The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Spiritual scientific findings concerning the natural world and the human being as part of this world

For the spiritual scientist, familiarity with current and recent work in other sciences is most important. If there is anything which right away establishes the need for an anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, it is above all the relationship which this science must have to natural science.

Among the attacks against the particular science of the spirit of which I am speaking those directed against my own relationship to natural science are always of special interest to me. It is easy to understand that opposition has to arise from the natural science side against an approach which, whilst it is firmly grounded in natural science, must in almost every respect go beyond that science. It is, however, strange, and certainly of some significance for the whole position held by the science of the spirit, that I myself have been repeatedly accused in recent times of not objecting to current research findings in the natural sciences but basing myself wholly on natural science. This objection is raised by people who see themselves as representing a ‘spiritual scientific’ approach. And I think I am entitled to say that with the scientific approach presented in these lectures, one finds oneself caught, as it were, between opposition coming from the natural scientific side and opposition coming from various rather vague, mystical spiritual sides that are almost equally vociferous.

I must say, however, that for the science of the spirit which I am representing in these lectures one does not just have to confess that it is indeed a matter of necessity that one bases oneself on natural science, but also that natural science, the way it is and has to be at the present time, has achieved things that provide stimulus and support in every respect. For this we not only are but indeed must be grateful. People who are working in the science of the spirit eminently need to come to an understanding with people who are working in natural science, for in a certain respect the science of the spirit needs to have the most recent findings made in natural science as a foundation if it is not to be amateurish, vague and unclear.

This may seem strange to people who have already got to know something of this anthroposophically orientated science of the spirit. But then I may well have to say quite a few things today that may seem strange from various points of view. I would therefore ask your forgiveness, especially tonight, if I consider it necessary above all to present spiritual research findings, and my only purpose in presenting such results will be to arouse interest. To furnish proof for every detail of what I am going to say tonight would require a course taking a whole week.

We need to consider the essence of recent developments in natural science if we want to establish the right kind of relationship to it, especially as spiritual scientists. Natural science does not, in fact, owe its character to what scientists themselves say are its great virtues, but to entirely different conditions and facts. The particular character which the natural scientific way of thinking has assumed over the last four centuries, and especially in the 19th century and up to the present time, is due to the fact that quite specific tendencies and gifts have arisen in the search for knowledge in the course of human evolution.

The origins of the natural scientific way of thinking are often presented like this: Well, for thousands of years in the past people looked at things in the wrong way, especially where science is concerned, and now—perhaps I won’t use the commonly quoted phrase ‘seeing how much wiser we are today’⁵³—but let me just draw your attention to how many good, honest and upright followers of the natural scientific way of thinking do believe that humanity has now been able to arrive at the ‘truth’, at the ‘right view’ where some things are concerned, and that in earlier times people had been entirely ‘on the wrong track’.

Yet if we give some consideration to the essential nature of scientific development, we can see that it was not really the case that a sudden miracle happened in the 16th century, with people arriving at the one and only truth, but that from that century onwards quite specific gifts, tendencies and approaches to investigation arose. These tendencies, these human needs, this predilection, as I might call it, made people on the one hand focus attention on the natural world and on the other hand give their knowledge of that world the character which we must so greatly admire today, especially if we base ourselves on the science of the spirit.

One of the truly outstanding gifts to arise was the ability to observe tangible physical objects very accurately. Another tendency went hand in hand with this predilection and gift, and this was to give tangible, physical things preferential and indeed exclusive value, thinking that anything which went beyond this must inevitably take human beings into spheres that were somehow forbidden, spheres of vague fantasies, or, in short, into an abyss in their search for knowledge.

This is particularly evident if we consider the efforts made to make the human being himself an object of scientific study. These efforts went in the direction of applying the forces and laws that apply in the natural world outside the human being to the human being himself, that is, to see him purely as part of the natural world, the kind of creature that has shown itself to the scientific eye in more recent times. The triumphant progress of natural science extends not only to the natural, physical aspect of the human being but also to efforts somehow to study the human psyche, using scientific methods, and indeed to bring this, too, as close as possible to something governed by the laws of nature. And I would say we can see pride and satisfaction when a modern psychologist discovers that an irrefutable law of nature can also be applied, he thinks, to the inner life of man. I am speaking of rather extreme situations that go in this direction because I really want to make my point.

Someone who still takes the point of view that the human psyche is an entity in itself will of course also think that this human psyche, complete in itself, can come to expression through the power of will impulses—we’ll consider freedom or the lack of it the day after tomorrow—using the organism. The idea that the psyche is the primal source of energy, as it were, for the movement and actions of the organism lives strongly in some minds even today.

People who think that they should think in purely natural scientific terms say to themselves, on the other hand: In the 19th century natural science arrived at one of its most significant laws, the law of the constancy or conservation of energy. This says that energies are converted in such a way that nothing new can arise in the system of energies, and nothing can in any way intervene in this system unless it is already part of it. If, it is said, the soul were able to set the organism in motion, it would need to develop the necessary energy. This would then have to be added to the energies the organism already has from food intake and other ways of relating to the world around it. The soul would have to be a source of energy, as it were; energy would have to come out of nothing, so to say, but the law of conservation of energy only permits energies the human organism takes in with food and the like to be converted to energy. A movement or the development of body heat thus cannot be anything but the conversion of food energies and other forms of energy that have been taken in from outside. Conflict thus arises with this law of the conservation of energy, which has played such a significant role in scientific developments during the 19th century, when one comes up against the idea that the soul can be the source and origin of some form of energy.

People were really pleased to have experimental proof that a ‘reservoir of energy’ capable of intervening in the process of energy conversion did exist in the soul. The experiments the well-known biologist Rubner⁵⁴ did in this field with animals, and the continuation of them with human beings by Atwater⁵⁵ are regarded with some satisfaction by psychologists to this day, I would say. Rubner showed that the heat energies and the kinetic energies animals produce are, according to the measurements made, nothing but the converted energies of food they have taken in, with nothing coming from a psyche. Atwater extended these experiments to human beings, selecting subjects who we might think should be able to do even better—people doing mental work, physical work, at rest, or developing inner energies. He was able to show that up to a certain percentage—always important in experiments—nothing that comes from inside the human organism derives from a reservoir of energies in the soul, and that the energies available had been converted from energies the human organism had to take in first. Psychologists like Ebbinghaus⁵⁶ also stated, with some satisfaction, that there was no question of any form of psychology being in conflict with the law of conservation of energy.

Hundreds of other examples could be added, from many different points of view. They would show you how significant and characteristic the triumphant progress of the natural scientific way of thinking has become, even in our culture in general. It is thus easy to see why this triumphant progress, as we may call it, is still relatively recent and does not want to be held back at any point by something else, like the science of the spirit, for instance, and why it still has all kinds of tendencies—speak ‘prejudices’ perhaps—with regard to this that are extraordinarily difficult to deal with. If the necessity did not arise of its own accord from natural science itself for the science of the spirit to develop from it in its own way—as the child must of necessity grow to be an adult—it would probably still be a very, very long time before the science of the spirit would find anyone in the world of science prepared even just to listen when it comes up in one place or another.

No I have to make some critical comments my starting point today. One does, of course, always have to consider individual aspects, for I do not want to talk in abstract terms. Quite generally, I do not want to give general characteristics today but rather start with specific instances and use these to make my point.

If we review the character and the way of thinking and forming ideas which the natural sciences have assumed in more recent times, we have to say that this is above all ruled by the idea that the things we learn from nature must somehow come from somewhere that is separate from the human being. I’ll not go into a philosophical discussion of this; but there is a borderline issue we must consider briefly. Not that I would consider it to be of quite specific significance for natural scientists today, nor do many natural scientists enter into discussion of this issue; no, the reason is that their desire for knowledge is going in that direction, unconsciously so, in a way, and can only be judged if we consider it with regard to its movement in this direction, or to this goal.

Let me take up an idea which no doubt originated in philosophy but lurks in many people’s minds, and that is the idea of ‘things in themselves’. The philosophical question in the Kantian or some other sense will of course be of little interest to natural scientists. But the whole direction, the whole endeavour in natural scientific thinking shows a tendency to go towards this ‘things in themselves’ idea. Irrespective of whether one is basing oneself on the earlier atomic theory, or on or modern theory of ions, of electrons, whether one takes one standpoint or another in biology, people will of course say from the very beginning that they merely wanted to know the ‘laws of phenomena’, leaving the ‘things in themselves’ to the philosophers, but the way in which the phenomena are approached, how they are in fact investigated, is based on the premise that there is some ‘thing in itself behind the phenomena and that if one were able to go more deeply into the region made accessible by means of microscopy, let us say, or other scientific methods, one would come closer and closer to such a ‘thing in itself’.

