the several constellations in outer space. This lies in the significant words: ‘Thy descendants shall be ordered in accordance with the harmony of the stars in Heaven!’ We must not only see in documents that are founded on occultism the trivialities usually seen there, but we must recognize their profound depth.

When studied in this way we see that order did in fact exist in the sequence of the generations as related in the Gospel of Matthew; and that the Evangelist shows us the unique composition of the blood of that body which the individuality of Zarathustra assumed in order that he might be the means by which the manifestation of Christ on earth could be brought to pass.

Let us therefore ask: What was attained in the course of the forty-two generations from Abraham to Joseph? What was attained was, that in the last of the generations a blending of the blood in accordance with the laws of the stars—as taught in the Holy Mysteries—had been accomplished. In this blending of the blood necessary to the Zarathustra individuality for the accomplishment of his great work, there was an inner order and harmony that corresponded to one of the most beautiful and significant arrangements of the stellar system. The blending of blood, prepared throughout many generations for the reincarnating Zarathustra, was therefore a reflection of the whole cosmos.

All this is to be found in that great original Scripture, which, if I may venture to say so, lies before us in weakened form in the Gospel of Matthew. It is based on the profound mystery of the development of a people as the reflection of a cosmic development. This was felt by those who first knew something of the mighty Mystery of Christ. To them it already seemed that in the blood of the Jesus of Nazareth of Whom this Gospel tells, they could perceive a reflection of the Spirit that rules the whole cosmos. They gave expression to this Mystery in the words: In the blood which is to be the abode of the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth lives the Spirit of the whole cosmos. Therefore, if this physical body is to be born, it must be an image of the Spirit of the whole cosmos, the Spirit ruling the whole world.

This was the original form of expression. It declared the power inherent in the blended blood of Zarathustra—of Jesus of Nazareth—to be the power of the Spirit of our whole universe—even that Spirit, who, after the separation of the sun from the earth, brooded over and permeated the development of that which had separated itself out in the course of worldly evolution.

From the lectures given in Munich, referred to above, it was shown that the words of Genesis, ‘B'raschit bara Elohim eth haschamajim v'eth h'areths,’ must not be translated lightly according to modern methods which have lost touch with the ancient meaning. If their true meaning is sought, it must be given as follows: ‘In everything that came over from the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, the thought of the Elohim brooded in cosmic activity; in all that manifested outwardly, as in all that stirred inwardly. Darkness reigned over all this. But permeating it and brooding over it, filling it with warmth, as a hen broods over its eggs, was the Creative Spirit of the Elohim, Ruach.’

The Spirit that brooded there was the same, in every respect, as the Spirit that created the harmonious order which finds expression in the starry constellations. The original Initiates of the Christian Mysteries recognized in the blending of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth an image of the work accomplished by the Ruach-Elohim throughout the universe. Therefore they said of the blood which was thus prepared for this Great Event that it was ‘created by the Spirit of the Universe,’ the Spirit who is described in the opening chapter of Genesis as ‘Ruach’ in that most important passage beginning—‘B'raschit bara Elohim ...’

This holy meaning, a meaning far beyond the usual trivial rendering, lies at the root of what is called ‘the Conception out of the Holy Spirit of the Universe.’ It lies at the root of the saying, ‘She who gave birth to this Being was filled with the power of the Spirit of the Universe!’ We need but sense the full greatness of such Mystery to know that the fact presents something infinitely higher than the exoteric idea of the ‘immaculate conception.’

References to two things in the Bible will suffice to deflect the mind from the usual trivial explanation of the immaculate conception and lead it to the recognition of the true point of view. One is, why should the writer of the Gospel of Matthew give the whole line of descent from Abraham to Joseph if he wished in any way to show that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was unconcerned with the sequence of the generations? He is very careful to tell how the blood of Abraham passed down to Joseph. What sense would there be in saying that this blood had no connection with the blood of Jesus of Nazareth? The other fact that must be taken into consideration is that ‘Ruach-Elohim,’ who, in the Bible, is called the ‘Holy Spirit’ or ‘Holy Ghost’ is of the feminine gender in the Hebrew language.

This point we will consider later. For the moment let it only awaken within us a feeling for the grandeur of the idea which lies at the very root of this Mystery.

The Event taking place at the beginning of our era, and only known to the wise men who were initiated into the secrets of the Universe, found expression first in the Aramaic language, in an ancient document upon which the Gospel of Matthew was based. It can be proved, not only by occult means, but by philological investigation, that this document, which is the foundation of the Gospel of Matthew, existed as early as the year 71 A.D. The true origin of this Gospel is given in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact. Here, however, as we are concerned with Occult Science not Philology, reference need only be made to one thing in the literature of the Talmud, which is fully confirmed by Jewish erudition. In this literature it is stated that Rabbi Gamaliel II. was involved in a lawsuit with his sister about a legacy from his father, who died fighting against the Romans in the year 70 A.D. We are told that the Rabbi Gamaliel II. appeared before a judge who was a Jewish Christian. Such individuals existed in the courts ofjustice established for the Jews by the Romans. In this case a strange thing happened. Rabbi Gamaliel contested with his sister his father's inheritance; he declared before the judge, who knew something of Christianity, that according to Jewish law, the son only and not the daughter could inherit, and therefore he was the sole inheritor. The judge, stating that in the circle in which he practised the Thora was set aside, said that since Gamaliel sought justice and judgment from him he could not give it merely according to Jewish law, but according to the law set up in its stead. The Rabbi's only way now was to bribe the judge. He did so, and the following day the judge made a citation that was in reality a plagiarism from the original Aramaic script of the Matthew Gospel. He said, ‘Christ did not come into the world to break the law of Moses, but to fulfil it.’ He thought to stifle the pangs of conscience for deflecting the law in Gamaliel's favour by saying that he judged nevertheless according to the Christian doctrine.

From this we know that in the year 71 there existed a Christian document containing words found to-day in the Gospel of Matthew. This is, therefore, an external proof of the existence of the Aramaic document, or part of it, from which the Gospel is derived.

The results of occult investigation have still to be given, but the above has been mentioned to show that when seeking the aid of external Science, it is not wise to consider every other kind of literary evidence and yet ignore the Talmud literature, as is often done—for the latter is of great importance for what one can know of these things exoterically. Thus there is good external justification for placing the Gospel of Matthew comparatively early, and regarding its compilers as men not far removed in time from the events of Palestine. It is even externally certain that it would have been impossible at that time to deny that Jesus Christ had lived, and to say: He of whom we speak, did not live at the beginning of our era. Half-a-century had not yet elapsed, so that men were still able to speak to eye-witnesses who would not state what could not be proved. Exoterically these things are of importance, and we only mention them in confirmation of the esoteric view.

We have seen how, through cosmic mysteries, a body had been prepared in the course of human evolution, as it were, from the filtrated blood of the Hebrew people and how into this body, in which the great initiate Zarathustra incarnated, the order of the Universe itself had entered. It is of this Zarathustra-individuality and none other that Matthew speaks.

It must not be imagined that what we have described out of the profoundest Mysteries of earthly evolution was perceived as clearly by everyone. Even to contemporaries this was deeply veiled, and was only comprehended by a few Initiates. Hence the deep silence is comprehensible concerning all that could then be disclosed about the greatest event in human evolution. If the historians of to-day turn to their records and find these records silent, it should not occasion surprise; such silence is entirely natural.

Having explained the greatest event of our evolution from the side of Zarathustra, it is well that we should now consider another stream of influence preparatory to this great Event. Very many things took place immediately before and immediately after the Christ Event in human evolution. Preparation had been made for it a long time in advance. Just as it was prepared for externally in the sending forth of Moses and Hermes by Zarathustra, and by the work of Meichisedek on the outer sheath of Jesus of Nazareth in the Sun-Mysteries, it was prepared for in another way through what might be called a ‘neighbouring stream’ to the main great current. This ‘neighbouring stream’ was slowly prepared in centres of which external history informs us when dealing with those people described by Philo as the Therapeutze. The Therapeuta were members of a secret sect who sought the purification of their souls by inward paths, trying to drive out what had been debased in them through external intercourse and external knowledge, and to raise themselves to pure spiritual spheres. An offshoot of this sect, among whom this neighbouring stream of culture was carried still further, were the Essaers or Essenes. All the people who were united in the sects of the Therapeutae and Essenes were under a certain common spiritual guidance. They are briefly described in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact. If you would know something of this spiritual guidance exoterically, you need only recall the lectures given last year on the Gospel of St. Luke. The Mystery of Gautama Buddha, as given exoterically in Oriental literature, was there dealt with, and we explained that he who seeks to become a ‘Buddha’ must in the course of evolution first become a ‘Bodhisattva.’ We explained further that the individual known to history as the ‘Buddha’ had previously been a Bodhisattva. He was a Bodhisattva until the twenty-ninth year of his physical existence, during which time he lived as the son of King Sudhodana. It was only in his twenty-ninth year, through inner soul-development, that he evolved from a Bodhisattva to a Buddha. There is a long sequence of Bodhisattvas in human evolution, and he who attained Buddhahood six hundred years before our era is one of these Bodhisattvas who guided human evolution. An individual who rises from the dignity of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha does not again incarnate in a physical body on earth.

It was explained in the course of the lectures referred to above how Buddha was manifest at the birth of the Jesus of the Gospel of St. Luke in that he united himself with the etheric body of him who is known as the Nathan Jesus; and it was shown that this is a different Jesus from the one spoken of in the first part of the Gospel of Matthew.

The attainment of Buddha-hood by the son of King Sudhodana must be regarded as the close of an ancient evolution. It was in fact the same stream of evolution as is connected with the Holy Rishis of India. As soon as a Bodhisattva attains Buddha-hood a successor always appears in his place. This is mentioned in an ancient Indian legend where it tells that the Bodhisattva, before he came to earth as the son of King Sudhodana when he was to attain the dignity of Buddha-hood, and while still in spiritual realms, passed on his Bodhisattva crown to his successor.

Ever since that time there has been a successor to the Bodhisattva who then attained Buddha-hood; and the new Bodhisattva, who continued working as such, had a special task for human evolution. The task appointed to him was to guide spiritually the movement then making itself felt among the circles of the Therapeutac and the Essenes. There his influence worked. In the follower of Gautama Buddha we have to recognize the spiritual guide of the Essenes. During the reign of King Alexander Jannai (circa 125-77 B.C.), this Bodhisattva sent a particular individual to lead the Essenes; he was, therefore, the leader of the Essenes about a century before Christ. He is well known to occultism and to the external literature of the Talmud. Thus, a century before our era, before the appearance of Christ on earth, there was an individuality, who has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Luke-Gospel and nothing to do with the Jesus of the Matthew-Gospel, who was a guide and leader in the Essene Community. He is known under the name of Jesus, the son of Pandira, Jeschua ben Pandira. Jewish literature has fabricated many things regarding this individual, and these fables have recently been revived. He was a great and noble personality, and must not be confused, as is done by some students of the Talmud, with Jesus of Nazareth, the subject of these lectures. We recognize this Essene forerunner of Christianity in Jesus, son of Pandira, and we know that he was stoned to death by those who, at that time, saw blasphemy in the teachings of the Essenes. After being accused of blasphemy and heresy he was stoned and hanged on a tree, so that this disgrace might be added to the punishment already inflicted. This is an occult fact, and is also to be found in the literature of the Talmud.

In this Jeschua ben Pandira we have to recognize a personality under the protection of the Bodhisattva who succeeded the Bodhisattva, son of Sudhodana, who later became Buddha. The matter is absolutely clear; we have to recognize here a kind of preparation, a neighbouring stream to the main stream of Christianity, springing from the successor of that Buddha. He is the present Bodhisattva who will one day become the Maitreya Buddha, and who sent his messenger among the Essenes to bring that to pass which will be described in the succeeding lectures.

Thus we have to seek the name ‘Jesus’ in the individual of Whom the Gospels of Matthew and Luke speak; but we have also to seek it a hundred years before our era in the circle of the Essenes, in that noble personality regarding whom all that the Talmud literature relates is calumny; who was accused of blasphemy and heresy, stoned, and hanged upon a tree.

It was stated yesterday, that those beings who are to be considered as Folk-spirits, are at the stage at which they in their present existence work from within their ‘I’ upon their etheric or life-body, that therefore they are fashioning this body from out of the very inmost part of their soul.

Now of course it might be said: It must certainly be admitted that the work upon this etheric or life-body cannot be directly seen with external organs of perception, with physical eyes, but that this is something belonging to clairvoyant consciousness. But, if the activity of these beings, of these Folk-spirits plays a part in human life, then on the other hand we must be able to point out something which is to a certain extent visible externally, a kind of impression, a kind of reflection of this work of the Folk-spirits or Archangelic beings. Besides that, these beings must in a certain sense also possess a physical body. Their corporeality must be expressed in some form or other. And this physical form in which the work, the activity of these beings is expressed, must also in some way or other be indicated in the world in which man lives, for after all, the human body must also be concerned in the work of these spiritual beings.

Let us begin with the etheric or life-body of these beings, and with the work which they accomplish in it. Here we must in the first place turn to the researches made by clairvoyant consciousness. Now where does clairvoyant research find something which may be designated as the etheric body of these Archangelic beings, of these Archangels? and how are we to understand this work? You all know that the features of the surface of the earth vary in different parts, and that in the different parts of our earth there are very different conditions for the unfolding of the characteristics peculiar to the various peoples. The materialist will say that the climate, the vegetation, or perhaps the water of a country and other things determine the characteristics and peculiarities manifested by the people of that country. It is not to be wondered at that one whose consciousness is limited to the things of the physical world should speak thus, for he only knows what he can see with his eyes; but to clairvoyant consciousness it is quite another matter.