This notion gives natural scientific thinking its direction, at least at an unconscious level, for if you assume a world of atoms, for instance, or assume that ether waves lie behind the tapestry of colours and nuances of light that surrounds us, you are of course thinking that these ether waves belong to a sphere of the ‘thing in itself,’ as it were. Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious mind who wanted to found a natural philosophy, actually made it a challenge, saying that the world of atoms and the like, or of forces behind the things we perceive through the senses, must be accepted by scientists as something on a par with the ‘thing in itself.’

For a scientist working in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science this search for a ‘thing in itself’ behind phenomena, this whole trend—I am now not speaking of philosophical hypotheses but of this trend in natural science—is analogous to an attempt to see what is behind a mirror when one sees various images in it. It is as if one were walking round to the back of the mirror to see where the images have their origin. That origin does not lie behind the mirror, however. It is in front of the mirror, where we are standing. We are in the region where the images have their origin,⁵⁷ and we would fall into the most incredible delusion to think we should reach into the back, behind the mirror, to find something that would be the source of the images. It may sound grotesque and be unexpected, but the ideas and concepts of natural science are based on the illusion that one has to reach behind the mirror. The ‘thing in itself’ is behind the mirror if one thus deludes oneself. But in reality it is not there.

Why is that so? It is so because as human beings we are not merely in an outer material world behind which there is a ‘thing in itself’, but right in the midst of everything on which this world is founded. It is just that not all of it comes to our conscious awareness. We are right in the midst of it! And analysing the phenomena of the natural world outside will not show us the origins, just as you cannot perceive the true nature of a person, get to know this mirror image as a physical human being, by analysing the mirror image of that person. Analysing the phenomena does not give insight into their essential nature. Instead we must intensively, if I may put it like this, go beyond the level at which our conscious mind works in everyday life. And this is done by the methods I have characterized in my first lecture here.

Our ordinary, everyday waking consciousness serves merely to develop the conceptual tools we need to put the phenomena in some order and system, establishing the laws’. To go beyond this, the conscious mind must first be transformed, developing powers that lie dormant in it. Then the imaginative, inspired and intuitive perception which I have tried to characterize as perceptive vision, perception in images, must arise from the depths of that conscious mind—nothing nebulous, of course, but in the strictly scientific sense.

We would never be able to learn something about the nature, the physical nature, of the human being by looking at a mirror image unless we also had self-awareness. We must therefore strongly feel ourselves to be physical human beings, we have to get a feeling for ourselves and know that it is I myself who is standing in front of that mirror. In the same way we cannot arrive at the essential nature of natural phenomena unless our inner life, which is right in the midst of those phenomena, grows so strong that it gains the ability to perceive things in a way that is different from ordinary waking consciousness. With regard to this perceptive awareness, perception in images, and so on, I would refer you to my last-but-one book.⁵⁸ I would just say that, in principle, it is not a matter of a new organ in physical terms, but of developing a real ability to perceive purely in the soul realm, developing non-physical organs that add something new to everything the soul perceives in the world around it when in its usual waking conscious state. This is just like the newly opened eyes of someone born blind who has had an operation and now sees the world of colour of which he had only heard people tell before.

The task therefore is not to develop some kind of material hypotheses or draw conclusions concerning a ‘thing in itself and get at something that lies ‘behind the phenomena’, but to strengthen our inner faculties so that we are able to see the essence in front of the mirror. It will, of course, be a long time before such perceptive awareness will be taken seriously by greater numbers of scientists, despite the fact that I have characterized neither a miracle nor anything that is not accessible to human beings. It is something everyone can find from their own resources, though it has to be said that present-day habits of thinking, inwardly responding to things and gaining insight are an obstacle when it comes to awakening such perceptive awareness.

I would now like to give you some of the results of this perceptive awareness specifically relating to the sphere we may call ‘nature’. It will, of course, be necessary to speak of some things where it will not be easy to communicate with people who are firmly wedded to natural science. But perhaps this may be an occasion where it is permissible to speak of something personal. What I am offering here are not ideas that have come into my head, nor anything I have thought up. These are the results of years of investigations done in full accord with the more recent natural scientific developments; some of the things I am going to say—I would not have been able to formulate them like this even a short time ago.

My aim is above all to refer to things that are very real, going into detail. The theory of evolution, or ‘descent’, has had a considerable influence on scientific thinking in recent times. And it has to be said that anyone who is not an amateur in this field will know what fruit—leaving aside the shadow sides—this theory has borne for modern thinking, the whole modern way of looking at the world. Of course, if we really want to appreciate the nature of this theory we must ignore all the amateurish philosophical views into which so many scientific findings have unfortunately developed in recent times. ‘Monistic’ and other movements often arise because people know little of the form science has recently taken in the field in question. It is often grotesque to see how such efforts limp and lag behind scientific advances that can in no way be said to be in agreement with such things.

Yet when we speak of the theory of evolution, we also think of its early days, of all the great, idealistic hopes which Ernst Haeckel⁵⁹ had for it in the 1860s and 1870s—I do not wish to either overestimate nor underestimate him—and which he passed on to his students. I am not so much going to refer to the radical conclusions Ernst Haeckel arrived at in his day, though his scientific achievements are tremendous and often also positive. What I would like to mention is that even cautious investigators who have entered into the field—among them Naegeli⁶⁰ and Gegenbaur⁶¹—not only became aware of the fruitful nature of this theory but also demonstrated this with reference to their involvement in recent developments in the sciences. I could give a long list of names. But something strange can also be noted if we consider the relatively brief history of the theory of evolution.

Great indeed were the hopes Haeckel and his followers had for the development of Darwinian principles in natural science.⁶² Consider the role which catchwords like ‘theory of natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ have played. Some people had such hopes for a view of the world where they might say that some vague powers full of wisdom intervening in world evolution had now been overcome. People would have to realize that powers that were like powers of pure chance meet others arising from sheer natural necessity in the developmental stages of one organism or another, resulting in selection, with the fit surviving whilst the unfit do not, and the fit thus might be said to get more and more perfect compared to the unfit that has dropped away; one should not, however, think in terms of any kind of teleological principle of purpose. To this day there are people⁶³ who think they are representing modern views in saying that even if everything Darwin has presented in his theory of evolution were to disappear from this world, the progress made in disregarding ‘higher powers’, as Eduard von Hartman calls them, intervening in the purely inorganic laws of the realm of nature to let organic life arise⁶⁴—this progress cannot be undone.

Seen from a particular point of view, the thinking which has developed there, the thoughts that have come to human beings to liberate them from certain prejudices to which they used to be attached, are of particular value. But we have seen a strange thing. When Darwinism evolved, eliminating all the higher powers that were said to intervene in the evolution of organic life, Eduard von Hartmann’s book on the philosophy of the unconscious appeared in the late 1860s,⁶⁵ that is, when Darwinism was in full flower. I am not defending Hartmann, but this is simply a fact. Eduard von Hartmann was against a theory of pure chance. He said something quite different—powers giving direction, powers of a higher nature—must intervene in the lifeless, dead functions of purely inorganic natural laws if there was to be organic evolution. Selection cannot create anything new; anything new that did arise would have to arise from inner impulses; selection could only be made of things that already existed, removing anything unfit, but it did not have magical powers that would enable it gradually to let something perfect develop from something imperfect. Eduard von Hartman produced some brilliant thoughts in his refutation of Darwinism, which raised such hopes at the time, a theory of evolution in purely mechanical terms. People did not take the philosopher of the unconscious seriously because he was a philosopher and not a naturalist. They said: ‘Well, he’s an amateur and does not understand the principles of natural science; anything he has to say can be of no real value in the development of science.’ Remarks like this were used to reject the things Eduard von Hartmann had to say.

Refutations addressed to this ‘amateurish, dilettante philosopher’ were published. One, was about the unconscious from the point of view of physiology and the theory of descent, was by an anonymous author.⁶⁶ It was a brilliant refutation of Eduard von Hartmann from the point of view of Darwinism as it then was. Oskar Schmidt,⁶⁷ Darwin’s biographer, Haeckel himself, and others took a very sympathetic view of this refutation by an unknown, saying that it was excellent—this is more or less how we can sum up their views—that someone whom one could see, with every page read, to be firmly founded in the true scientific approach, was dealing with an amateur such as Eduard von Hartmann. This anonymous author—one dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist wrote—should just make himself known to us and we’ll regard him to be one of us! Someone else, also firmly grounded in mechanical Darwinist theory, said: ‘He has said everything I myself could say against Eduard von Hartmann’s amateurism.’ The man did say this. In short, the Darwinists made a lot of propaganda for this publication, which was soon sold out. A second edition had to be printed. This time the author gave his name—Eduard von Hartmann! From then on silence reigned among those who had previously praised the publication, and little further reference was made to it.