Anyone who with clairvoyant consciousness travels through different countries in various parts of the earth knows that the peculiar form of vegetation, the characteristic configuration of the rocks, does not exhaust what he knows about this particular country. When we speak of a peculiar aroma, or, of an aura of a certain part of our earth, it is comprehensible that for a materialist we are only speaking of an abstraction. To clairvoyant consciousness there arises over every part of our earth a peculiar spiritual cloudlike formation which we must designate as the etheric aura of that special part of the earth. This etheric aura is quite different over the land of Switzerland from what it is over the land of Italy, and again different over the lands of Norway, Denmark or Germany. It is true that every man has his own etheric body, and it is also true that a kind of etheric aura towers up over every part of the surface of our earth. This etheric aura differs very considerably from other etheric auras, for example from that of man. If we observe a living human being, we find that his etheric aura is united to him as long as he lives, that is, from his birth to his death. It is united to his physical body, and only alters in so far as the man during his lifetime goes through a development, when he rises higher as regards intelligence, morals, etc. But then we always see that this etheric aura of man alters from within, it develops certain parts which shine out from within. The case is different with those etheric auras which can be perceived over the various countries. Certainly these preserve throughout long periods a fundamental tone, they have something which continues throughout long ages. But in these etheric auras there are also changes which take place quickly, and these distinguish them from human auras which alter slowly and gradually, and when they do alter, the alteration only takes place from within. The auras over the various countries alter in the course of the evolution of humanity on the earth when one people leaves its dwelling place and takes possession of another part of the earth. The essential is, that the etheric aura over a certain part of the earth does not only depend upon what rises out of the ground, so to speak, but upon the last inhabitants of that territory. So that those who wish to follow the destinies of our human race in their true form on earth, endeavor to follow the interpenetration of this particular part of the etheric auras of the different parts of our earth. The various etheric auras of Europe altered very much at the time which we designate as the period of the migrations of the peoples. You may already see, that in the etheric aura over any particular part of the earth there is something which can be altered, which may indeed change suddenly, and that this change may even be brought about from outside, in a certain sense. Every one of these etheric auras is in a certain respect a fusion of what comes from the ground and of what has been brought there by the migrations of the peoples. When we consider this aura we must clearly understand that, in a certain respect, the saying which is so lightly quoted in Theosophy, but which is never really understood, at least not in all its depths, holds good in the widest sense; everything seen outside in the world with physical consciousness is only maya or illusion. It is often mentioned among theosophists, but is seldom observed in such detail, as to play a part in one's life. It is rather quoted in an abstract form, but if concrete connections are sought for, it is forgotten and only material consciousness comes into play. In truth that which mysteriously confronts us in the part of the earth inhabited by a certain people, is the etheric aura of that particular part of the earth. That which confronts the physical eyes in the green vegetation, in the peculiar configuration of the earth and so on, is fundamentally only maya or external illusion; it is a condensation, as it were, of what is at work in the etheric aura. Albeit, only that part of the external is dependent upon this etheric aura upon which it—that is to say, a living organizing principle can have an influence. The Archangels, who have the spiritual laws within them, cannot intervene in the physical laws. Where, therefore, only the physical laws work and come into consideration, as in the relations of mountain and plain, in the contours of the ground and so on, in all cases where that which determined the great changes of the people depends upon the physical conditions, there the influence of the Archangels does not extend; they have not as yet gone far enough in their evolution to be able to intervene in physical conditions. Because they are unable to do this, but are in this matter dependent, they are compelled at certain times to wander over the earth; and they embody themselves, as in a physical body, in that which is represented by the configuration of the land, in that therefore, which is ruled by physical laws. The etheric body of the people cannot as yet enter in there, it cannot as yet extend into it and organize it. Therefore the ground is sought out, if it proves to be suitable, and from this union between the etheric body which is worked through by spiritual soul-forces, and the physical piece of ground, there arises that which we meet with as the peculiar charm appertaining to the characteristics of a people, that which a man who is not clairvoyant can merely feel in a country, but which a man who observes country and people with clairvoyant consciousness, is able to see.

Now how does what may be called the work of the Archangels, the Folksouls, take place in this etheric body which rises above the ground? What is the work of the Archangel, how does he work into the human beings who move about upon this ground and live within this cloud of the Folk-spirit? He works into it in such a way that his power expresses itself in three ways in man. It is the etheric aura of the people that works into them, weaves through them, is active within them. Indeed this etheric aura works into the human being in such a way that three parts in him are affected by it. Through the mingling of these three parts arises the peculiar character which belongs to a man who lives in this etheric aura of the people. What part of man does this affect? It acts on a threefold nature in the temperaments. It acts on the temperaments which are themselves immersed in the emotional life of man, those that work in the etheric body of man, but not on the so-called melancholic temperament. The etheric aura of the folk acts upon the choleric, the phlegmatic and the sanguine temperaments; on the whole, therefore, the power of the etheric aura of the folk flows into these three temperaments. Now these three may be mingled in many different ways and may co-operate differently in different human individuals. You may think of an endless variety of ways in which the three forces co-operate, when one influences another, or conquers it, etc. Thus arise the many configurations which we meet with, e.g., in Russia, in Norway or Germany. That which works into the temperaments constitutes the national character of man. The difference existing in this respect between the several individuals, is only caused by the degree of the mingling. National temperaments are therefore mingled according to the interpenetration of the folk aura.

Thus we find the Folk-spirits at work all over the earth. But they also have their own paths to follow; for this working into the temperaments is not to them the essential thing for their own affairs, they only do this because the forces in the world mutually affect one another. They do it first of all as their own intentional acts, as that which it is their mission to do. But besides this the affairs of their own ‘I’ also come into consideration. These consist in the fact, that they themselves advance in their evolution, that they themselves pass over the earth and embody themselves in one or another region of the earth. This is their own affair. The other, what they do in the temperaments of man, is something they do besides their calling. Naturally man himself also advances through their work; it reacts upon him. Hence human work reacts upon the Folk-spirit. Later on we shall see the significance of the individual human beings to the Folk-spirit. That is important. But the essential thing is that we should be able to follow one of these Folk-spirits; and see how he embodies himself in the world, lives again for a time in the spiritual world, and then embodies himself again somewhere else. When we observe these occurrences we are still only observing the affairs of the egos of these beings. Now in order to form quite a concrete idea, picture to yourselves the human etheric body embedded in the folk's etheric body; picture the interaction of the human etheric body and folk's etheric body and imagine further that the folk's etheric body is reflected in the folk temperament in the mingling of the temperaments of the single individuals. You then possess the secret of how the Folk-spirit shows himself to us in his way within a folk. Now after we have said this, we have in reality exhausted the most important work of the true Archangel or Folk-spirit. We should have not nearly exhausted the characteristics of a people if we were only to take into consideration the character possessed by an individual belonging to the people. The Archangelic Beings, who are the true Spirits of tribal tree, have that task.

But now to a folk, as you may easily suppose, there belongs much besides this. Why? If the Archangel, the guiding Folk-spirit, did not meet with other Beings on the same piece of ground, and did not work in conjunction with them in the etheric body of man, many of the attributes of a people would not originate at all. Man is the scene of action for the meeting between the Archangels and yet other Beings who co-operate with the Archangels, and so to speak, work in conjunction with them. Now from this co-operative work arises something else in addition. Clairvoyant consciousness, when it studies the peoples, finds, strange to say, besides the Archangelic Beings already described, other mysterious Beings who are in certain respects related to the Archangels, but who in other respects are completely different from them, above all, in that they are able to employ much greater forces than can the Archangels themselves.

The Folk-spirit acts in an exceptionally delicate and intimate way upon the several human souls in this interweaving into the temperaments; but there are yet other Beings who act upon them in a much stronger, more powerful manner. We must once for all be quite clear as to these Beings, from our general knowledge of the Hierarchies; we shall then, so to speak, find the names of these other Beings who are observed by clairvoyant consciousness.

You must think of the Hierarchies of Spirits in the following way:

1. Man,
2. Angels,
3. Archangels,
4. First Beginnings, or Spirits of Personality, Archai,
5. Powers, or Spirits of Form.

We should then come to yet others, which we do not, however, wish to take into consideration to-day. If you remember what we spoke of yesterday—and you will also find it described in detail in the Akashic Record and in my book Occult Science,—you will say that of these Beings it was the Archangels who went through their human stage in the old Sun period. At that time those Beings whom we call Spirits of Form or Powers, who are now two stages higher than the Archangels, were at the Archangel stage; they were Beings such as the Folk-spirits we have described to-day. That was then their normal stage of evolution. There is, however, a remarkable mystery in evolution; it is the law of the lagging behind of certain Beings, the law which brings it about that at every stage certain Beings remain behind, so that at the following stage they have not attained their normal height, but actually have the character they should have had at the earlier stages. Now throughout the evolution of our humanity there have always been beings who have remained behind. Among these laggards are also some of these Spirits of Form or Powers, and they have remained behind in a very singular way, namely so, that although in respect of certain attributes they are Spirits of Form or Powers, and by means of certain attributes can do what at the present day can only be done by the Spirits of Form who have bestowed the ‘I’ upon man at the earth stage, they cannot, however, as yet do this completely, because they do not possess all the necessary attributes. They have so lagged behind that they did not go through their Archangel stage upon the Sun but are going through it now during the earth period, so that they are Beings who are now at the stage of Folk-spirits, but possess quite different attributes. Whereas the Folk-spirits work into human life in an intimate way because they are only two stages higher up than man and consequently are still related to him, these Powers, these Spirits of Form, tower four stages above the human stage. They possess on that account very many and mighty powers that would not be suitable for working so intimately into man. They would act more robustly, but no other domain have they for their activities than that in which are the normal Folk-spirits, the Archangels. That is the difficulty, one must first learn to discriminate in the higher world. Those who imagine that in the higher worlds they can manage with a few ideas, are very much mistaken. The man who, with a few superficial ideas, ascends into the higher worlds, would certainly find the Archangels. But one must discriminate whether these are Beings who have now normally reached the Archangel stage, or those who ought to have attained that stage during the Sun-state of our earth. There are therefore in the same domain as the Spirits of the Peoples or Archangels, other Beings at work who belong by rank, so to speak, to the Archangels, but are gifted with very different, much robuster attributes, such as are possessed by the other Spirits of Form, and who can on that account penetrate deeply into human nature. For what have the Spirits of Form made of man during the earth existence? just think how man could not have said ‘I’ to himself if the Spirits of Form had not formed the brain into that which man possesses at the present day. Therefore Beings such as these are able to work even into the physical form, although they are only at the stage of the Archangels. They enter upon a sort of trial of strength with the Folk-spirits on the very ground upon which the latter are active.

The first and chief thing brought about by this contact between these Spirits coming from these two directions, is speech, that which could not come about without the whole structure and form of the human body. In the structure of man you have the activity of these other Folk-spirits, who are connected with the powers of Nature as well as with man. We must not therefore ascribe our speech merely to those Beings who work so intimately into the folk temperament, and who as Beings two stages above man, imprint their configuration upon a people. The Beings who give language have great strength, they are really ‘Powers’, they are active upon the earth because they have remained on earth, whilst their other companions work in the ‘I’, from the sun into universal space. Before the appearance of Christ Jesus, Jahve or the Jehovah-Being was worshipped by man, and afterwards he worshipped the Christ-Being as the One Who works in universal space. As regards the Spirits of Language we must admit that man particularly likes just that part of speech which has remained with the earth.

We must accustom ourselves to quite different ideas. Man is accustomed to apply his own ideas to the whole universe. He is naturally quite wrong to look upon the fact of these high Beings having remained behind in evolution like a school-girl left behind in her class. They do not remain behind because they have not studied, but for reasons pertaining to the great Wisdom which rules the world. If certain Beings had not renounced their normal evolution, and instead of going on further with the Sun, continued their evolution on the earth, then that which we call speech could not have arisen on the earth. In certain respects man ought to love his language, for the very reason that, so to speak, out of love high Beings remained behind with him and renounced certain attributes in order that man should be able to evolve in accordance with what wisdom decrees. Just as we must look upon the ‘hurrying forward’ as a kind of sacrifice, so must we also look upon the ‘remaining behind’ at earlier epochs of evolution as a sort of sacrifice, and we must clearly understand that man could in no wise have attained certain attributes if such sacrifices had not been made.

Thus, we see how in the etheric body of man, and in that of the Folk-spirit under consideration, two different sorts of Beings exchange work with each other: the normally developed Archangels, and those Spirits of Form who have remained behind at the Archangel stage and have renounced their own evolution, in order to embody in man during his life on earth, his national language. They had to have the power so to transform the larynx, so to transform the entire instrument of speech that it should produce a physical manifestation, and that is speech itself. We must therefore look upon what confronts us as national feeling, national temperament, and its language, as being united in a co-operative work. That which man is able to express in words, that by which he shows himself to be a member of his people, that which he sounds forth into the air, that it is which those Spirits of Form who are united with the Folk-spirits can only bring about, because they with their great forces and powers remained behind at the stage of the Archangels. Therefore a co-operation of this sort takes place in the domains, in the realms where the Folk-spirits are active.