What follows may seem strange but I think it is all the more remarkable. One of Ernst Haeckels’ most important followers, someone who as a student lived wholly in the then current theories of evolution that arose in connection with Darwin’s name, was Oscar Hertwig.⁶⁸ Last year, in 1916—just consider how little time has passed since Darwinian theories were in full flower—Oscar Hertwig published a book that is truly exemplary as a scientific work. The subject is how organisms evolve—a refutation of Darwin’s theory of random chance. Eduard von Hartmann is one of the people Oscar Hertwig says should be taken note of when speaking of different powers being active in the realm of organisms from those active in the inorganic world.

It certainly is strange to see that within a relatively short time someone came from among the best people who had been developing the old theory of evolution of the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s who actually refuted one of the fundamental principles of that theory. This should give some pause for thought to people who make up their own—‘monistic’—philosophies by just putting together amateurish ideas.

I now need to go into some definite issues relating not so much to the more recent theories of evolution but to theory of evolution as such. This may show you the position that has to be taken in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. The theory of evolution is based on considering the facts and drawing the conclusion that something perfect, ‘perfect’ as we know it today, or, perhaps better, something with a more differentiated organization, has gradually evolved from something that was less perfect, less differentiated in its organization. To prove this, scientists refer not only to geology and palaeontology but also to embryology, the theory of individual development. Oscar Hertwig’s new book is exemplary in so far as it offers a theory of individual development, though he does it by making comparisons with animal embryology. All theory of evolution must begin with the development of the individual; Haeckel established his biogenetic law to show that the embryological development of an individual shows the evolutional history of the species, so that the embryonic development of higher animals goes through the morphological and physiological functions, at a particular level, of the simpler animal forms that existed earlier.⁶⁹

Strange though it may seem, however, a theory of individual development where one seeks to apply its laws to the evolution of organisms in general will not provide the answer to a very simple question. I feel I must in fact apologize for speaking of something as commonplace as this; the matter has been discussed many times, but, as we shall see, it concerns an important principle. The question is, very simply: What came first in evolution, the chicken or the egg? The chicken comes from the egg, but—the egg can only come from a chicken.

The issue is of little importance today, when any facts you investigate take you into vagueness whichever direction you take. But it does have significance if we want to form an idea of the way in which individual development relates to world evolution. For in that case it proves necessary to consider that there must have been conditions in which the ovum, that is, the basis of individual development today, was able to evolve on its own, without descent from any kind of entities that had already reached some level of perfection. As I said, I can only refer to this briefly, but anyone who considers the issue in more detail will soon find that, though commonplace, the matter is of major importance.

If one is conscientious and honest in tackling this question, the concepts natural science has developed for embryology will not prove adequate. Somehow or other one finds oneself at what I have called the ‘frontier posts of knowledge’ in my first lecture, ‘points’ where one has to develop the higher powers of awareness in images. We might even say that such questions can provide significant stimuli for the development of inner powers that may otherwise well have continued to lie dormant in us for a long time. If we pursue the matter not using the approach where one seeks to reach behind the mirror but one where we consider the cause for the phenomena to be in front of the mirror, we find, as we progress to awareness in images, that even today it would be a serious error to say that the egg develops in the chicken through the chicken or merely because the chicken is inseminated. That is how it looks on the surface, in the mirror image, we might say. But if we develop awareness in images and are able to see what is truly there, we come to realize that the egg does indeed develop and mature under the influence of powers that come not only from the cock and the hen.

A scientific view based only on what is sense-perceptible and tangible cannot lead to any view other than that the interaction between cock and hen and the processes that occur in the hen’s body lead to the development of an egg. But if you then want to arrive at views on such a matter you will arrive at rather mystical concepts—mystical in a negative sense, the kind of concepts many people work with, even Hertwig—an example being the concept of a ‘germ, rudiment or potential’.⁷⁰

Speaking of such a ‘rudiment’, you can explain anything in the world by saying: Well, now it is there, previously it was not there, and the first thing to be there was, of course, the ‘rudiment’. This is about as clever as speaking of a ‘disposition’ with regard to certain diseases which only develop in some people under the same conditions and not in others. So you see, one can always push things further back in this way. Unless you try and somehow get a clear picture you will merely arrive at a term that has no real meaning and lacks clarity. ‘Rudiment’, ‘disposition’—those are the wrong kind of mystical terms that will only gain meaning if we are able to consider the reality that can be perceived in the spirit.

A mind with vision also sees all kinds of other things. Just as a blind person is able to see colours when he’s had an operation, so a mind with vision sees all kinds of other things. And in the present case these other things it is able to see make it clear to us that although today it is still an egg which develops in the hen, it arises from powers that are not in the hen but are brought to bear in the hen out of the universe. The hen’s body which surrounds the egg really only provides the native soil. The powers that configure the egg come from the cosmos; they come in from outside. Fertilization—I cannot go into the details today but they can be exactly determined—simply means that a possibility is created for the powers from the cosmos that are active in this site, giving them a reference point, as it were.

The egg which develops in the hen’s body has been developed out of the cosmos and is an image of the cosmos. If you find this inconceivable and cannot think of analogies in other fields, just think what it would be like if you wanted to ascribe the direction in which a magnetic needle is pointing purely to forces inherent in the needle. We do not do this; we ascribe it to a terrestrial effect, that is, forces that have to do with the whole earth. Forces from the environment influence the magnetic needle. Here, in the inorganic field, discoveries can be made purely on the basis of sensory perception. It will need a science made more productive by the science of the spirit to show that powers influence the egg that must be looked for not only in the ancestry but out there in the whole cosmos. Many different results, which will also prove of practical value, will be obtained once it is taken into account that essentially the knowledge we have in outer natural science, however sensual and factual, is merely an abstraction, something people rely on because they do not know of the more effective powers.

A mind with vision sees powers that go beyond individual nature influencing every insemination and embryonic development. These could be described in detail. In my small publication Human Life in the Light of Anthroposophy⁷¹ I refer to this method of research in another field; today I want to refer specifically to this particular field.

I truly do not feel contempt for empirical scientists, as they are now called, but admire them greatly. The results gained with the empirical approach have yielded a much richer store of human insights, I would say hundreds if not thousands of times as many human insights than the rudimentary concepts one is able to use in natural science today. When an embryologist produces facts, especially if he has been using a microscope, which has been developed to an admirable level today, a spiritual scientist following his work will say to himself: Everything the embryologist is establishing as fact may be external, sensual and factual, but when he describes how the male germ unites with the female germ, and so on, how parts of cell nuclei are repositioned so that one thing or another develops—these descriptions are extraordinarily interesting and significant—someone taking the point of view of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science sees the footsteps in all this of a comprehensive spiritual influence that simply comes to expression in the changes which are apparent to the senses. If one wanted to consider the things seen under the microscope, with all kinds of staining methods applied, to be something that stood entirely alone, something one merely had to describe to know the processes of germ cell and embryonic development, one would be like someone who goes along a road where someone else has left his footsteps and believes that those footsteps were made by inner forces in the soil and not that another person had made them. The explanation for these footprints would be quite wrong if I were to say that there are all kinds of forces down there which push the forms up from below. Instead I have to assume that someone went that way, stepping on the soil. In the same way I must consider the spiritual principle if I want to come to the real facts. The spiritual leaves its final traces, and what we see under the microscope, using staining methods, comes into existence—please forgive the expression—as if by processes of elimination.

But when a mind with vision takes hold of the matter, we also come to something else. We come to compare this process, which arose on the basis of pure empiricism, purely external experience of the facts through the senses, with something that we can only get to know of through investigations made by a mind with vision.

In the first lecture I gave an outline of what happens in human beings when they use their thinking to process sensory perceptions further, when they develop ideas. A real process occurs in the psyche, but materialistic thinkers do not consider it to be real; they limit their investigations to nerve functions. Yet once perception in images has awakened we can follow this process, which has inner reality. We cannot do so if our minds are limited to the kind of abstractions produced in modern psychology and indeed in logic—that ideas ‘connect’, are ‘reproduced’, and so on. But if we are able to develop a psychology of the kind I outlined here in my first lecture and turn the mind’s eye to this inner aspect of the way in which ideas develop and part of our feeling, this will give us something that belongs together with the discoveries our embryologist made in his field and in progressive cell development altogether. We then see in a way that is like comparing an original and its copy in a very factual way—on the one hand the inner process of forming ideas and the feeling process in the soul, and on the other hand the processes of insemination, division of the nucleus and so on, and actual cell division. We then see that the two have to do with one another—I want to put this as carefully as possible—have to do with one another in that the one represents in material form, as it were, what the other is in the sphere of soul and spirit.

Something else will also arise if we truly concentrate on this process in soul and spirit. We realize that it can only be the way it is in the human soul and spirit today, for the whole of our natural environment, with the human being within it, provides the physical body as a basis for it. If someone is truly able to see this in the spirit, the faculties that enable him truly to see the essential nature of something that belongs to the sphere of soul and spirit, will expand. We thus realize that under present-day conditions the organ which develops for forming ideas and feeling can only do so, in the way it happens today, on the condition that the whole takes place in the presence of a living human body. In its inner nature, however, the process shows itself to be one that moves back in time. Time becomes something real. It moves back in time. And you actually come to realize that what happens in us today when we think, and do part of our feeling, is indeed something which in the far, far distant past, when no such earthly environment existed, was able to develop on its own, without the human body.

This is the way—time is short, so I can only refer briefly, as it were, to the starting points for a road that goes far and wide—in which elements from the sphere of soul and spirit are related in a real way to the things that happen before our eyes in the sense-perceptible world. We then gain a very different understanding of the connection that altogether exists between sense-perceptible physical nature outside and the elements of soul and spirit that flow and billow through the world. If we then develop the things of which I have only been able to present the most elementary first beginnings, taking—if we proceed with the science of the spirit—not the external scientific approach of geology or palaeontology or Laplace’s theory but the approach based on genuine inner experience in spirit and soul, we come to states of the world that go a long way back, when it was not possible to do external, physical things, like embryonic development from a physical cell, as we know it today, but when the things that could be real at that time were in a form that belonged to spirit and soul. You look back to an element of spirit and soul that was a precursor of what happens today in the physical world perceptible to the senses.

The element of spirit and soul has withdrawn into the cosmic sphere today, as it were. It acts by the roundabout route via the living body and in a hen, let us say, if we go back to our earlier example, it causes the egg to have the density of matter which it did not need to have in the dim, distant past. However, in that dim, distant past the element of spirit and soul was able to use these powers—which one gets to know, with no need to speculate or set up hypotheses; we get to know them if we observe the inner laws of ideation and thinking from the inside—without there having to be the environment of the hen’s body, to create not a mystical ‘rudiment’ or ‘potential’, but a first thing. Later, when conditions changed, this needed to be protected by the ‘environ-body’ of the hen as it is today.

Someone working with the science of the spirit is thus on the one hand taking full account of natural science. On the other hand he has to go beyond it, beyond the things that are considered scientific today, not with speculation but with truly developed powers of insight through vision. These must replace theories and hypotheses—which are merely the outcome of speculation, thoughts that have been added—with things truly learned in the realm of the spirit. If one has advanced along this route, truly in such a way that nowhere are sins committed against facts that have been established in natural science, then the modern theory of evolution in particular will be seen in the right light.

I have to say paradoxical things at every step today, but I want to stimulate your thinking. I am exposing myself to the danger that people may hold me up to ridicule; but I want to stimulate your thinking. I merely want to say that this science of the spirit we call anthroposophy exists; it may not be accepted as yet, but it is able to offer research findings which, we believe, can be spoken of with the same scientific justification as the findings discussed in natural science that are based on sensory perceptions made with the help of microscopes and telescopes. It has to be said, not from presumption but because it is the way things are, that working with the spiritual scientific approach represented in these lectures one does not have it as easy, in many respects, as in working with natural science. So we can understand it if someone says: ‘The things he is saying are really difficult to understand.’ Comprehension will, of course, be easier if we only take note of purely factual elements, things that are immediately apparent; it is in the nature of the thing that understanding is difficult with the kind of issues I can only present briefly here. But with regard to practice, too, things are not so easy in anthroposophy. This is particularly apparent if we consider the human being as part of the natural world from its point of view, that is, not merely in theory.

As I said, I do not undervalue the theory of evolution. In fact, I believe it to be one of the most significant achievements in intellectual history. Attacks have come from people who did not understand these things particularly because in my book The Riddles of Philosophy and in other publications I made a strong case for justifying the theory of evolution. Just look in the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy to see if I ever speak from a point of view that does not do justice to this theory of evolution. But things are not as easy in anthroposophy as they are in purely—as it is called today—empirical science. For if we consider the human being we have to say: ‘The idea that the human being, as he is in his physical form, has simply evolved from animal forms which in turn developed from lower animal forms, and so on, this idea is utterly amateurish if compared to the view taken in the science of the spirit.

If we want to consider the human being as part of the natural world from the spiritual scientific point of view, we must first of all differentiate this human being—this may seem strange, but that is how it is. Taking Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis further in a scientific way—anyone who has read my books will know that I have made special efforts in this field—one has to differentiate the human being. We cannot simply take him as a whole but have to establish a particular premise, which must, however, be a fully substantiated premise. It is this. We take the head on its own, realizing that the human being we have before us today can only be known and understood if we take the head on its own, with the rest as a kind of appendage organism—this just as an aid to understanding for the moment. The head on its own, therefore; we have to look for the descent, the origins, of this head as such. This human head—this is not entirely accurate, for the head does continue on into the trunk (this changes the situation; but after all it is only possible to speak in approximate terms about these matters). This human head, then, is indeed something with a morphology that has been transformed from other forms that lie immensely far back. We may say, therefore, that in so far as the human being has a head, he is descended from long way back. For the details I would refer you to my Occult Science and other writings. One actually finds that the entity which has gone through the transformations to make the present-day form of the human head possible must be sought much further back in time than the origins of all the animals and plants we have today. Considering the human being with regard to the head, we must therefore go back into a much earlier time.

The appended organism, as we may call it, has been added to the head—roughly speaking, for appendages existed even in early times. The head was the premise for its development. The principle which evolved, ultimately to become the human head principle, had the opportunity also to develop the remaining human organization which is close to the present-day animal body. The time when this organization evolved was also the time when general evolution had advanced so far that animals could develop.

This brings us to a strange theory of descent, though it is strange only compared to the ideas people have today. We have to say that in so far as human beings have a head they are descended from ancestors that went through a gradual transformation. In far distant times they undoubtedly had a different form from the one human beings have today, but it is really only the human head which is descended from them. It was during the time when general conditions for evolution made it possible to evolve creatures of the kind we have in the animal world today that the human being added to his human nature the elements that lie in his animal nature.

Again you have an early approach—for here, too, I can only give the elementary first beginnings—to a theory of evolution that arises if we do not believe the human head to have merely grown out of the rest of the organism, as it were, but rather that this human head is really the original part of the human being to develop, with the remaining organism added to it. It is because such an organism was added at a late stage in evolution that humanity entered into a line of evolution that may indeed be considered together with the line of evolution that was the descent of animal forms.

The discoveries made in the theory of evolution to this day provide genuine insights in this field. If one knows them really thoroughly, if one carefully—much more carefully than people are in the habit of doing in natural science today—considers also the work done in palaeontology, embryology, all the knowledge gained in the study of muscles, the investigations that can provide information on the way the human skull is built, then one is able to say to oneself: It is exactly the things not known from theory—meaning the theory modern natural scientists like Oscar Hertwig have refuted—but empirically, things that are there for us to see, which we only have to take up, letting the light that can be gained through the science of the spirit shine through them—all this offers tremendously far-reaching prospects. The modern theory of evolution has certainly served a good purpose and has not been just an aberration but on the contrary one of the most fruitful developments we have seen. In time to come it will really come into its own and prove immensely fruitful because it will cast its light incredibly far into the secrets of the universe.

If I might add something about the way I feel about the way the science of the spirit goes beyond pure and factual natural science, it is this: This theory of evolution from the second half of the 19th century is indeed the seed from which great, significant insights will come; the seed from which something will come that does not yet exist in general human awareness. And it is this which will in fact provide the best stimulus to develop a genuine philosophy, which takes its orientation from anthroposophy. This philosophy actually shows that the academic work which we think is final and conclusive and needs only be added to the facts perceived through the senses in order to explain them, that this academic approach—which we also find in a work as excellent as that by Oscar Hertwig and the works of others—does not provide real answers to our questions but only enables us to put our questions in the right way. Once they have been put in the right way they must then be answered. And the outside world will again and again provide answers if we know how to ask the right questions. If they are the right questions, the outside world will answer with the insight we gain through higher vision.