A similar co-operation is however to be found in yet another domain. I pointed out yesterday, that there are yet other forces at work; these are the First Beginnings, the Archai, or Spirits of Personality, who during the earth existence represent what is called the Zeitgeist, or Spirit of the Age. These work so, that from their own ‘I’, from their soul organization, they work into the physical body, so that they set the forces of the physical body in motion. We must therefore presume, that if at a certain time something appears as a result of the activity of the Zeitgeist, something which manifests itself in the Spirit of an Age by which mankind progresses, that this corresponds to a working with physical forces within our earth existence. You can very easily perceive this, you need only think it over in order to understand that real physical preliminary conditions are necessary in order that this or that should arise in the spirit of the age; Kepler, Copernicus or Pericles could not have lived in any other age, or under other laws. Personalities grow forth from quite definite conditions of the times, from those conditions which at a definite epoch of time are formed and organized by the physical work of higher Beings. These are in reality the physical conditions, naturally they are physical conditions, which we must not conceive of as being material blocks, but as certain configurations in the physical part of our earth in general. Sometimes these configurations stand out in strong relief; at other times when the Spirit of the Age is using his influence in any particular way, a quite definite physical constellation has to come about. Only remember that on one occasion, when some children were playing in a glass-cutter's workshop with some pieces of glass that were cut in a certain way, these pieces were so combined that one could observe the optical effect as a telescope, so that the inventor of the telescope only needed to realize his observation of this law of the telescope.

That is an historical fact. Just think however, what physical occurrences were necessary, in order that all this might take place. The lenses had first to be invented, cut, and put together in the corresponding manner. You may, here, very well use the word ‘chance’, but you may only do so if you also refrain from comprehending the law which operates in such occurrences. These physical conditions are brought together by the Archai, the Primal Forces. The reflection of their work is that which draws together into one spot on the earth that which otherwise, as Spirit of the Age, works in a variety of ways. Just imagine what would have become of many physical things in modern times, if this work of the Archai in their physical bodies had not taken place. It is really the work of the Archai which acts in this way and in this direction. Now if the Archai act thus and direct the Spirit of the Age, we may enquire again, ‘How do these Spirits of the Age really guide human progress by means of intuition?’ They do it in such a way that a human being is stimulated as if by chance, by something that takes place in the physical world. This is not merely legendary, it does sometimes occur. I need only remind you of the swinging lamp in the Cathedral at Pisa, where by observing the regularity of the swing of the lamp Galileo discovered the law of the pendulum, and how later Kepler and Newton were stimulated to make their discoveries. We could relate hundreds and thousands of cases in which physical events and human thought were brought together, by which it could be perceived how the Archai or Primal Forces give through intuition the ideas which go forth into the world as the ideas of the age, which then influence man in his development, regulate his progress and permeate it with law.

But in this domain also, those Beings who have normally become Spirits of Personality during our earth existence, work in conjunction with others, who, because of their having remained behind upon the Moon are now not Spirits of Form or Powers as they ought to be on the earth, but are also only now working as Spirits of Personality. Thus those Beings who made their renunciation not upon the Sun stage but only that of the Moon, are now Spirits of Personality, but they do not possess the attributes they ought normally to have; that is to say, they do not give intuitions in the same way as do the normal Spirits of Personality, but as do the belated Spirits of Form. They do not stimulate from outside, leaving it to man himself to observe what is brought about in the physical, but they stimulate inwardly, they work within the brain and give a certain tendency to thought. Hence the thought of man at the different epochs is stimulated from within, so that each epoch has a distinct kind of thought. This is connected with the delicate formations of thought, with inner constellations. Here the belated Spirits of Form who have the character of Spirits of Personality, work within man and produce a certain kind of thought, a quite definite form of ideas. Hence it comes about that man is not only guided from epoch to epoch according to the will of the intuiting Spirits of Personality by whom he allows himself to be stirred to do this or that, but he is urged along as if by inner forces so that the thought manifests itself physically from within, just as in the spoken language there is manifested that which, on the other hand, remained behind as Spirit of Form. Thus in the method of thought there is a manifestation of those Spirits of Form who appear in our age as Spirits of Personality. These, therefore, are not those delicately working Spirits of Personality who allow a man to do as he will, but those who take possession of him and forcefully push him on. Hence in those men who are stimulated by the Spirit of the Age you can always observe these two types. In those persons who are stimulated by the true Spirits of the Age who are at their normal stage, you may see the true representatives of their time. We may look upon these as men who had to come, and at their activities as something which could take place in no other way. But there are other persons, in whom are active those Spirits of Personality who are in reality Spirits of Form. Those are the other Spirits whom we have just named as the Thought-Spirits, those who during the old Moon-cycle moved forward to their present standpoint.

Now man is the scene of action upon which all this works together. This co-operation is shown through the fact that speech and thought enter into reciprocal relations, that not only the Spirits who are at the same stage enter into reciprocal relations, but the normal Archangels also, who govern the national feeling and temperament enter into reciprocal relations with those just described, not only therefore with the Spirits of Form who are at the Archangel stage, but also with those Spirits of Personality who are in reality belated Spirits of Form.

These two kinds appear in human nature and in human being. This relation is one extremely interesting to study when with occult knowledge and occult power of vision one goes from one people to another. Then one can see how the normal Folk-Spirits act, and how they then receive their orders from the Spirits of the Age. But these Folk-spirits work within man together with the Spirits of Language and also with the Thought-spirits who work into the thoughts of man. Within man there are not only normal and abnormal Archangels, but also Archangels in contradistinction to the abnormal Spirits of Personality who from within govern the work of thought in a particular age.

Now it is extremely interesting,—I have said that conditions will be touched upon which you must meet with your spiritual understanding, which must be clothed in ordinary words because no language has as yet been created which would make all this credible and clear; one has to express everything in words which can depict the facts somewhat figuratively, which however correspond to an important fact in the evolution of humanity,—it is extremely interesting and important to follow the evolution of humanity in more recent times; it is important to know that a reciprocal agreement was once arrived at between one of the guiding Spirits of the Peoples, who is a normal Archangel, and one of those Spirits who work inwardly as Spirits of the Thought-forces, an abnormal Spirit of Personality, and in a certain historical epoch the serious and important result of this agreement is to be seen. In order to make this agreement more especially complete, a harmonious relationship was established with the corresponding abnormal Archangel, who was the guiding Spirit of Language at that time; so that there was a point in the evolution of mankind, when so to speak, the normal and abnormal Archangels worked together and when, besides this, there worked in as an additional impulse the kind of thought which was brought about from within by an abnormal Spirit of Personality. The agreement made between these three parties was reflected in one particular people. That was the Indian people, who introduced the post-Atlantean civilization in the first post-Atlantean age. It was during this Indian civilization that the constellation arose in which these three Beings were able to work most harmoniously together. The consequence of that is all that we may call the historical rôle of this Indian people. Even in those ages of which the historical traditions still remain, the effects of what was formerly concluded in that agreement still continued to work. That is the reason why the ancient sacred language of the Indians acted with such power and produced those mighty historical effects in civilization, and why it could act so powerfully even in succeeding times. This power was brought in by the abnormal Archangels who worked in the language. The power of the Sanskrit language rests upon the agreement of which I have just spoken. And again the unique Indian philosophy, which as creative thought acting from within man has not yet been equaled by any other people in the world, also rests upon it; the inner completeness of thought belonging to the Indian culture rests also upon this agreement. In all other parts of the world we observe different conditions; but in all of them there could at that time be observed what has just been described. Hence it is so infinitely fascinating to follow up these trains of thought, which take the peculiar form they do, because they have not proceeded from the predominance of the normal Archangel over the abnormal one, but from their harmonizing so completely, because each thought was actually absorbed by the temperament of the people and was lovingly spun on into details at that time when the Indian people represented the first blossom of the culture of the post-Atlantean epoch. And the language worked on in this way because the conflict had not arisen there which would have taken place everywhere else, because such a cooperation took place between the Archangel of the normal evolution and the Archangel of the abnormal evolution. Thus one may say that this language, poured forth from the purest temperament, is itself a product of that temperament. That is the secret of the first civilization of the post-Atlantean epoch. That, however, is what must be observed in all other peoples, namely, that in them an unique co-operation takes place between these three forces, between the normal Folk-spirit or Archangel, the abnormal Archangel, and that which acts inwardly in the abnormal Spirit of the Age, who works, not as a Spirit of the Age, but from within, and finally that which the true Spirit of the Age has to convey inwardly to the nation.

The true knowledge of a people comes from listening to these forces within, and weighing the share which each factor has in the constitution of the people. Hence it has become difficult for persons who do not take the occult forces of human evolution into consideration, really to define the word ‘folk’. Examine the several books in which in any, part of the world the conception of a ‘folk’ is defined, and you will see what curious definitions there are, and how greatly they differ from each other. They have indeed to differ, because one writer feels more what comes from one side, from the normal Archangels, another what proceeds from the abnormal Archangels, and again a third that which comes from the several personalities of the people. Each one feels something different and uses that in his definition. That is just what Spiritual Science has made clear to us, that these definitions need not always be wrong; but they are always bathed in maya, in illusion. From what a writer says it can be seen that he only observes maya, and that he leaves unnoticed the various forces at work.

Hence one will naturally always obtain very different conceptions, if from the anthroposophical standpoint one observes a people like the Swiss, who live in one and the same country and speak three languages, and on the other hand peoples who speak one language only.

As to why some folks act more under the influence of the Spirit of Personality, that is to say, why their life is especially made up of the cooperation of the several personalities, we shall have to speak later. Peoples whose existence is more under the influence of the abnormal Spirit of Personality are also to be found on the earth; those Spirits of Personality do not work for the further progress of evolution. You need only study the character of the North American people, there you have a people absolutely founded on this principle.

Thus you will see, that we shall only understand the history of the world, in so far as it consists of the histories of peoples, if we follow up the normal and abnormal Archangels, the normal and abnormal Spirits of Personality in their reciprocal positions, and in their co-operative work, and at the same time follow up their work in peoples that succeed each other in the course of the world's history.

[ 1 ] The teaching which came from the holy Rishis, during the first post-Atlantean period of civilisation was a knowledge that sprang from purely spiritual sources of existence. What is so important in that teaching and in the investigations of those times is that it entered so deeply into the processes of nature and realised so well the activity of the spirit in those processes. In reality we are always surrounded by spiritual activities and by spiritual entities. When during the time of that ancient holy teaching, mention was made of the phenomena of the world surrounding us, one was always referred to as being the most significant, the most important of all these, this was considered (by that ancient spiritual science) to be the phenomenon of fire. In all explanations of what exists and happens upon the earth, the central point of importance was always given to the spiritual investigation of fire. If we want to understand what we may call the Eastern teaching about fire, which was of such far-reaching importance in those ancient times for the acquisition of the knowledge and understanding of all life, then we must look around us at the other phenomena and occurrences of nature and see how these were considered by that very ancient teaching, which can still be useful nowadays for the purposes of spiritual science. [ 2 ] All that surrounds man in the world was then referred back to the so-called four elements. These four elements are respected no longer by the materialistic science of to-day. You all know that these four elements are called Earth, Water, Air, Fire. But where spiritual science flourished the word ‘earth’ had not the same meaning as it has nowadays. It stood for a certain state in the material realm: the state or condition of solidity. All that is solid was called ‘earthy’ by the spiritual science of those times. So whether we take the solid earth of a field, or a piece of crystal, or lead, or gold, anything that is solid was then called earth. Everything liquid, not only the water of to-day, was characterised as watery, or as water. If for instance you take iron, pass it through heat to the point of melting so that it can flow, then that liquid iron would have been called water by spiritual science. All metals when liquid were described as water. Everything that has the character of air for us to day, no matter whether it was the condition we call gas, or oxygen, or hydrogen, or other gases, was called air. [ 3 ] Fire was considered the fourth element. Those of you who remember elementary physics will know that modern science does not see in fire anything that could be compared with either earth, water or air: the physical science of to day sees in it only a certain condition of movement. Spiritual science sees in warmth or fire something which has in it a still finer substance than air. Just as earth or solidity changes into liquid, So does all air-substance change gradually into the condition of fire — according to spiritual science — and fire is so fine an element that it interpenetrates all other elements. Fire interpenetrates the air and makes it warm, the same with water and earth. The other three elements are, so to speak, separated from each other, but we see the element of fire interpenetrating them all.

[ 4 ] Both ancient and modern spiritual science agree that there is yet another still more remarkable difference between what we call Earth, Water, Air, and what we call Fire or Warmth. How do we come to the cognisance of earth or solidity? Through touching it. We realise the solid through touching it and feeling its resistance. It is the same with watery substance. This gives way, it is not so resistant, still we realize it as something external that offers resistance. And it is the same with the element of air. We recognise it also as something external. With warmth it is different. Here we find something which modern science does not consider important, but which must become important for us if we want to study the real problems of existence.

We can realise warmth without coming in contact with it externally. What is essential is that we can realise warmth by touching a body which has a certain degree of warmth: we can perceive it externally in the same way as we realise the three other elements, but we also feel it in our inward conditions. Therefore ancient science says (and did so already at the time of the old Indians), that earth, water, air, can be realised only in the outer world, but warmth is the first element which can also be felt within oneself. Thus, fire or warmth has, so to speak, two sides to it. An outer, which it shows when we take cognisance of it in the outer world and an inner when we feel that we ourselves are in a certain state of warmth. Man feels his own condition of warmth; he is hot, or he freezes; but consciously he is not much concerned with the gaseous or liquid or solid substances — the air, water, or earth — which are in him. He begins to ‘feel’ himself in the element of warmth. The element of warmth has an inner and an outward side. Therefore both ancient and modern spiritual science agree that warmth or fire is that wherein matter begins to become soul. And so in the true sense of the word — we may speak of an outer fire which we realise in the other elements, and of an inner psychic fire within our soul.