However, if I speak of a modified theory of descent, saying that we have to think of the human being the other way round, as it were, looking for his origin in the principle on which the head is based and having to make the head our starting point if we wish to understand the human being, whereas the matter is usually considered the other way round—when I say this, we must at the same time base ourselves on a genuine and true idea of the present-day human being. This brings me to another finding made in anthroposophical research relating to nature as a basis for the human being.

When people speak today of the way the soul relates to the human body, they really consider only the nervous system as the bodily ‘tool’, as it is put, though it is not a ‘tool’—we’ll be speaking about this the day after tomorrow—looking for it in the living body as a counterpart to the psyche. If you look at books on psychology today, with the first chapters always giving a kind of physiological preliminary to psychology itself, you will find that reference is really always only made to the nervous system as the ‘organ of the soul’.

Members of the audience who have heard me on a number of previous occasions will know that I’ll only rarely speak of personal things. But perhaps it is necessary this time, for I can only characterize the subject in outline. What I have to say on this is the outcome of investigations that have truly been going on for more than 30 years, taking account of everything that is relevant from physiology and related fields. Anyone with real knowledge of the findings modern physiologists and biologists have made in this field will find that they prove in every respect what I am going to tell you. To see the nervous system as something that is simply parallel to the psyche is to take a very biased view. No one has shown more clearly how biased it is than a scientist I hold in particularly high regard as one of the most outstanding psychologists, Theodor Ziehen.⁷² He, too, speaks mainly of the nervous system in discussing some of the relationships between soul and body, soul and the nature-related basis of the human being, and therefore comes to treat the emotional life—which properly considered is just as real as the life of thinking or ideas—as an appendage to the life of ideas. Theodor Ziehen does not really manage to consider the emotional life in his psychology. It is the same with other people. They will then speak of the ‘emotional overtones of ideas’; the ideas, which have their bodily counter image in the nervous system, are ‘emotive’, they say, and one need not think of a separate bodily counterpart to the emotions.

Read the psychology of Theodor Ziehen or other books—I could give you a whole list of truly excellent works in this field. You will find that when these authors come to speak of the will, they actually have no possibility whatsoever truly to speak of the will, which is a wholly real sphere in our inner life. The will simply slips from Theodor Ziehen’s grasp as he writes about physiological and psychological things; the will is simply disputed away; it does not exist for the author; in a way it exists merely as a play of ideas. Because of the existing bias, therefore, violence is done to something we quite clearly know from experience, just as serious violence is also done to other things in such investigations.

Yet if we really consider everything that has so far been achieved in physiology, this exemplary science—though much is still open to question and questionable—if we consider all the things that merely are not seen in the right light, we come to see—I can only refer to this briefly—that the whole human organism is counterpart to the whole human soul. In my latest book, Riddles of the Soul, which is due to appear shortly, or perhaps it is out already, I discussed questions concerning the limits of ordinary science and of anthroposophy, and this includes the issue which we are considering here, though again it is only presenting results. There is nothing to be said against the notion that the life of ideas has its bodily counterpart in the first place in the nervous system, though we have to see the whole situation very differently from the way it is seen in modern science; I am going to talk about this the day after tomorrow. When we want to look for a bodily counterpart to the life of ideas, we have to look to the nervous system for this.

Not so when it comes to the emotional life! I almost hesitate to put something so far-reaching in such brief words, something I have found in investigations taking not years but decades. When we speak of the emotional life, it is not possible to look for a connection between it and the life of the nerves the way we look for a connection between the life of ideas and that of the nerves. There is a connection, but it is indirect. The emotional life—this seems almost unbelievable if one takes the biased view commonly taken in modern science—has a direct connection with what we may call the breathing rhythm in all its ramifications, and this is a connection similar in nature to that between the life of ideas and the nervous system. In the nervous system one has to go into the finest ramifications; and the same applies to the rhythmical movements that originate in the breathing rhythm and then branch and divide everywhere, also influencing the brain. Comte’s ideas on the mechanics of the human body are very interesting in this respect.⁷³ The bodily counterpart of the emotional life must be sought in this rhythmical play of movements in the human being, all of them really dependent on the breathing rhythm, in rhythmical movements that also encompass the blood rhythm.

I know, ladies and gentlemen, that it must seem as if countless objections could be raised against what I have just been saying. All of them can be refuted, however. Let me draw your attention to just one of them—briefly. It would be easy to say, for instance: Well yes, the aesthetic effect of music depends on our feelings; but these feelings are aroused by sensory perception of the sounds, that is, a sensory perception of something outside, and the effect of this does of course continue on in the nervous system; so you can see—as the objection might be—that you are in error in saying that something which in its aesthetic effect is definitely dependent on our emotional life is connected with our breathing rhythm, when in fact the music is perceived by the senses and we gain this perception via the ear and the auditory nerve! This objection is illusory, for the real process is much more complex. Such things can indeed only be reached by the kind of vision that takes its orientation from the powers gained in an awareness that has vision. It is like this: In the brain, the breathing rhythm meets with the processes that occur in the nervous system. And the emotions we experience with music arise from this interaction, this encounter between the part of the breathing rhythm that extends into the life of the nerves and the structure of the nerves. The latter reacts to the breathing rhythm and this creates the feelings we have on hearing music. It is therefore possible to explain the feelings that are experienced properly if we consider the breathing rhythm, and the life of breathing altogether, to be the bodily counterpart to the life of feeling, just as we have to consider the nervous system to be the bodily counterpart to the life of ideas.

And now we come to the will impulses, to the things we do. If we examine everything people have been saying about the physiology, using the possibilities given when we are able to have awareness in vision, we find that everything which the soul experiences as our will expressed in doing has its bodily counterpart in metabolic processes. Life in the body is essentially made up of metabolic processes, breathing rhythms, and processes in the nerves; there are just two exceptions, which I’ll refer to later.

The subject gets difficult merely because a nerve must, of course, also be shown to be such that the life of nutrition or of metabolism extends into it. However, it is not the nutrition nor the metabolism in the nerve which is the bodily counterpart of the life of ideas but something entirely different. I wrote about this in my book Riddles of the Soul: in so far as the nerve depends on metabolism it merely acts as a mediator of the will process.⁷⁴ The fact that one system—metabolic system, rhythmical breathing process, nervous system—extends right into another, so that the systems are not side by side in space but change on into the other or extend into each other, makes it particularly difficult to study these things. Essentially, however, it is like this: In the nerve, the basis of the life of ideas is not the fact that it is touched by rhythm, nor the fact that it is provided with food, but yet another, very different inner activity. In the finest ramifications of the breathing rhythm it is this breathing rhythm itself which forms the basis for the life of feeling, and everything specified as metabolism in the organism, down to its subtlest ramifications, is the bodily counter image of will processes.

We have now related the whole of the soul to the whole of the human body. From the point of view of anthroposophical spiritual science, which I represent, I believe—believing this in no other way than the way one normally believes things in truly strictly scientific terms—that today we need only the facts known in physiology to substantiate fully what I have just been saying. I am convinced that the empirical sciences can be progressively developed further along these lines of orientation and will then prove immensely fruitful in all directions in life. Significant new ideas can be given in medicine, psychiatry and all possible kinds of fields if we take the whole of the human soul together with the whole of the human body in this way.

The zone of the senses, as I would call it, and the life of movement drop out of the context of the human organism in two directions. Modern science is on thin ice particularly when it comes to the theory of the senses on the one hand and the theory of movement on the other. Scientists working in psychology as well as in physiology understand very little, I would say, of these two opposite poles in human nature. This is because here human beings no longer belong wholly to themselves but partly to the outside world, with the soul living out into the outside world both in the zone of the senses, in the sphere of sensory life, and in the sphere of movement life. When human beings move, their movement involves a state of balance or dynamics that integrates the individual into the sphere or moving play of forces in the outside world. And when human beings go beyond living purely in their nerves and enter into life in the zone of the senses, that is, when their souls experience themselves right into their actual sense organs, it happens that the individual actually goes beyond his own sphere. The senses are bays where outside world extends into our lives, and we shall only have a sensible theory of the senses if we take this into account. It is something that cannot be gained by following the approaches taken in natural science today.