[ 5 ] In this way, spiritual science always considered fire as the link between the outer material world on the one side, and the realm of the soul on the other, which can be known by man within his inner being. Fire or warmth was placed in the centre of all observations of nature, because fire is, so to speak, the portal through which we may pass from the outer into the inner. In all truth, fire is like a door in front of which one stands. One sees it from outside, one opens it and can observe it from within. Such is fire amongst the objects of nature. One touches some object and becomes acquainted with fire, which streams towards us from outside like the three other elements: one realises one's own inner warmth and feels it as something belonging to oneself; one stands inside the portal, one has entered into the realm of the soul. Thus was the science of fire described. In fire was seen the interplay of soul and matter. We have now placed before our souls an elementary lesson of primeval human wisdom.

[ 6 ] The ancient teachers may have spoken thus: ‘Look at that burning object. See how the fire destroys it. Thou seest two things in that burning object.’ In those ancient times one was called smoke, and it may still be so called nowadays, and the other was called light, and the spiritual scientist saw the fire in the middle between light and smoke. The teacher said: ‘Out of the flame are born simultaneously light on the one side, smoke on the other.’ [ 7 ] Now we must for once put very clearly before us a very simple but very far-reaching fact, which has to do with the light, which is born of fire. It is most probable that many people when asked whether they see the light would answer: ‘Yes, of course.’ And yet this answer is as false as possible; for, in truth, no physical eye can see light. Through light one sees objects which are solid, liquid, or gaseous, but the light itself one does not see. Imagine the whole of universal space illuminated by a light the source of which was somewhere behind you, where you could not see it and you were to look into the world spaces illuminated through and through by that light. Would you see the light? You would see absolutely nothing. You would first see something when some object was placed within that illuminated space. One does not see the light, one sees the solid, the watery, the gaseous, by means of the light. One does not see physical light with the physical eye. This is something which comes before the spiritual eye with particular clearness. Spiritual science says therefore: light makes everything visible, but is itself invisible. This sentence is important: light is imperceptible. It cannot be perceived by the outer senses: one call perceive what is solid, liquid, or gaseous, finally one can perceive warmth or fire outwardly. This one can also begin to feel inwardly, but light itself one can no longer perceive outwardly. If you believe that when you see the sun you see light you are mistaken: you see a flaming body, a burning substance out of which the light streams. It could be proved to you that you have there gaseous, liquid, and earthy substances. You do not see light, you see that which is burning. [ 8 ] But spiritual science says we pass in ascending order from earth to water, from air to fire, and then to light, we pass thus from the outwardly recognisable world, from the visible world into the invisible, into the etheric-spiritual world. Fire stands on the border between the outwardly visible, material world, and that which is etheric and spiritual, which is no more outwardly visible or recognisable. What happens to a body that is destroyed through fire? What happens when something burns? When something burns, we see on one side light appear, which is outwardly imperceptible and which is operative in the spiritual world. Something that is not merely outer material gives forth the warmth and when it is strong enough to become a source of light it yields something invisible, something which cannot be recognised any more through the outer senses, but it must pay for this in smoke. From what was formerly translucent and transparent it has to bring forth something not transparent — something of the nature of smoke. Thus you see how warmth or fire becomes differentiated, how it divides. On one side it divides itself into light, with which it opens a way into the super-sensible world, and in payment for that which it sends up as light into the super-sensible world, it must send something down into the material world, into the world of non-transparent, visible things. Nothing one-sided comes forth in the world. Everything that exists has two sides to it. When light is produced through warmth, then turbid, dark matter appears on the other side. That is the teaching of primeval spiritual science.

[ 9 ] But the process we have just described is only the outer side, the physical, material process. At the foundation of this physically material process there lies something essentially different. When you have only warmth in some object which as yet does not shine, then this warmth which you perceive is itself the outer physical part but within it is something spiritual. When this warmth grows so strong that it begins to shine and smoke is formed, then some of the spirit which was in the warmth must go into the smoke. That spiritual part which was in the warmth and has passed into the smoke, which being gaseous and belonging to air is a lower element than warmth, that spiritual part is transmuted, bewitched, as it were, into smoke. Thus with everything which like a turbid extract or a materialisation is deposited by the warmth, there is also associated what might be called the bewitching of some spiritual being. We can explain it still more simply. Let us imagine that we reduce air to a watery condition. Air itself is nothing but solidified warmth, densified warmth in which smoke has been formed. The spiritual part which really wanted to be in the fire has been bewitched into smoke. Spiritual beings, which are also called elementals, are bewitched in all air, and will even be bewitched, banished, so to speak, to a lower existence, when air is changed into water. Hence spiritual science sees in everything that is outwardly perceptible something that has proceeded from an original condition of fire or warmth and which has turned into air, smoke, or gas, when the warmth began to condense into gas, gas into liquid, liquid into solid. ‘Look backwards,’ says the spiritual scientist, look at any solid substance. That solidity was once liquid, it is only in the course of evolution that it has become solid and the liquid was once upon a time gaseous and the gaseous formed itself as smoke, out of the fire. But a transmutation, a bewitching of spiritual being is always connected with these processes of condensation and with the formation of gases and solids.

[ 10 ] Let us now look around at our world: we see solid rocks, flowing streams of water, we see the water changing into rising mist: we see the air, we see all the solid, liquid, gaseous things and we see fire, so that at the foundation of all things we have nothing but fire. All is fire — solidified fire: gold, silver, copper, are solidified fire. All things were once upon a time fire; everything has been born out of fire. But in all that solidified realm, some bewitched spirits are dwelling.

[ 11 ] How are those spiritual, divine beings who surround us able to produce solid matter as it is on our planet — to produce liquids, and air substances? They send down their elemental spirits, those which live in the fire: they imprison them in air, in water and in earth. These are the emissaries, the elemental emissaries of the spiritual, creative, building beings. The elemental spirits first enter into fire. In fire they still feel comfortable — if we care to express it by images — and then they are condemned to a life of bewitchment. We can say looking around us: ‘These beings, whom we have to thank for all the things that surround us, had to come down out of the fire-element; they are bewitched in those things.’

[ 12 ] Can we as men do anything to help those elemental spirits? This is the great question which was put by the Holy Rishis. Can we do anything to release, to redeem, all that is here, bewitched? Yes! We can help them. Because what we men do here in the physical world is nothing else than an outward expression of spiritual processes. All we do is also of importance for the spiritual world. Let us consider the following. A man stands in front of a crystal, or a lump of gold, or anything of that kind. He looks at it. What happens when a man simply gazes, simply stares with his physical eye upon some outer object? A continual interplay occurs between the man and the bewitched elemental spirits. The man and that which is bewitched in the substance have something to do with each other. Let us suppose that the man only stares at the object and takes in only what is impressed on his physical eye. Something is always passing from the elemental being into the man. Something from those bewitched elementals passes continually into the man, from morning till night. While you are thus regarding objects, hosts of these elemental beings, who were and are being continually bewitched through the world-processes of condensation, are continually entering from your surroundings into you. Let us take it that the man staring at the objects has no inclination whatever to think about those objects, no inclination to let the spirit of things live in his soul. He lives comfortably, merely passes through the world, but he does not work on it spiritually, with his ideas or feelings or in any such way. He remains simply a spectator of the material things he meets with in the world. Then these elemental spirits pass into him and remain there, having gained nothing from the world's process, but the fact of having passed from the outer world into man. Let us take another kind of man, one who works spiritually on the impressions he receives from the outer world, who with his understanding and ideas forms conceptions regarding the spiritual foundations of the world, one who does not simply stare at a metal, but ponders over its nature and feels the beauty which inspires and spiritualises his impressions. What does such a man do? Through his own spiritual process, he releases the elemental being which has streamed into him from the outer world; he raises it to what it was before, he frees the elemental from its state of enchantment. Thus, through our own spiritual life, we can, without changing them, either imprison within us those spirits which are bewitched in air, water and earth, or else through our own increasing spirituality, free them and lead them back to their own element. During the whole of his earthly life, man lets those elemental spirits stream into him from the outer world. In the same measure in which he only stares at things, in the same measure in which he simply lets the spirit dwell in him without transforming them, so, in like measure as he tries with his ideas, conceptions and feeling for beauty to work out spiritually what he sees in the outer world, does he release and redeem those spiritual elemental beings.

[ 13 ] Now what happens to those elemental beings which, having come out of things, enter into man? They remain at first within him. Also those which are released at first remain, but they stay only until his death. When the man passes through death a differentiation takes place between those elemental beings which have simply passed into him and which he had not led back to their higher element, and those whom he has through his own spiritualisation led back to their former condition. Those whom the man has not changed have not gained anything from their passage from the outer world into him, but others have gained the possibility of returning to their own original world with the man's death. During his life man is a place of transition for these elemental beings. When he has passed through the spiritual world and returns to earth in his next incarnation, all the elemental beings which he has not released during his former life flock into him again when he passes through the portals of his new birth, they return with him into the physical world; but those he has released he does not bring back with him for they have returned into their original element.

[ 14 ] Thus we see how man has it in his power, by the way he acts and feels towards outer nature, either to release those elemental spirits which have been necessarily bewitched through the coming into existence of our earth, or to bind them to the earth still more strongly than they were before. What does a man do when, in looking at some outer object he releases from it an elemental being by elucidating it? He spiritually does the opposite of what has been done before. Previously, smoke had been brought forth out of fire, but man spiritually forms fire again out of that smoke; only after death does he release this fire. Now think for a moment of the endless depth and spirituality of the ancient ceremonies of sacrifice, as seen in the light of primeval spiritual science! Imagine to yourselves the Priest at the sacrificial altar in those times when religion was built on the real knowledge of spiritual laws; think of the Priest lighting the flame, and the rising of the smoke, and as the smoke rises a real sacrifice is offered, for it is followed upwards by prayers — What happens then? What happens during such a sacrifice? The Priest stands at the altar where the smoke is produced. Where something solid comes out of the warmth, a spirit is being transmuted, bewitched. But because the man follows the whole procedure with prayers, he at the same time receives that spirit into himself in such a way that after death it rises again into the higher world. What did the teacher of ancient wisdom say to those who had to understand this? He said: ‘If thou lookest upon the outer world in such a way that thy spiritual process does not stop at the smoke, but rises to the element of fire, then after thy death thou dost free the spirit which is bewitched in the smoke.’ Yes! The teacher who knew the fate of the spirit, which after being bewitched in the smoke had passed into man, spoke thus: ‘If thou leavest that spirit as it was when it was in the smoke, then it must be reborn with thee and cannot rise into the spiritual world after thy death; but if thou hast released it and restored it to the fire, then after thy death it will rise again into the spiritual worlds and will not need to return to the earth at thy rebirth.’

[ 15 ] Now we have explained one part of that profound sentence from the Bhagavad Gita of which I spoke in my last lecture. It does not speak here at all of the human Ego, it speaks of those nature spirits, of these elemental beings which enter into man from the outer world, and it says there: ‘Behold the fire, behold the smoke, that which man through his spiritual processes turns into fire are spirits which he liberates with his death.’ That which he leaves as it is, in the smoke, must remain united to him at his death and must be reborn with him when he returns to earth. It is the destiny of the elemental spirits that is here described; through the wisdom which man develops, he continually liberates at his death these elemental spirits; through lack of wisdom, through the materialistic attachment to the mere things of the senses, he ties those elemental spirits to himself and forces them to follow him into this world, ever to be born again with him.

[ 16 ] But these elemental beings are not only associated with fire and with what is connected with fire, they are the emissaries of higher spiritual divine beings in all that takes place in the outer sense world. There never could have been that interplay of forces in the world that produce the day and the night, for instance, if numbers of such elemental being had not worked suitably at the rotation of the planet through the universe, so that precisely this interchange of day and night could come about. All that takes place is the result of the activity of hosts of lower and higher spiritual entities belonging to the spiritual hierarchies. We have been speaking of the lowest order, of the messengers. When night becomes day and day night, elemental beings live also in that process, and so it is that man stands in an intimate relationship with the beings of the elemental world which have to take part in working at the day and the night. When man is idle and lets himself go, he affects those elementals who have to do with the day and the night quite differently, than when he has creative force, when he is active, diligent, and productive. When a man is lazy for instance, he unites himself with a certain kind of elemental and he also does so when he is active, but in a particular way. Those elementals of the second class, just named, who are active during the day, are then in their higher element. As fire elementals, those of the first class, are bound in air water and earth, so certain elemental being are also tied to darkness; and day could not turn into night, day could not be divided from night, if these elementals were not so to speak imprisoned in night. That man is able to enjoy daylight, he has to thank divine spiritual beings who have driven forth elemental spirits and have chained them to the night-time. When man is lazy these elementals flow into him continually, but he leaves them as they are, unchanged. Those elemental spirits which at night are chained to darkness, he let through his idleness remain in the same state; those elemental who enter into him when he is active and industrious and filled with working power, he leads back into daylight. Thus he continually releases these elementals of the second class. Throughout the whole of our lifetime we bear within us all those elemental spirits which have entered into us either during our hours of idleness or during those of active work. When we pass through the gates of death those beings whom we have led towards daylight can now return into the spirit world; those we have left chained to the night through our idleness, must return with us in our new incarnation. With this we arrive at the second point in the Bhagavad Gita. Again it is not the human self, but those elemental beings which are indicated with the words: ‘Behold the day and the night. That which thou hast thyself released by turning it from a being of the night into a being of the day through thy diligence; that which comes forth out of the day enters when thou diest, into the higher world; that which thou takest with thee as beings of the night, thou forcest to reincarnate with thee again.’

[ 17 ] And now you will see clearly how the matter proceeds. As it is with the phenomena of which we have just spoken, so it is on a larger scale with our month of 28 days, with the changes of the waxing and waning moon. Whole flocks of elemental beings have to come into activity to direct the motions of the moon so that our lunar periods can come about as they do with all the influences they bring with them upon our visible earth. For this purpose certain of the higher beings had again to be bewitched, doomed, chained. Clairvoyant vision sees how, with the waxing moon, spiritual beings of a lower kingdom ever rise into a higher. But, so that order should exist, other spiritual elemental beings must again be transformed into those of lower realms. There are also those elementals of a third realm who stand in relationship with men. When man is serene and bright, when he is pleased with the world, when he has feelings of gladness towards all things, he continually releases those beings which are chained to the waning moon. These beings enter into him and are continually set free, through his soul's peaceful attitude, through his inner contentment, through his harmonious feelings and ideas towards the whole world. The beings which enter into man when he is sullen, peevish, morose, discontented with anything, when everything depresses him — when he is pessimistic — these spirits remain in the condition of bewitchment they were in at the time of the waning moon. Oh! There are men who through the harmonious condition of their soul, through the bright way they look upon the world, release and set free great numbers of these bewitched elemental beings. The man of harmonious and optimistic feelings and who feels inner satisfaction with the world, is a deliverer of elemental spiritual beings. The pessimist, he who is morose, sullen and discontented, becomes through his depression the gaoler of elemental spirits which could have been released by his cheerfulness. Thus you see that the conditions of mind and soul have not only a personal importance for this man, but also that he works either at the liberation or the imprisonment of spiritual beings; either deliverance or fetters proceed from him. The conditions of soul that a man experiences go out in all directions into the spiritual world. We have here the third point of that important teaching in the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Behold what man does through the feelings and conditions of his soul, how he sets spirits free, as they are set free by the growing moon.’ When the man dies, these released spirits can return to the spiritual world. If through his depression and hypochondriacal moods, he calls to him the elemental spirits which are around him, and then leaves them as they are, as they have to be in order to bring about the orderly courses of the moon, then these spirits remain chained to him and must reincarnate with him into this world.

[ 18 ] And last of all we have a fourth degree of elemental spirits, those who have to work at the annual course of the sun, so that the summer sun may shine upon the earth to awaken and fructify it, so that spring can appear and be succeeded by autumn. In order that this may come to pass certain spirits must be fettered to winter-time, must be bewitched during the time of the winter sun. And man acts upon these spirits in the same way as we have described his acting on the other grades of spirits. Let us take man who at the beginning of winter says to himself: ‘The nights are getting longer, the days shorter, we come to that time of the sun's yearly course when the sun withdraws his fructifying forces from the earth. The outer earth dies, but with this deadening of the earth I feel it my duty to be all the more spiritually awake. I must now take more and more of the spirit within me.’ Let us take a man who acquires a more and more religious mood appropriate to the season as Christmas comes on, who learns to know the significance of Christmas and to know also that when the outer world of the senses is dead the life of the spirit must now grow stronger. This man lives through winter until Easter. He remembers that with the awakening of the outer world is combined the death of the spiritual: he lives through the Easter festival comprehending its meaning. Such a man has not only an outer religion; he has religious understanding of the processes of nature, of the spirit which rules it; and through his piety, his spirituality, he releases numbers of that fourth class of elemental beings which continually stream in and out of him, which are connected with the course of the sun. But the man who is not pious in this sense, who denies or does not understand the spirit and is always muddling through a materialistic chaos, into him these elementals of the fourth class flow, but remain unchanged. At death it happens again: that these elemental spirits of the fourth degree are either set free in their own element, or else are bound to the man and have to return with him at his next incarnation. Thus, the man, who uniting with the winter spirits does not change them into summer spirits, does not redeem them through his spirituality, dooms them to rebirth, whereas they might have been freed and not have had to return with him. [ 19 ] Behold the fire and the smoke! If you so unite with the outer world that the activity of your soul and spirit is like that of fire, from which smoke comes forth, so that you spiritualise things, through knowledge and through right feeling, you help certain spiritual elemental beings to rise; but if you unite with the smoke you condemn them to rebirth. If you associate yourself with the day, you then set free the corresponding spirits of day and so on. Behold the light! Behold the day! Behold the waxing of the moon and the sunny half of the year! If you act so that you lead the elemental spirits back to the light, to the day, to the waxing moon, to the summer-time of the year, you then at your death release these elementary spirits which are so necessary to you. They rise to the spiritual world. If you associate yourself with the smoke, if you only gaze at the solid things of the earth, if through laziness you unite yourself with the night and with the spirits of the waning moon, and if through your depression you unite yourself with those spirits who are chained to the winter sun, then through your lack of spirit, your godlessness, you condemn these elementary beings to be reincarnated with you again!

[ 20 ] Now we know for the first time what this passage in the Bhagavad Gita really means. If anyone thinks that man is here spoken of, he does not understand the Bhagavad Gita; but those who know that all human life is a continual interplay between man and the spirits who live bewitched into our surroundings and who must be released again — those know that these sentences speak of the ascension or of the reincarnation of four groups of elemental beings. The mystery of this lowest kind of hierarchy has been preserved for us in these sentences in the Bhagavad Gita. Yes! When one has to bring forth out of primeval wisdom what is presented to us in the documents of ancient religion, one sees how grand these are and how wrong it is to understand them superficially and not in all their profundity. They are only considered in the right way when one says to oneself: ‘No wisdom is exalted enough to discover the mysteries herein contained.’ Only when these ancient documents are interpenetrated by the magic of real devotional feeling, do they become what in the true sense of the word they must be — self-ennobling and purifying forces for human evolution. They point frequently to fathomless abysses of human wisdom, and only when that which springs from the sources of the occult schools and the mysteries, streams forth from now on to all mankind, only then, will these reflections of the primeval wisdom (for they are but reflections) be seen in all their greatness. [ 21 ] We have had to show, by means of a comparatively difficult example, how in the times of primeval wisdom the co-operation of all those spirits which are everywhere around us was well known, how it was also known that the deeds of men represent an interchanging activity between the spiritual world and the world of man's own inner being. The problem of humanity first becomes important for us, when we know that in all we do, even in our moods, we influence a whole Cosmos, and that this small world of ours is of infinitely far-reaching importance for all that comes to pass in the macrocosm. An increase in our feeling of responsibility is the finest and most important of all the things we gain from spiritual science. It teaches us to grasp the true meaning of life and to realise its importance, so that this life which we cast on the stream of evolution may not enter that stream void of meaning.

Here in Berlin, as well as in other localities where our Society has spread, much has been discussed that concerns the comprehensive realm of theosophy, that emanates, so to speak, from the high regions of clairvoyant consciousness, and it is natural that a desire should have arisen to do something toward a serious and adequate substantiation of our spiritual current.

The present General Assembly, which brings our members together here at the seventh anniversary of our German Section, may be taken as the proper occasion for contributing something toward strengthening the foundations of our cause. This I shall attempt to do at this time in the four lectures on Anthroposophy.

The lectures in Kassel on The Gospel of St. John, those in Düsseldorf on the hierarchies, those in Basel on The Gospel of St. Luke, and those in Munich on the teachings of oriental theosophy, were all occasions for rising to high altitudes of spiritual research and for bringing back spiritual truths difficult of access. What occupied us there was theosophy and, at least in part, its ascent to exalted spiritual peaks of human cognition.

It does not seem unjustifiable, given a gradually acquired feeling in the matter, to see something deeper in what is called the cyclical course of world events. At the time of our first General Assembly, when the German Section was founded, I delivered lectures to an audience composed only in part of theosophists; those lectures may be characterized as the historical chapter of anthroposophy. Now, after a lapse of seven years that constitute a cycle, the time seems ripe for speaking in a more comprehensive sense on the nature of anthroposophy.

First, I should like to make clear through a comparison what should be understood by the term anthroposophy. If we wish to observe a section of country, together with all that is spread out there in the way of fields, meadows, woods, villages, roads, we can do so by going about from village to village, through streets and meadows and woods, and we will always have a small section of the whole region in view. Again, we can climb to a mountain top and from there overlook the whole landscape. The details will be indistinct for the ordinary eye, but we have a comprehensive view of the whole.

That approximately describes the relation between what in ordinary life is called human cognition or human science, and what theosophy stands for.

While the ordinary search for human knowledge goes about from detail to detail in the world of facts, theosophy ascends to a high vantage point. This extends the visible horizon, but without the employment of quite special means the possibility of seeing anything at all would vanish. In my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, is set forth how one can reach this ideal peak without losing the power of clear vision.

But there is a third possibility, lying between the two described. It is to ascend part way, remaining half-way up. At the bottom you cannot survey the whole; you observe only details and see the top from below. At the top, everything is beneath you, and above you have only the divine heavens. In the middle you have something above and something below you, and you can compare the two views.

Any comparison lags and limps, but all that was intended at the moment was to place before you the manner in which in the first instance theosophy differs from anthroposophy. The latter stands in the middle, the former on the summit: it is the point of departure that is different. Thus far the comparison is helpful, but it is inadequate in characterizing what follows.

Devotion to theosophy necessitates rising above human points of view, above the middle, from self to higher self, and it implies the ability to see with the organs of this higher self. The peak attained by theosophy lies above man, ordinary human knowledge, below, and what lies half-way between, that is the human being himself: between nature and the spiritual world. What is above reaches down to him; he is permeated by the spirit. In contemplating the world from a purely human angle, he does not take his point of departure from the summit, but he can see it—see the spirit above. At the same time he sees what is merely nature beneath him; it reaches into him from below. There is a risk connected with theosophy; unless the above-mentioned means are employed to see with the higher self—not with the ordinary self—there is danger of losing contact with the human element, and this results in forfeiting the ability to see anything at all adequate, of recognizing reality below. This danger disappears, however, as soon as those means are employed. Then we can say that theosophy is what comes to light when the God within man says, “Let the God within you speak; what He reveals of the world is theosophy.”

Take your stand between God and Nature and let the human being in you speak. Speak of what is beneath as well as what is above you, and you have anthroposophy. It is the wisdom spoken by man.

This wisdom will prove an important fulcrum, a key to the whole realm of theosophy. After a period of immersion in theosophy, nothing could be more profitable than seriously to seek the firm center of gravity provided by anthroposophy.

All that has been said so far can be historically substantiated in many directions. We have, for example, the science calling itself anthropology. As it is practised, anthropology comprises not only the human being, but everything pertaining to him; all that can be gleaned from nature, everything necessary for understanding man. This science is based on moving about among objects, passing from detail to detail, observing the human being under a microscope. In short, this science, which in the widest circles is regarded as the only one dealing authoritatively with man, takes its view from a point beneath human capacities. It is chained to the ground; it fails to employ all the faculties at the disposal of man, and for this reason it cannot solve the riddles of existence.

Now contrast all this with what you encounter as theosophy. There one searches the most rarefied regions for answers to the burning questions of life. But all those who are unable to keep pace, whose standpoint is anthropology, consider theosophy an air-castle, lacking foundation. They are not able to understand how the soul can ascend step by step to that summit from which all is spread out beneath it. They cannot rise to the planes of imagination, inspiration, and intuition. They cannot ascend to the peak that is the final goal of human evolution.

Thus we find anthropology on the lowest step, theosophy on the summit. What becomes of theosophy when it wants to reach the top but is not in a position to do so with the right means? We can find the answer in the historic example of the German theosophist, Solger, who lived from 1770–1819. Conceptually, his views are theosophical, but what means does he employ to attain the summit? Philosophical concepts, concepts of human cerebration long since sucked dry and emaciated! That is like climbing a mountain for the purpose of observation, and forgetting to take your field-glasses; you can distinguish nothing whatever down below.

In our case the field-glasses are spiritual, and they are called imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Man's ability to reach that peak diminished more and more through the centuries—a fact that was clearly felt and acknowledged as early as the Middle Ages. Today it is felt too, but not acknowledged. In olden times that capacity to ascend existed, as you know, though only to a minor degree. It was based on a clairvoyant twilight condition in man. There really was an ancient theosophy of that sort, but it was written that such revelations from the summit should come to a close, that they should no longer be open to the ordinary means of cognition.

This old theosophy, which considers revelation a thing of the past, became theology, and thus we find theology running parallel with anthropology. Theology's ambition is to climb the heights, but for its means it depends upon something that was once revealed, was then handed down, and is now rigid; something incapable of continually revealing itself anew to the striving soul. Throughout the Middle Ages, anthropology and theology frequently opposed without rejecting each other, but in recent times the contrast is sharp. Nowadays theology is admitted along with anthropology as something scientific, but no bridge is found between the two. If we do not stop with the details but ascend half-way, we can establish anthroposophy by the side of theosophy.