It has not been my intention to discuss general principles or offer general characterizations, especially in describing the relationship between anthroposophy and natural science and the human being’s foundations in the natural world. Although it can be risky to do so, I have taken individual real findings and areas where results were obtained, in order to characterize how anthroposophy should be seen in relation to established natural science. We can see that prejudices and partiality will have to be overcome in the world of science before anthroposophy can be understood. Today, sensuality—I am speaking of views taken of sensual and factual things, not sensuality in the moral sense—is even more powerful than it was at the time when the whole world raised the objection to the views of Copernicus that they went against the evidence of their senses and refused to accept them. Copernicus went against the evidence of the senses, feeling compelled to establish something for the outside world perceived through the senses which the outer evidence of the senses cannot give us. In the science of the spirit we are compelled to go beyond the evidence of the senses in yet another respect. This is sure to meet with resistance many times over. In a lecture like this, one can only point the way here and there. I would ask you, however, to take this into account. It is only too easy to criticize such pointers from a fixed and established point of view. The indications I have given can of course be criticized to the nth degree; I myself would be perfectly able to raise all the objections that can be raised. On the other hand, however, you will be able to see that providing people do not want to prevent this, the truths that live in natural science can develop further so that the more profound secrets of the world may be unveiled in far-reaching revelations.

The day after tomorrow I will be speaking of the fruitfulness and significance of this for the whole of human life in its widest sense. My subject will be the practical application of this in the sphere of morality, of social and also religious life, political life, the theory of free will and other practical applications.

I had to risk getting misunderstood because I referred to individual and real findings. Many things today militate against human beings being able to rise to the regions of genuine and actual, true life in the spirit. Today people think that to be an enlightened person one has to say about the most profound question in our hearts, which is the question of immortality—this is something else I’ll be speaking about the day after tomorrow—that this cannot be judged because man’s ability to gain scientific insight does not go that far.

Fritz Mauthner, a man with a brilliant mind, has been writing about human capacities for insight in his German dictionary of philosophy. It is a stimulating work to read, for you feel you have entered a sphere where your mind goes round and round in circles without ever getting anywhere; if you think you have a quarter of a result, it is refuted and you are taken forward again, continuing to go round in circles. Mauthner, whose great merit it is to have shown how inadequate ‘accomplished knowledge’ proves to be wherever you look, even thinks that talking of the spirit was a crafty invention made by Hegel, saying more or less that Hegel infected philosophy with the concept of the spirit which we have today, and that the earlier concept of spirit was taken purely from that of the Holy Spirit.⁷⁵ He finds that the situation with many who imagine themselves to be critical and particularly enlightened minds and indeed to be ‘spirits/minds’ [the German for ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’ is the same word Geist, tr.]—perhaps they won’t put it like that themselves, for ‘spirit’ is something they do not accept; let us say therefore to be human beings who are at the pinnacle of knowledge and insight—Mauthner says that with many of them the situation is this: People want to use their rational minds and common sense to gain insight; but ‘the rational mind is a silver axe without a handle, and common sense is a golden handle without an axe’, and people somehow want to use these two imperfect things to penetrate the essential nature of the world!

People of that kind like to refer to Goethe’s comprehensive concept of nature. Fritz Mauthner also quotes Goethe, suggesting that Goethe, too, considered the human being to be wholly part of nature. Yet even in the essay on nature, which Fritz Mauthner quotes, you find that Goethe said things like this about nature: ‘It has been thinking and is always reflective’, speaking not of the human being, of course, but of nature. The kind of nature Goethe thought of—yes, that one could accept! It is something different from the nature which generally is the subject of natural science today. If we then also consider what Goethe said to Schiller: ‘If my natural laws are supposed to be ideas then I see my ideas before my own eyes’,⁷⁶ we can find naturalism acceptable in that spirit, for it’s a naturalism that definitely does not exclude the science of the spirit but includes it. I believe that if what Goethe intended for the grand design of his theory of metamorphosis, which he developed to a high degree, but only in its elements, is taken further, developed and taken beyond into the realm of the spirit, it will be a real basis for a true science of the spirit with an anthroposophical orientation.

I know that what I have said today about the origins of man and the relationship between the human soul and body is in harmony with the Goethean approach, though the Goethean approach has been taken forward into our time and made scientific.

When people who seem to be enlightened in their criticism and refuse to accept any kind of genuine spiritual insight think they can refer to Goethe, one does have to say to them: Consider Goethe’s approach at its deepest level. What you think you find in him, and also have in you, is described in the words Goethe directed to another scientist, a man of considerable merit, who had written:

Into inner nature
No mind that has been created can ever enter,...
Happy is he to whom
She shows but her outermost shell.⁷⁷

Goethe responded:

I have heard this repeated for 60 years,
I curse it, though only in secret; ...
Nature has neither kernel nor shell,
She is everything at one and the same time;
Examine yourself most of all
If you be kernel or shell!⁷⁸

If the human being develops his kernel or core in this Goethean spirit, he will also penetrate—even if it takes infinitely long, serious and honest investigative labour—to the core, the essence of nature. For this does come to expression in the human being. Seen rightly, it is this and nothing else which is reflected in the human being. Spirit is nothing else but nature’s flower and fruit. In a certain respect nature is the root of the spirit.

That is indeed a truly Goethean approach! The science of the spirit will have to develop it scientifically.

Questions and answers

Following the lecture given in Zurich on 12 November 1917

Question. If conscious awareness correlates with death, what is the situation with animals, which also die, though one has to assume that conscious awareness is in all circumstances different from the way it is in humans?

When I am going to talk about practical aspects the day after tomorrow, I also intend—though again and again I hesitate to do so—to give brief consideration to various questions relating to a concept that is widely used today, the concept of the ‘unconscious’. This does of course also play a major role in psychoanalysis, a method that is well known here in Zurich. Important and indeed crucial questions arise in this field, and the day after tomorrow we will see, or least lightly touch on, how the attempts made in psychoanalysis to answer these crucial questions relate to the questions themselves. Today I will merely take up the idea of the unconscious, doing so with reference to your question. Eduard von Hartmann made the ‘unconscious mind’ a philosophical term. He stated the basis of existence to be firstly the natural world, secondly the conscious mind, which, however, must always be grounded in nature, and the unconscious mind, which is wholly non-physical but, of course, unconscious.

The position is, however, that in the science of the spirit one does not know what to do with the idea of the ‘unconscious’ as such. ‘Unconscious mind’ is about the same in spiritual science as ‘headless human being’ in the natural realm. It is certainly possible to think of ‘mind’ in abstract terms as being without conscious awareness, just as we can think away the head. We can make a drawing of a headless organism.

There are actually people who suffer from hysterical partial blindness, that is, their blindness is not organic but hysterical, who suffer from the defect that when they walk in the street they see only the bodies of people and never see anyone’s head. There are such people with this specific form of hysterical illness. They see only the body and no head, that is, nothing but headless people. You see, for some people, and they are exceptional, the evidence of their eyes would be that one might think human reality to be such that people had no heads. But of course that is not the reality. Thus the ‘unconscious mind’ is not real and can never be real. We’ll talk about what follows from this the day after tomorrow.

We now come to the question you asked. Animals as such certainly do not have human minds, but they do have conscious awareness. Earlier on today I had occasion to say that things are not as easy, as a rule, in the science of the spirit as they are in today’s established science, where things are considered more in terms of concepts rather than reality. Even when it comes to thinking, we have to proceed in a different way in the science of the spirit than one is generally used to today. Thus we read in our physics books that solids are impenetrable, meaning that if you have a solid at a point in space, no other body can be in that space. In the science of the spirit we cannot accept this definition as it stands but have to say, from this different point of view: A solid body or a life form which occupies a space to such effect that no other body or life form can occupy that space at the same time, is in fact impenetrable. Something given as a definition, if you like, simply changes into a postulate or something similar for the spiritual scientist.

It has to be clearly understood that animals may not have human minds but they do have conscious awareness. The point is that with our usual habit of thinking today we think that death equals death. People die, animals die, and plants, too, are allowed to die. The matter is not as simple as that when it comes to the science of the spirit. The fact that the concept is the same may not mean that the reality is also the same. Seen from an inner point of view, in its reality, human death is something very different from the death of animals. This is how we look at things in real terms! And to speak of the death of plants carries about as much meaning in the science of the spirit as if we were to speak of the death of a clock, which also ‘dies on us’ at some point; I think you’ll agree that it can die on us. This would have to come to an end, therefore. That is not the concept of death. The concept of death includes many things that make human death into something very different.

We need to consider the following. Essentially the conscious awareness of animals is such that the things which human beings send into the zone of the senses, which I mentioned earlier today, and there experience separately, are not experienced separately in the zone of the senses by animals. The things animals experience in the zone of the senses are of the same kind as the things they have as their life of ideas. That strict separation between sensory perception and idea which we can make for the human being, cannot justifiably be made for animals. This can be seen directly if the mind has developed vision; on the other hand you can also see it in the anatomy and physiology. Let me just remind you that the animal eye, for example, is inwardly organized in a completely different way than the human eye. In humans, certain elements of the eye are taken back into the internal organization, more into the organization of the nerves; in animals they extend into the eye. You will find a pecten, or marsupium, falciform process, in some animals, physical anatomical structures that may be said to show how the vital principle enters into the zone of the senses in animals. In humans this vital principle withdraws. Human beings thus experience the presence of their soul in such a way in the zone of the senses—please take careful account of this—that they experience something very different here than animals do. This experience which humans have in the zone of the senses, which develops further into image-based, inspired and intuitive awareness and then again continues on in the life of ideas and of memory—this experience in the zone of the senses gives the human mind a very different colouring, if I may put it like this, than is found in the conscious awareness of animals.

It is altogether necessary to revise many concepts. If you ask someone today which ideas are the most spiritual, being least connected with the physical body as a basis, I think very many people will agree when you say that the most philosophical ideas are the most spiritual! You see, from the point of view of spiritual science it is the philosophical ideas that are most abstract, and mathematical ideas, too, which are more than any other bound to the physical body. If there were only philosophical ideas we could be absolute materialists; these ideas are really purely physical and only have significance between birth and death. Something which people generally consider to be most spiritual is solidly founded in the physical world and in the physical body.

What matters, however, is that humans, being endowed with souls, are involved in the life of the senses in such a way that here, where the outside natural world extends into them rather like a bay, because vitality has withdrawn, they are already experiencing death all the time. In so far as this zone of the senses is inwardly reflected, the result, the conscious result of this zone, penetrates the inner life with what I have called ‘atomistic’ death.

What I mean is this. The death phenomenon is blended into life in the zone of the senses in human beings, and this makes it justifiable to speak of death in conjunction with conscious awareness in their case. In animals we have to connect the gradual fading of reproductive powers with what exists as conscious awareness. Death comes for the animal when the reproductive powers have gone; in humans, the fact that the death phenomenon comes in later has been an additional gain which does not exist for any animal. Here the human being has quite a different basis.

What I would really like to stress is that we only gain the right insight into the situation between birth and death if we connect the specific nature of human conscious awareness, which has to do with that special experience in the zone of the senses, with the much more vital experience which animals have in the zone of the senses. Animal awareness does not have that added element, if I may put it like that, which is forever bringing about death in the human conscious mind.

Question. It is possible to say something from the point of view of spiritual science about the concept of entropy in modern physics?

Concerning the modern concept of entropy one has to say first of all that anything covered by this concept is above all merely abstracted from the view taken in inorganic natural science. If we define the term by saying that the final state of present evolution will come because more and more heat remains when mechanical energy is converted to heat energy, so that ultimately the state of the world can only be a state of heat, this is an abstraction taken wholly from the laws of the inorganic world. There can be no objection to this in itself from the point of view of spiritual science. People who follow the entropy idea know that in postulating this end state one also assumes there to have been an initial state; both logically and scientifically it is necessary to assume an initial state if one then lets everything drift towards such a heat death.

From the point of view of spiritual science, the situation looks like this. Again I am immediately considering something real. In the first place, the observations made in the science of the spirit do not connect at all with an idea which is widely accepted in speculations on inorganic nature, and that is the idea of the dissipation of energies, with people always thinking that the dissipation of energies may go on to infinity. Speaking of energies in terms of modern science, I thus always think of something that goes out into infinity. On the basis of experience gained in the science of the spirit, we cannot do anything with this idea, for from the point of view of this science, and considering their morphogeny, all energies prove to be elastic. This means that when they spread out, they do not dissipate into infinity but only as far as a certain limit from which they then return into themselves. This may, however, take such a long time that it has no immediate relevance for the earth period that lies directly ahead. In the science of the spirit one does indeed have to realize that the concept of dissipation into infinity is nebulous and that any form of energy that spreads does not dissipate into infinity but returns to itself. Applying this concept in the field of entropy, we have a final state which is the polar opposite, so that the dissipating energies may come back to themselves again, as it were. This, then, is one point.

The other is the following. If you look at my Occult Science you’ll find that this state, which I refer to by the technical term ‘Saturn state’ is indeed shown to be entirely a state of heat. This on the basis of a system of spiritual observation which is a more developed form of what I have today been presenting in its elementary form. I go back and by spiritual scientific methods arrive at an initial state—which is not constructed but seen. The whole of evolution which follows arises from this heat state. When people arrive at an end state that is a heat state with their idea of entropy, this is an end state which I have to take as an initial state. The consequence is that there must then be a new beginning, starting from this. So there is no ‘beginning and end’, for beginning and end are merely a link in a sequence of evolution. The end state, when reached, would thus be merely the starting point for continuing evolution.

Question. Wouldn't it be possible that you could let the human being evolve as a simple organism in such a way that he does not arise first as a head principle, with an appendage added later? Modern scientists also work with very long time spans and an infinitely long period of evolution, and I think that with this it would be just as possible to have the human being arise as a uniform organism.

When one is dealing with such matters in a general way it will of course always be possible to say the kind of thing which the gentleman has just said. I would stress that today my aim has been to present positive and real findings made in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, that is, to give individual examples of positive findings. One of them is indeed that if we do not want to consider the human being as solely part of the natural world, in a theoretical way—and this is what today’s lecture was about—he cannot be understood if we use the approach that is generally accepted today. The human being is of course also seen as a ‘uniform entity’ if one sees him as a head principle with appendage—I did say I was presenting this only in approximate terms. What matters is where we look for the starting point for human evolution and not if we treat the human being as a ‘uniform entity’, that is, what we look for further back in time. If we go further back in time in looking for the principle which today appears in metamorphosed form as the head, this makes the human being as an entity in the natural world different from the way he is when we use the theory of evolution to place him in world evolution in the way it is done with today’s banal Darwinism, a banal theory of descent.

It is not a matter of long time spans. Present-day hypotheses make these, too, hypothetical. Time can only have significance in an explanation if we are, as it were, configuring the before and after out of a real situation, and not simply postulating an evolutional sequence and bringing in time as something external. People presenting the theory of descent actually say that time is available to an unlimited degree. The question is, however, if anything that is available to us for such a thought actually also plays the same role in real terms when we consider the human being in absolutely real terms.

Reality organizes itself in such a way that the element I have called an appendage—the term is, of course, approximate—proves to be more recent in the process of evolution, with the head organism the earlier one. Time configures itself out of this. The lineage of the head organism goes back to far earlier times than something which is younger. It truly is a matter of having to make sure that our thinking must be wholly real in the field of spiritual science. Today I would emphasize once again that we cannot advance in the science of the spirit in any other way but by being able to relate to reality in a completely different way than is done in what is called empirical science today, a science which I would not underestimate. No one will be able to accuse me of underestimating it if they read my books. But one has to relate to reality in a very different and very real way.

Answering a question the last time I was here, I said that our ideas must be much more real. We'll also come back to this need for thinking in real terms when I speak about practical human issues and matters concerning the human psyche the day after tomorrow. Thinking in real terms means that with every idea we consider we are aware how far this idea relates to reality. You see, in abstract terms a rose I have before me is a real thing; and we may take it to be real. For a thinker whose concepts are fully connected with reality the concept of the rose can exist in no other way but that he is aware that in itself this rose is something abstract; in real terms it can only exist on a rose bush, and this in turn only in connection with the whole earth, and so on. A spiritual investigator will thus not present something as an isolated idea when in reality it is connected with something else but can be artificially taken out of this context. In pursuing his ideas, a spiritual investigator will thus always be aware of the degree to which the inner, substantial nature of ideas takes him into the real world. Here is another example, a paradox: you put a cell nucleus under the microscope to study it. You are studying it in isolation from everything that goes with it. A spiritual investigator will be fully aware of this; he knows that there is a difference if I look at a cell nucleus or a small animal under the microscope. I see the animal in its wholeness. Looking at a cell nucleus, however, I am not seeing something that is as real as that small animal, which does not grow larger and is thus a whole.