Within modern spiritual life attempts have been made to practise anthroposophy, among other things, but again, as in the case of theosophy, with the wrong, inadequate means of a defunct philosophy. The meaning of philosophy can really no longer be understood by philosophers—only by theosophists. Historical contemplation alone yields this understanding. Philosophy can be comprehended only by contemplating its origin, as can be seen by an illustration. In former times there were the so-called Mysteries, abodes where the higher spiritual life was cultivated, where the neophytes were guided by special methods to spiritual vision. One such Mystery, for example, was in Ephesus, where the neophytes could learn through their training the secrets of Diana of Ephesus; they learned to look into the spiritual worlds. As much of such matters as could be made public was communicated to the profane and received by them, but not all of these realized that higher secrets had been revealed to them. One of those to whom such communications from the Mysteries of Ephesus had penetrated was Heraclitus. He then proclaimed these, by means of his partial initiation, in a way that could be generally understood. In reading the doctrines of Heraclitus, “The Obscure,” we still find immediate experience, the experience of the higher worlds, shining through between the lines. Then came his successors who no longer realized that those doctrines originated in direct experience. They no longer understood them, so they began to improve them, to spin them out in concepts. They began to speculate intellectually, and this method persisted through the generations. Everything we have in the way of philosophy today is but a heritage of ancient doctrines squeezed out and sucked dry of all life, leaving only the skeleton of the concepts. Yet the philosophers take that skeleton for a living reality, for something created by human thinking. There is, as a matter of fact, no such thing as a philosopher who can think creatively without having recourse to the higher worlds.

Just such a skeleton of concepts was all that the philosophers of the nineteenth century had to work with when they took up what may be called anthroposophy. The term actually occurred. Robert Zimmermann wrote a so-called Anthroposophy, but he constructed it of arid, empty concepts. Indeed, everything that has attempted to transcend anthropology without employing the right means has remained a shriveled web of concepts no longer connected with the subject.

Like philosophy, anthroposophy too must be deepened through theosophy; the latter must provide the means for recognizing reality within the spiritual life. Anthroposophy takes the human, the middle standpoint, not the subhuman, as does anthropology. A theosophy, on the other hand, as practised by Solger, though spiritual in its point of view, employs only inflated concepts, and when Solger arrives at the summit he sees nothing. That is spinning at the loom of concepts, not living, spiritual observation. It is something we do not intend to do. We aim in these lectures to confront the reality of human life in its entirety. We shall encounter the old subjects of observation, now illuminated, however, from a different point whence the view is both upward and downward.

The human being is the most important subject of our observation. We need but to contemplate his physical body to realize what a complicated being he is. In order to gain a sentient understanding of anthroposophy's aims, let us first ponder the following. The complicated physical body as we encounter it today is the product of a long evolution. Its first germinal potentiality came into being on old Saturn, and it evolved further on the old Sun, the old Moon, and the Earth. The etheric body was added to it on the Sun, the astral body on the Moon. Now, these members of the human being have changed in the course of evolution, and what we encounter today as the complicated physical human body, with heart, kidneys, eyes, ears and so forth, is the product of a long development. It has all grown out of a simple germinal form that originated on Saturn. Through millions and millions of years it has continually changed and been transformed in order that it might achieve its present perfection. If today we wish to understand a member or an organ of this physical body—say, the heart or the lungs—we can do so only on the basis of this evolution. Nothing of what we encounter today as the heart existed on the old Saturn. Only gradually did these organs assume their present form, one being developed and incorporated earlier, another later. Some organs we can actually designate Sun-organs, as having first appeared during the Sun evolution, others Moon-organs, and so on. If we would understand the present physical body of man we must assemble our concepts from the whole Universe—that is the theosophical method of observation.

How does anthropology set to work? Theosophy ascends to the ultimate heights and from this spiritual summit examines individual phenomena. Anthropology remains on the ground, takes its point of departure from the details, and now even investigates individual cells in their juxtaposition. Everything is mechanically lined up and the cells are studied individually, but this does not reveal their relative age. Yet, far from being immaterial, it is important to know whether a given group of cells developed on the Sun or on the Moon. Much more could be said concerning these complicated conditions. Consider, for example, the human heart. True, as constituted today it evolved late, but as regards its first germinal potentiality it is one of the oldest human organs. During the period of the old Sun, the heart was dependent upon the forces governing there. During the Moon period its development continued; then the Sun withdrew from the Moon, with which it had been united, and henceforth its forces acted upon the heart from without. Here the heart underwent a different development, so that from then on a Sun element and a Moon element can be observed in its tendencies. Then Earth, Sun, and Moon were united again and worked upon the heart. After a pralaya the Earth evolution followed, during which the Sun first withdrew again. This separation resulted in an intensification of the Sun's influence from without. Then the Moon withdrew as well and also acted upon the heart from without. So, being among the oldest human organs, the heart comprises a Sun element, a Moon element, a second Sun element during the Earth evolution, a second Moon element during the Earth evolution, and finally, after the withdrawal of the Earth, an Earth element—all corresponding to cosmic evolution.

If these elements of the heart accord, as in the cosmic harmony, the heart is healthy; if any one element preponderates, it is sick. All human sickness derives from disharmony among the elements within the organ in question while their cosmic counterparts are in harmony. All healing depends upon strengthening the element that lacks its share, or subduing superfluous activity, as the case may be, thereby bringing the elements into harmony again. But talking about this harmony is not enough. In order to effect it one must really penetrate into the wisdom of the universe; one must be able to recognize the different elements in each organ. That will suffice to give an idea of genuine occult physiology and anatomy, which comprehend the whole human being out of the whole cosmos and explain the details out of the spirit.

Occult physiology speaks of Sun and Moon elements of the heart, larynx, brain, and so forth, but since all these elements are at work upon man himself, something in him confronts us today in which all these elements are consolidated. If we look into the human being himself and understand these elements, we also understand the etheric body, the astral body, etc., the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul, as man is constituted today. That is anthroposophy, and in anthroposophy, too, we must start at the lowest step, gradually ascending to the highest.

Man's lowest member is the physical body that he has in common with the sensory world that is perceived through the senses and the sensory-physical mind. The theosophical point of view, starting from the universe, contemplates man in his cosmic contexts. In the matter of the sensory-physical world, anthroposophy must start from man, in so far as he is a sensory being. Only then can we deal appropriately with the etheric body, then the astral body, the ego, and so forth, and what is to be learned from them.

Observing the human being in this anthroposophical sense, we ask what it is that must first engage our interest. It is his senses, and it is through these that he acquires knowledge of the physical-sensory world. Starting from the physical plane, it is therefore these that anthroposophy must consider first. Let the study of the human senses then constitute our first chapter. Thereafter we will ascend to the study of the individual spiritual regions in man's nature.

Beginning with the study of the human senses, we at once find anthroposophy invading the territory of anthropology, for anthroposophy must invariably start from all that the senses tell us is real. But it must keep in mind that what is spiritual, influences man from above. In this sense it is genuine anthropology. Ordinary anthropology has thrown everything pertaining to the human senses into complete confusion, groping its way from detail to detail and examining only what is on the ground, so to speak. Important matters are disregarded because men have no Ariadne-thread to lead them out of the labyrinth of facts into the light. Anthropology cannot find its way out of this maze and must fall a victim to the Minotaur of illusion, for the saving thread can be spun only by spiritual research.

Even in the matter of the human senses, anthroposophy has a different story to tell than has external observation. At the same time it is interesting to note how external science has lately been forced by material facts to go to work more thoroughly, seriously and carefully. There is nothing more trivial than the enumeration of the five senses: feeling (touch), smell, taste, hearing, and sight. We shall see what confusion reigns in this enumeration. Science, it is true, has now added three more senses to the list, but as yet doesn't seem to know what to do about them. We will now list the human senses according to their real significance, and we will endeavor in the following to start laying the foundations of an anthroposophical doctrine of the senses.

The first sense in question is the one that in spiritual science can be called the sense of life. That is a real sense and must be as fully acknowledged as the sense of sight. What is it? It is something in the human being of which, when it functions normally he is not aware. He feels it only when it is out of order. We feel lassitude, or hunger and thirst, or a sense of strength in the organism; we perceive these as we do a color or a tone. We are aware of them as an inner experience. But as a rule we are conscious of this feeling only when something is out of order, otherwise it remains unobserved. The sense of life furnishes the first human self-perception; it is the sense through which the whole inner man becomes conscious of his corporeality. That is the first sense, and it must figure in the list just as does hearing or smell. Nobody can understand the human being and the senses who knows nothing of this sense that enables him to feel himself an inner entity.

We discover the second sense when we move a limb—say, raise an arm. We would not be human beings if we could not perceive our own movements. A machine is not aware of its own motion; that is possible only for a living being through the medium of a real sense. The sense of perceiving our own movements—anything from blinking to walking or running—we call the sense of our own movements.

We become aware of a third sense by realizing that the human being distinguishes within himself between above and below. It is dangerous for him to lose this perception, for in that case he totters and falls over. The human body contains a delicate organ connected with this sense: the three semicircular canals in the ear. When these are injured we lose our sense of balance. This third sense is the static sense, or sense of balance. (In the animal kingdom there is something analogous: the otoliths, tiny stones that must lie in a certain position if the animal is to maintain its equilibrium.)

These are the three senses through which man perceives something within himself, as it were; by their means he feels something within himself.

Now we emerge from the inner man to the point at which an interaction with the outer world begins. The first of such reciprocal relations arises when man assimilates physical matter and, by doing so, perceives it. Matter can be perceived only when it really unites with the body. This cannot be done by solid or fluid matter, but only by gaseous substances that then penetrate the bodily matter. You can perceive smell only when some body sends out gaseous matter that penetrates the organs of the mucous membrane of the nose. The fourth sense, then, is the sense of smell, and it is the first one through which the human being enters into reciprocal relationship with the outer world.

When we no longer merely perceive matter but take the first step into matter itself, we have the fifth sense. We enter into a deeper relationship with such matter. Here matter must be active, which implies that it must have some effect upon us. This takes place when a liquid or a dissolved solid comes in contact with the tongue and unites with what the tongue itself secretes. The reciprocal relationship between man and nature has become a more intimate one. We become aware not only of what things are, as matter, but of what they can induce. That is the sense of taste, the fifth sense.

Now we come to the sixth sense. Again there is an increase in the intimacy of the interaction. We penetrate still deeper into matter, things reveal more of their essence. This can only occur, however, through special provisions. The sense of smell is the more primitive of these two kinds of senses. In the case of smell, the human body takes matter as it is and makes no effort to penetrate it. Taste, where man and matter unite more intimately, is more complicated; then, matter yields more. The next step offers the possibility of penetrating still more deeply into the outer world. This takes place by reason of an external material substance being either transparent or opaque, or by the manner in which it permits light to pass through it, that is, how it is colored. An object that rays out green light is internally so constituted that it can reflect green light and no other. The outermost surface of things is revealed to us in the sense of smell, something of their inner nature in taste, something of their inner essence in sight. Hence the complicated structure of the eye, which leads us much deeper into the essence of things than does the nose or the tongue. The sixth sense, then, is the sense of sight.

We proceed, penetrating still deeper into matter. For example, when the eye sees a rose as red, the inner nature of the rose is proclaimed by its surface. We see only the surface, but since this is conditioned by the inner nature of the rose we become acquainted, to a certain extent, with this inner nature. If we touch a piece of ice or some hot metal, not only the surface and thereby the inner nature are revealed, but the real consistency as well because what is externally cold or hot is cold or hot through and through. The sense of temperature, the seventh, carries us still more intimately into the fundamental conditions of objects.

Now we ask ourselves if it is possible to penetrate into the nature of objects still more deeply than through this seventh sense. Yes, that can be done when objects show us not only their nature through and through, as in the case of temperature, but their most inner essence; that is what they do when they begin to sound. The temperature is even throughout objects. Tone causes their inner nature to vibrate, and it is through tone that we perceive the inner mobility of objects. When we strike an object its inner nature is revealed to us in tone, and we can distinguish among objects according to their inner nature, according to their inner vibration, when we open our inner ear to their tone. It is the soul of objects that speaks to our own soul in tones. That is the eighth sense, the sense of hearing.

If we would find an answer to the question as to whether there exist still higher senses, we must proceed cautiously. We must beware of confusing what is really a sense with other terms and expressions. For example, in ordinary life—down below, where much confusion exists—we hear of a sense of imitation, a sense of secrecy, and others. That is wrong. A sense becomes effective at the moment when we achieve perception and before mental activity sets in. We speak of a sense as of something that functions before our capacity for reasoning has come into action. To perceive color you need a sense, but for judging between two colors you do not.

This brings us to the ninth sense. We arrive at it by realizing that in truth there is in man a certain power of perception—one that is especially important in substantiating anthroposophy—a power of perception not based on reasoning, yet present in him. It is what men perceive when they understand each other through speech. A real sense underlies the perception of what is transmitted to us through speech. That is the ninth sense, the sense of speech.

The child learns to speak before he learns to reason. A whole people has a language in common, but reasoning is a matter for the individual. What speaks to the senses is not subject to the mental activity of the individual. The perception of the meaning of a sound is not mere hearing because the latter tells us only of the inner oscillations of the object. There must be a special sense for the meaning of what is expressed in speech. That is why the child learns to speak, or at least to understand what is spoken, before he learns to reason. It is, in fact, only through speech that he learns to reason. The sense of speech is an educator during the child's first years, exactly like hearing and sight. We cannot alter what a sense perceives, cannot impair anything connected with it. We perceive a color, but our judgment can neither change nor vitiate it; the same thing is true of the sense of speech when we perceive the inner significance of the speech sound. It is indispensable to designate the sense of speech as such. It is the ninth.

Finally we come to the tenth sense, the highest in the realm of ordinary life. It is the concept sense, which enables us perceptively to comprehend concepts not expressed through speech sounds. In order to reason we must have concepts. If the mind is to become active, it must first be able to perceive the concept in question, and this calls for the concept sense, which is exactly as much a sense by itself as is taste or smell.

Now I have enumerated ten senses and have not mentioned the sense of touch. What about it? Well, a method of observation lacking the spiritual thread confuses everything. Touch is usually tossed in with our seventh sense, temperature. Only in this meaning, however, as the sense of temperature, has it in the first instance any significance. True, the skin can be called the organ of the temperature sense—the same skin that serves also as the organ of the touch sense. But we touch not only when we touch [TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The verb tasten can mean “to touch.” Indeed, the sense of touch is der Tastsinn, but more often it signifies something like our “groping,” as one gropes in the dark by means of the sense of touch: “feeling around for something.” In this sentence the first “touch” is to be understood in this sense, the second (berühren) as meaning “to come in contact with.”] the surface of an object. We touch when the eye seeks something, when the tongue tastes something, when the nose smells something. Touching is a quality common to the fourth to seventh senses. All of these are senses of touch.

Up to and including the sense of temperature we can speak of touching. Hearing we can no longer describe as touching; at least, the quality is present only to a small degree. In the senses of speech and concepts it is wholly absent. These three senses we therefore designate as the senses of comprehension and understanding. The first three senses inform us concerning the inner man. Reaching the boundary between the inner and the outer world, the fourth sense leads us into this outer world, and by means of the other three we penetrate it ever more deeply. Through the senses of touch we perceive the outer world on the surface, and through those of comprehension we learn to understand things, we reach their soul. Later we will deal with other senses transcending these.

Below the sense of smell, then, there are three senses that bring us messages out of our own human inner being. The sense of smell is the first to lead us into the outer world, into which we then penetrate deeper and deeper by means of the others. But what I have described to you today does not exhaust the list of senses. It was only an excerpt from the whole, and there is something below and something above the ten mentioned. From the concept sense we can continue upward to a first astral sense, arriving at the senses that penetrate the spiritual world. There we find an eleventh, a twelfth and a thirteenth sense. These three astral senses will lead us deeper into the fundamentals of external objects, deep down where concepts cannot penetrate. The concept halts before the external, just as the sense of smell halts before the inner man.

What I have given you is an urgently needed foundation upon which to build cognition of the human being. Through its neglect in the nineteenth century, everything pertaining even to philosophy and the theory of knowledge has been most horribly jumbled. Merely generalizing, people ask what the human being can learn by means of the individual sense, and they cannot even explain the difference between hearing and sight. Scientists talk about light waves in the same way they do about sound waves, without taking into account that sight does not penetrate as deeply as hearing. Through hearing we enter the soul-nature of things, and we shall see that by means of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth senses we penetrate their spirit as well: we enter the spirit of nature. Each sense has a different nature and a different character.

For this reason a great number of expositions given today, especially in physics, concerning the nature of sight and its relation to its surroundings may be regarded unhesitatingly as theories that have never reckoned with the true nature of the senses. Countless errors have arisen from this misconception of the nature of the senses. That must be emphasized, because it is quite impossible for popular representations to do justice to what has here been set forth. You read things written by people who can have no possible inkling of the inner nature of the senses. We must understand that science, from its standpoint, cannot do other than take a different attitude. It is inevitable that science should spread errors, because in the course of evolution the real nature of the senses was forgotten.

This true nature of the senses is the first chapter of anthroposophy.

I should like to recall once again those things I mentioned at the end yesterday about the paradox in the character of our present time. It seems to me that no time has had to be characterised in this way, in its outstanding representatives, as just our own present time. Just think for a moment—let us properly state the facts once again—yesterday I have to speak of an outstanding man of the present, a man of whom I could say that he has developed completely out of the so-called spiritual substance of the present—Oswald Spengler. Without a doubt he is immediately one of those who have won the greatest possible influence over the youth in Central Europe, and that one will have to reckon with this influence. But one sees, as I mentioned yesterday, this influence reaching out far beyond Central Europe. The “Times” have published an article about what is in Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West, and it is indeed an outstanding phenomenon that, with the decisiveness one is accustomed to today among the so-called professionals, a man who is equipped with 12 to 15 sciences which he has completely mastered, strictly proves that at the beginning of the 3rd millennium our western culture must fall into decadence and barbarism. It is a significant phenomenon that by the same means, the same way of thinking and research with which our times thinks itself to have achieved so much, someone proves clearly and distinctly that this civilisation will have to completely disappear in so short a time.

Here we most definitely do not have to do with a view of things that is restricted to belles lettres or the Sunday supplements, as so often in the present; we have to do with something which appears with the heavy equipment of professional expertise and, above all, we have to do with a man of genius. This man of genius applies western science for the purpose of laying the foundation for the view that the culture of the 17est is heading for destruction. And yesterday, so as to comprehensively characterise Oswald Spengler I had to tell you the most extreme paradox. I had to tell you that this Spengler, without a doubt, is a man of genius, but that he says the greatest foolishness. I have cited examples of this for you; so that we stand before the remarkable experience in the spiritual life of the present, that genius and foolishness are linked together. That is, in general something characteristic, that the most remote extremes are linked in the present, and one would most certainly get a feeling for this so disturbing linkage if, on the other hand, one did not live on in such a somnolent manner.

For I just imagine that if such things were spoken of, as I did yesterday about Oswald Spengler, at a gathering 130 years ago, in Central Europe, then such a gathering would have ended in a complete uproar, because at that time people were still awake! This is a general phenomenon, that the paradoxes interweave in our time, and that human beings are extremely dulled in regard to these paradoxes, because, fundamentally, the spiritual element makes absolutely no impression any more upon men of the present.

And I have to say a second thing to you, that this Oswald Spengler is an eminently intelligent man, that one has to be so intelligent as he is, so as to be able to produce such grandiose stupidities such as he has produced. I'll add to this remark, that there are enough dumb clowns around who have reproached me, saying for example, that regarding the one and the same phenomenon I have said now this, now that. I have taken the liberty yesterday to say on one and the same evening two things about one personality: that it is a genius and a fool, intelligent and grandiosely stupid. Today we are experiencing such things. And not until these things are understood earnestly, that we are able to experience such things today; that these things do rise up out of the depths of our present day consciousness—not until one gains such an insight into the necessities of our time—not until then will one really gain an insight into the deep significance of spiritual science as it is here intended.

There is connected with what I have had to characterise in this way, the change in the usages, the whole application, that one makes regarding supersensible knowledge. I have presented to you yesterday how for millennia in the mysteries the supersensible knowledge was protected, how it was taken for granted that one remained silent about them. I have told you that today something completely different has become necessary. In spite of the fact that it has just become clear that remaining silent, even in regard to the outer situation of protection of my lecture cycles could not be achieved, nonetheless we must strictly hold to the line, that certain truths, even those which reach to the highest levels, are to be dealt with quite openly in the public. We can no longer succeed in remaining silent as we have experienced it in the ancient secret societies or even in the mysteries, not in our present time in which there are so many people who have the "proofs" that we have “gloriously brought about so much progress.”

Today it is absolutely necessary that we have a certain democracy. Since more than a century democracy has been a necessary demand of our time. And as little as it can be done away with that always only single spiritual researchers are able to exists so much more will it also be necessary in order that the social life be founded in the proper way, that just the wisdom gained from insights into the spiritual worlds are to be carried into the broadest circles. How necessary that is can become clear to you from the following consideration—a consideration which is again of the sort which many reactionary backwards but otherwise admirable representatives of certain secret societies find highly offensive when one communicates such things today.

You know of course that the traditional religious confessions actually speak only of immortality, that is, they think that in their sermons, in their theology they ought to speak only of the continuing of the soul after death. Indeed, in theology, and in the sermon not only is nothing else spoken of but the continuing existence after death, but also in the traditional European confessions it is even declared to be heathen and heretical if one speaks of pre-existence, of the life of the soul in the spiritual worlds before birth or even before conception. I have also characterised for you why that gradually developed in the course of the European spiritual streams. To what actually does the representative, the advocate of the traditional religious confessions speak? Fundamentally it only speaks to the refined egotism of the soul. They bring forth on behalf of immortality nothing other than what human beings want to hear from out of their egotism, because out of this egotism they long for, they yearn for life after death.

This covetousness is pandered to in thousands and thousands of sermons and theological and religious writings. Because human beings do not want to be obliterated in death, the appeal is made to the instincts of this refined soul egotism, and from this point of view human beings are brought up to believe in immortality. However, for what is the actual eternal element in man, and about which one cannot speak if one does not speak of pre-existence, there is very little feeling for that. In the European languages we do not even have a word corresponding to it. We have the word “immortality,” but we do not have the word “unbornness.” We would just as much have to have the word “unbornness” available, if we really pursue the eternal element in the human soul, as we do also have the word “immortality.” We merely negate the passing away at the end of life, in that we place a negative prefix in front of mortality, and speak of “immortality.” We have no accustomed word such as “unbornness.” Some such word must however find its way into life. For if one speaks to the human being of “unbornness,” then one cannot appeal to their egotistical soul instincts. I should like to say: immortality will become understood as a matter of course, if one grasps unbornness in the right way; but this unbornness makes life more uncomfortable than most human beings want to have it and, above all, as the representatives of the traditional religious confessions would like to have it.

All that does not have a mere theoretical significance, that also has a thoroughly practical and real significance. For such a truth as I have mentioned here several weeks ago we must not take too lightly. I told you: today one actually saw only in the theoretical, academic, doctrinary sense that human beings are materialistic. One actually means: they think materialistically. But what is actually meant when one says: human beings think materialistically? One thinks along these lines: people think wrongly because materialism is not right; human beings do indeed have an immortal soul, the actual being of man is spiritual, therefore materialism is false. Thus one must simply fight materialism and in theory strive for what is right. That, however, is not what really counts, but the matter is to be considered in this way. Certainly, in the first place man's being is soul-spiritual. Let us suppose that this is the soul-spiritual being of man. (sketch outline of head & body). But after conception or birth, this soul-spiritual element builds up a complete imprint of the soul-spiritual element. Everything that is soul-spiritual is imprinted in the bodily physical. Now you can experience two things. You can experience that human beings become acquainted with such thoughts that are fetched out of the spiritual world, such as stand in our Anthroposophical books, thoughts which the materialists take for nonsense, as the materialists hold to be fantasies if one thinks such thoughts, One does not oneself have to be a spiritual researcher but if one thinks with the soul-spiritual element, then the bodily physical element is a faithful imprint of it. However, if one is a mature researcher in the present, and if in ordinary life one thinks in denial of the soul-spiritual element, then one thinks with the ordinary physical brain, and then one becomes only an imprint of the material element. If one denies the soul-spiritual element, then one really becomes a materialist. Thus, the materialism is right, it is not false! That is the essential thing! One can take things so far, that one does not represent a false view if one stands for materialism but, that one has fallen so far into matter that one really thinks materialistically; therefore the material theories are correct. The most essential character of our time therefore is not that people think incorrectly if they are materialistic, but the most essential characteristic is just that the majority of human beings become materialistic in that they deny the soul-spirit element and think merely with the physical body; they bring forth with the physical body an imitation, a bogus image of the life of soul. In that we fight materialism, we do not have to do with a mere reversal of theory, but rather we have to do with a decision of the will to tear oneself loose from the material, so that we not become merely theoretical materialists, but rather so that we do not sink down into the material-element, so that materialism shall become incorrect. It is correct for our time; it must become incorrect! We must apply our power for this, that materialism became incorrect. Thus this is not dealing with mere reversal of theories, rather this is dealing with inner spiritual deeds which humanity in our time must carry through so as to tear itself loose from materialisation.

With this, however, a great and significant truth is connected. The traditional religious confessions speak merely of the post-mortem life, the life after death. We know from our literature and lectures and other presentations that it is completely justified to speak of this post-mortem life, this life after death. We also describe it faithfully in its details. But we do not speak out of the same spirit as do the traditional confessions; we speak out of a different spirit. We speak out of the spirit of knowledge, not merely out of the spirit of a stupid belief. However, the traditional confessions speak just to the egotism, the refined soul egotism, and they refuse with all their strength a pre-birthly life. Just look at how the traditional confessions look at the supposition of a life prior to conception in such an emphatically heretical way. Naturally, along with preexistence there is necessarily connected the insight into repeated earth lives; but along with the fight against pre-existence there is naturally connected at the same time the fight against repeated earth lives. But in that only the post-mortem life, the life after death is reflected upon in the theological and religious presentations, in the sermon, the human soul is worked upon in a certain way; feelings and sensings enter into the human soul.

The human soul is formed in a certain manner. It is not correct to say that a human soul through which thoughts have passed such as those in my Outline of Occult Science looks just the same, as a human soul to whose egotistical instincts one has appealed in the mere traditional religious way in regard to post-mortem life. I have often drawn your attention to the fact that real logic, the life of spiritual impulses is a different one than mere thought logic. I have often mentioned the example of Avenarius who has taught here in Switzerland at the University of Zurich. He was a very sincere solid bourgeois, a good citizen; he lectured in his materialistic philosophy, and no one could say anything other than that he has been a solid person who has fit himself into the ordinary citizen philistine customs At the beginning of the 20th century if you had asked those peoplemr, who were then in Russia because they were Bolsheviksi, what their official philosophy was, then you got the answer: the philosophy of Avenarius; that is the official philosophy of Bolshevism.

Naturally, is someone is a clever philosopher, a good logician, and he studies the philosophy of Avenarius and draws conclusions from it then most certainly Bolshevism is not the outcome—that comes from something completely different. However, life draws a different conclusion, than the conclusions of logical thinking. In life, when the third generation has arrived, then Bolshevism appears as the philosophy of Avenarius. That is the logic of life. One penetrates into that when one takes up spiritual scientific knowledge. With merely abstract intellectual logic one remains static, if one only takes up what results from present day natural scientific or religious world views.

Such a difference, as in the both kinds of logic, also exists for the working of the traditional religious confessions, and for the working of spiritual science, such as is anthroposophically intended here. For people who spice their base attacks on Anthroposophy with a few pithy phrases—that our Anthroposophists then usually fall for—they often say: we theologians fight just as much for the supersensible as the Anthroposophists, and therefore in a certain way we are comrades in arms. Often, after the basest attacks have been made, this phrase is added, by those who in our own circles are taken to be the ones with goodwill. Indeed, one has the striving not to really seriously look at what is really at work here. Nonetheless, the logic of facts is quite a different one. If you draw the conclusion from the logic of facts from what is said about post-mortem life in the pulpits in that one appeals to the refined soul instincts, the refined egotism, then it could look as though a life was striven for beyond that of the senses, a life through which the soul, after it has passed through death, is to enter into the supersensible world. But that is not so. Rather, just through the fact that in a one-sided way, theoretically, the religious confessions have nurtured the idea of the mere post-mortem life through centuries and millennia, just through that the denial of the supersensible world has been gradually generated, in terms of real logic—just through that, in reality, materialism has been brought about. For even though in the head, one lets oneself be instructed by faith regarding life after death, the subconsciousness strives toward concluding this life with earthly mortality. And whereas the churches have decided to merely speak to the convenience of the instincts of human beings regarding immortality, that materialism was applied in European culture and its American offspring, which actually in the inner being strives entirely in the direction of closing life with earthly death. But those materialists who today strive theoretically, and socially, in that they want to make arrangements, social arrangements which are only reckoning with life up until death, these pure materialists draw the faithful logical consequences, right on into Bolshevism, which the religious confessions have furthered in the human beings within occidental culture. For merely to talk about immortality after death, means to generate, in the subconscious, the yearning also to die in the soul along with physical death. That is the truth of which I wanted to speak to you today. This yearning, to want to know nothing of a life in the supersensible realm, has been magnified just through this one-sided speaking about the eternal after death.

If one does not seriously take in this truth, then one does not have an insight into the connections in which the present European and American civilisation stands in regard to the past. Because standing for a mere life after death, is to educate in the direction of the subconscious yearning, to conclude life with physical death. As one has to say: there are already a large number of human beings in the so-called civilised world, who actually in their subconscious bear the very intense yearning to want to have nothing to do with the ideology of a life after death, and want life to conclude with physical death. All those human beings, from whose hearts there issues forth the materialistic world view, have in their subconscious actually the most intense striving to be obliterated in physical death. Even if in their upper consciousness they subscribe to the illusion, because their egotism cannot bear anything else but the desire to life after death, their subconscious strives to be obliterated in physical death.

The reality, in truth, is even more serious. Namely, if the human being with sufficient intensity, for a sufficiently long time develops this subconscious yearning that he will be destroyed by physical death, then he will be destroyed by physical death. Then what is present as the soul-spiritual element and had created its own image will cease to have a significance; then it once again unites itself with the spiritual worlds and loses its egohood. The image of the egohood becomes Ahrimanically transformed, and the Ahrimanic powers get what they want; they take over the earthly life. This means that a large portion of the present civilised world is striving towards not continuing the civilisation of the earth, but towards making people really die and handing over earthly life to very different beings than what human beings are.

It is of no use today not to point out these things. It is of course uncomfortable to have to accept these things, and it is much more comfortable if one only had to say—materialism is false; so one gradually converts oneself to a better view of the world. No, such things are of no use to us. What human thoughts are, become realities, and material thoughts gradually become material realities. However in our spiritual science we are not concerned just with theories, but with things that are realities in the human being, and as long as one does not fully grasp that we are concerned with matters that are realities in human beings—just so long does one not grasp either the depth of Anthroposophically intended spiritual science, nor the great seriousness concerning the cultural necessities that have to be looked at in our time.

Thus you see that our time is in danger of destroying the culture of our earth - not merely nurturing false views, but bringing forth images of these false views in the human beings themselves, and leading humanity away from its eternal existence.

I know how strong the longing of human beings is ever and again not to look at such truths, for when one makes clear some such truths, then people repeatedly come and say: but isn't there also the possibility that also those who do not directly want it may be saved? Certain representatives of religious confessions have an easier time with this. They impart, to those who really only want a kind of “nice old aunt” religion, that indeed, not through their own inner deeds do they become participants in the spiritual world, but that they only have to submit themselves passively to their belief in Christ, then Christ will save them. That is just the great difficulty that one has when one seriously wants to stand for spiritual science, that one may not speak to what is “so comfortable” in human beings.

For many a person would like to be a good Anthroposophist; but then his aunt does not want him to do that, and he does not wish that the aunt should lose her individuality; and then at the very least, the intensity of his Anthroposophical conviction is very strongly curbed. Many of you will know how very much I point to reality in these things, which hinder that earnestness is connected with Anthroposophical spiritual science, that must be connected with it. I have also already said here; materialism is not damaging merely for the reason that it cannot lead people theoretically to spirit knowledge—but also, firstly for the reason that I have mentioned today that the human being in fact becomes increasingly material when he allows the materialistic thoughts to work upon himself, and also, secondly, that in the further course of cultural materialism is condemned to not be able to research the secrets of matter. We have held a course here for doctors and medical students. It consisted in this, that Anthroposophical science was applied in the concrete sense, so as to demonstrate what the knowledge of the healthy human being and of the sick human being is. One showed, at least as a beginning, that out of a spiritual manner of consideration, one can know the being of the brain, the being of the teeth, the being of the bones, the spleen and the liver. Material science cannot do this. Materialistic science cannot come to a knowledge just of matter and of material existence. You can really see this in a single symptom.

Look at present day psychiatry. Psychiatry currently is nothing else than a description of abnormal soul life as it appears in the life of the soul. Now every so-called mental illness has its correlation in a material element. If someone has this or that confused idea, then the spleen or the lung is not in order; but the connection between the soul-spiritual element and the material element (which itself in reality, is also a soul-spiritual element) is only to be recognised through spiritual science, not through materialistic science. This materialistic science is simply condemned to make able to cognise the being of matter itself, therefore also, for instance in medicine many people they cannot help, because then one must help them with an essence of matter. One must even be able to help the mentally ill with a material essence. If one would seriously gain the knowledge that rests in the depths of Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then one would even bring about the streaming of spiritual scientific knowledge into the material existence, and therewith also into the social life. Therefore it was something to be taken for granted that the view of the threefold social order would result from this spiritual science, for all other knowledge of the present time is simply too little intensive, is too much mere thought knowledge and does not take hold of the realities—and therefore it can also not work into the social life. Just in connection with the social considerations I have often said: one speaks today of social ideals; one says that whole countries are to be set up socially; one speaks of nothing else today but socialism. Yet at the same time no period were so antisocial, at no time in their instincts were human beings so antisocial as today. Indeed, today people bypass each other without taking notice of anything. In a certain degree no one sees into the other person. Why, then?

One can either recognise, as is the case in our Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, a supersensible world above our world. You know that we do not speak like the vexatious pantheists of a spirituality “in general.” We talk just the same as here upon earth of an animal, a plant, or a mineral; thus we talk, raising ourselves up from the realm of man to a realm above men, to a realm of angels, a realm of archangels etc. We talk of concrete spiritual beings, that is, we raise ourselves to the knowledge, to the insight into the essence of beings in the spirit. One can either do that—or one cannot do that. But if one does not do that, as we have done in occidental culture for centuries, what then results from this in terms of the logic of reality, not just with thought logic? The consequence is that one has no more sense, no more feeling for the soul-spiritual element; for in its actual configuration the soul-spiritual element can after all only be thought by us in the super-sensible element. One loses the feeling for the soul-spiritual. But if one meets another human being if one wants to know the whole man one should indeed also reach out to the soul-spiritual in man, reach out to a soul-spiritual element! One can, however, not find the soul-spiritual in the physical human being, if he has not first acquired the sense for the soul-spiritual element through thinking in the supersensible element. Whoever shies away from intercourse with the gods also loses intercourse with the supra-physical human being, with the human beings who live here on earth. For whoever has no sense for intercourse with the gods, he will only see the physical body, not the soul-spiritual element—that is, he will come to no unfolding of the soul-spiritual life. We need, simply, the intercourse with the gods so as to be able to fulfil the intercourse with our fellow men in the proper manner, and we need this intercourse with the gods, so that our soul-spiritual component turns to these gods—not just our thoughts, where we become pantheistic or something—but our entire human nature has to turn to them.

This last truth the Catholic Church, in its way, has understood very well, for what does it do? It does not limit itself merely to instruction in the catechism, which one can bring about in man through abstract theological conceptions, but also it serves out the altar sacrament as a sacrament, and it faithfully inculcates in its believers, that Christ is really contained in the sanctissimum, that Christ actually goes the way that otherwise the metabolism goes, when the altar sacrament is consumed. There are among you perhaps all too few who can properly evaluate the whole significance of what I now say, because perhaps only the least of you know in what form the altar sacrament is brought to meet the Catholics. There really lives in the altar sacrament something of the Original Wisdom, of the giving over of the entire human being to the divine. Therefore it can occur that such a letter to the faithful comes about such as that one which was issued not long ago by an archbishop that contains the explanation that the priest is mightier than God, because the priest is in a position to force God to be present in the altar sacrament, the sanctissimum. God has to be in the host, if the priest wills it. This it stands in the letter to the faithful by an archbishop which was issued just a few years ago. That is the Catholic attitude. The Protestant or Evangelical finds this to be completely unmentionable. The Brahmins in India would have taken this for granted from his viewpoint. Here there lives on in Catholicism something which belongs to the most ancient constituent parts of the original world wisdom and only has to be properly understood, and naturally may not be transformed from white magic into black magic, as it has happened in that letter to the faithful. But it lives in everything which I should like to say has developed as the aura of the altar sacrament in Catholicism, there lives the impulse: you should not only in your thinking, in your abstract thinking, turn to the divine: you should also, for example turn yourself with the same longing that lives in hunger. You go toward God not only in that you think; you go towards God in that you eat at the altar, and the God who lives in matter takes the way through your body, that everything in your metabolism takes. You unite yourself, materially, with your God! In the spreading of this attitude there lies the secret of a tremendous power. This secret of a tremendous power must not be overlooked, most certainly not now when the Catholic Church has the intent to direct its victory parade through the entire occident and the American arm,

In one of the first of my writings, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World you will find knowledge described, and in a particular passage of the next appearing Outline to the Second Volume of Goethe's Natural Scientific Writings, you will find knowledge (thus, for what is a spiritual occurrence) described by the word “communion”, knowledge is the spiritual communion of humanity. I do not know how many people have understood the entire historical and cultural significance of this word, this sentence in one of my very first writings. For in this sentence, this was given the leading over of the materialistic grasp of community with God, to a spiritual grasp of community with God. The transformation from bread into the soul substance of cognition.

If one would recognise the overall connections of what it was attempted to give, since this little book, The Theory of Knowledge, with what then has been given in Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then one would have an insight into what has to be held as necessary from the Anthroposophical side, in order to really permeate with understanding what must stream into the present social life for its healing. But this earnestness that recognises such connections is lacking very often in the sleeping souls of the present, thus one takes little account of what paradoxes the life of our time actually brings, and what makes these paradoxes necessary in life.

Yesterday I had to speak to you of the paradoxes in life out of the characteristics of our present age. Now I ask you to become acquainted with speeches that were given by outstanding bishops or archbishops at prominent events of the present in the general sense. Then you find how for instance in the recent speeches of an archbishop in Munich. Friesing, which truly is very interesting to read, it is presented how the workers of the present are again to be won over for Catholicism, the intelligentsia and the workers. There you find a speaking, to be sure, out of the decadence of a spiritual substance in decay, and yet even so out of a spiritual substance, and at first you must connect to something which at first appears to be abstract, if you want to get behind what the reality is here. That archbishop of Munich, Friesing says, for instance: Catholicism must once again win over the workers. And he then mentions the various conditions concerning how Catholicism can win over the workers of the present for the Catholic Church. One must not counter such speeches today with the confrontation. Indeed, you have certainly had time enough to win over the workers since, according to your view, Catholicism through the pontificate of Peter in Rome was founded. If today you find it necessary to speak of again winning the workers and the intelligentsia, then that confirms that with what you have presented for centuries, you have lost them. If you thus still want to present the same things, can you then subscribe to any other view as to say to yourself, that you will again attain the same as you have previously attained—namely that you will lose those whom you wish to attain for yourselves? Does not one implicitly confirm that one did not act correctly, if one finds it necessary to speak in this way today about the winning again of the uneducated as well as of the intelligentsia?

However, present day humanity does not see such contradictions. Just that is what is necessary, that one sees such real contradictions. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that one has a deep insight into such things. It is true, man does have a soul-spiritual element, but we live in an age in which it can be denied. It is not that the materialistic theory that the brain thinks is incorrect. No, but when the human being denies his soul-spiritual element, then the brain begins to think like a robot. But if man does not want that his brain thinks, if he wants the soul-spiritual element to think, then he has to turn to a spirit-soul element that tears this thinking loose from matter. However, the tearing loose from matter, from this true materialism, is not merely the taking on of a different world view, but it is something that has to be taken hold of by the entire human being; it has to be torn loose from mere material existence by the whole human being. For man does not become only materialistic when he denies the spiritual element; he becomes himself more materialized when he denies the spirit. He becomes merely an image of the spiritual, he becomes materialized, which Ahriman can simply dissolve into the Ahrimanic universe, and will merely continue to work on further as a dependent impersonal member of it—whereas if he understands the Mystery of Golgotha in the right way, he is called upon to maintain his ego and to continue the progress of earthly civilisation.