Having thus inwardly always the reality-character of the life of ideas in mind—that is one of the first preconditions for conscious awareness in vision. I made this clear in my book The Riddle of Man, published two years ago. This needs to be taken into account with such a question. I therefore said that the 19th century scientific theory of evolution has considerable merits to this day. But the issue is not dealt with in sufficiently real terms. If we want to study human evolution, it is not without significance where we start with this in the human being. It is not a valid objection, for instance, to say: ‘Here I have a life form; in its present form this life form has special climbing feet.’ There are life forms which in their present form—please forgive me for comparing a small creature with the human being, but we are in the field of science, and so it does not matter—so there are tiny creatures, lice—please forgive the rudeness—that develop special climbing feet. These feet are a product of later evolution. The original creature did not have them. They arose from adaptation to later conditions. It is important to realize that the original creature, living in different conditions, did not have such feet. This species of louse developed special climbing feet under later conditions. Many examples could be given. It is important, therefore, to see the real situation. Forgive me if I now move on to the human being. It is important to realize that the original form has the potential which in direct descent, in direct continuance, leads to the head organ, and that everything else is something acquired later. That is the real situation. And if we do not consider the human being in this way, we cannot understand him in the context of the whole evolution of nature.

Of course I can only refer to these things briefly. As I said, I’d have to give a long course if I were to give you all the details. Anthroposophy is still evolving today, and please do not consider it silly of me to say that it does not yet feel right to present anthroposophy in fully established courses. It needs to be done in form of suggestions made in individual lectures, and all one can do is refer to one thing or another. Because of this we have this imperfection which is the only possible thing in speaking like this. The things I have said, however, no more go against the view that the human being evolves as a uniform entity, than the evolution of lice that do not yet have feet to climb with into lice that do have them speaks against this being the evolution of a uniform entity. It is thus a matter of characterizing the evolutionary process, the special aspect of it. This is what matters in the present case.

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• 53. Goethe, J. W. (see note 49), Faust I, Faust’s servitor Wagner in ‘Night’. Tr. P. Wayne. Penguin Classics.
• 54. Rubner, Max (1854–1932). Die Gesetze des Energieverbrauchs beider Ernährung, Vienna 1902.
• 55. Atwater, W.O. ‘Neue Versuche über Stoff- und Kraftwechsel im menschlichen Koerper’ in Ergebnisse der Physiologie Bd 3.1904. S. 497-622.
• 56. Ebbinghaus Hermann (1850–1909), German experimental psychologist. Abriss der Psychologie, 2. Aufl. Leipzig 1909, I. Kapitel ‘Allgemeine Anschauungen’.
• 57. Eckermann reported Goethe’s views on the natural scientific thinking to which the lecture refers as follows. ‘But it is not usually enough for people to see the archetypal phenomenon; they think it must go further than this and are like children who, having looked in a mirror, immediately turn it round to see what is on the other side.’ Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens, zweiter Teil, Gespräch vom 18. 2. 1829.
• 58. Steiner R. The Riddle of Man (note 3).
• 59. Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August (1834–1919), German naturalist [Tr.]
• 60. Naegeli, Karl Wilhelm von (1817–1891), Swiss botanist. Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre 1884.
• 61. Gegenbaur, Karl (1826–1903), German comparative anatomist. His chief work, Comparative Anatomy, was translated into English in 1878 [Tr.].
• 62. Haeckel in The Natural History of Creation (1868).
• 63. In the preface to Das Werden der Organismen (Jena 1916), Oscar Hertwig wrote: ‘For we would agree with Huxley that if Darwin’s hypothesis were to disappear, the theory of evolution would remain where it is. It is a lasting achievement of our century based on facts, and certainly one of its greatest.'
• 64. In System der Philosophie im Grundriss (Bad Sachsa 1907), Bd. II, Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, S. 172 & 208.
• 65. 1. Aufl. Berlin 1869.
• 66. Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkt der Physiologie und Deszendenz- Theorie (Berlin 1872). The second edition, this time bearing von Hartmann’s name, was published in 1877.
• 67. Schmidt criticized Eduard von Hartmann in his Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Philosophie des Unbewussten (Leipzig 1877), but praised the anonymous publication, saying that it had ‘fully confirmed the conviction of everyone who had not sworn an oath in favour of the unconscious that Darwinism is in the right.’
• 68. In Das Werden der Organismen (see note 63), Hertwig gave a long quote by E. von Hartmann.
• 69. ‘Ontogenesis, or the development of an individual, is a fast, short recapitulation of the phylogenesis, or evolution, of the species.’ Anthropogenie, 4. Aufl. Leipzig 1891, Bd I S. 64 (Evolution of Man 1874).
• 70. Concept used by Oscar Hertwig e.g. in Die Elemente der Entwicklungslehre des Menschen und der Wirbeltiere (Jena 1910), 4. Aufl. 4. Kapitel ‘Entwicklungsphysiologische Experimente’.
• 71. Human Life in the Light of Anthroposophy (from GA 35). Tr. S. M. K. Gandell. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1938.
• 72. Ziehen, Theodor (1862–1950). Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie 15 lectures, Jena 1891, S. 146. In the 9 lecture: ‘On the other hand (compared to the “older psychology” and Kant), our discussions so far have shown that feelings of inclination and disinclination simply do not exist in such an independent form but merely occur as characteristics of inner feelings and ideas, as emotional colouring.’
• 73. Comte, Auguste (1798–1857), French philosopher and social theorist. Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols, Paris 1830-42, esp. the 40th-45th lectures.
• 74. See Von Seelenrätseln (note 1), Seite 156 f.
• 75. Literally: ‘And when Hegel had the arrogance to say that he had found the ultimate of all conceptual thought, presenting it in his head or in his system, when Hegel had infected the language of philosophy with the concept “spirit”, “nature” came to be the opposite of “spirit” ... When there is no longer contrast to nature in the human being, the mind and spirit no longer needs to “move itself’ with such effort to liberate the human being from nature. The spirit, of which no one ever knew what it was, a pale shadow of the Holy Spirit, of the decorative member of the Trinity, the spirit with which Hegel had made a final, for the time being, major attempt to drive nature out of the human being and the human being in his turn out of nature.’ Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 2. Bd., München 1910, S. 141 & 147 (Artikel ‘Natur’).
• 76. In conversation with Schiller in July 1794. Goethe wrote about this in an essay entitled ‘Glücklichs Ereignis’ in Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (scientific writings, see note 10).
• 77. From Albrecht von Haller’s didactic poem ‘Die Falschheit menschlicher Tugenden’ (1730), verse 289 f.
• 78. In response to von Haller’s didactic poem, title ‘ Allerdings. Dem Physiker’(1820).

In the course of our enquiries during the next few days I should like to draw your attention to two things which seemingly bear little relation to each other. But when we have concluded our enquiries you will realize that they are closely connected. I should like in fact to touch upon certain matters which will provide points of view, symptomatic points d'appui concerning the development of religions in the course of the present fifth post-Atlantean epoch. And on the other hand, I would also like to show you in what respect the spiritual life that we wish to cultivate may be associated with the building which bears the name ‘Goetheanum.’

It seems to me that the decisions taken in such a case have a certain importance, especially at the present time. We are now at a stage in the evolution of mankind when the future holds unknown possibilities and when it is important to face courageously an uncertain future and when it is also important, from out of the deepest impulses, to take decisions to which one attaches a certain significance. The external reason for choosing the name ‘Goetheanum’ seems to be this: I expressed the opinion a short time ago in public lectures that, for my part, I should like the centre for the cultivation of the spiritual orientation that I envisage to be called for preference the Goetheanum. The name to be decided upon had already been discussed last year; and this year a few of our members decided to support the choice of the name ‘Goetheanum.’ As I said recently there are many reasons for this choice, reasons which I find difficult to express in words. Perhaps they will become clear to you if I start today from considerations similar to those which I dealt with here last Sunday, by creating a basis for the study of the history of religions which we will undertake in these lectures.

You know of course—and I would not touch upon personal matters if they were not connected with revelant issues, and also with matters concerning the Goetheanum—you know that my first literary activity is associated with the name of Goethe and that it was developed in a domain in which today, even for those who refuse to open their eyes, who prefer to remain asleep, the powerful catastrophic happenings of our time are adumbrated. My view of Goethe from the standpoint of spiritual science, and equally what I said recently in relation to The Philosophy of Freedom, are of course a personal matter; on the other hand, however, this personal factor is intimately linked with the march of events in recent decades. The origin of my The Philosophy of Freedom and of my Goethe publications is closely connected with the fact that, up to the end of the eighties I lived in Austria and then moved to Germany, first to Weimar and then to Berlin, a connection of course that is purely external. But when we reflect upon this external connection we are gradually led, in the light of the facts, if we apprehend the symptoms aright, to an understanding of the inner significance. From the historical sketches I have outlined you will have observed that I am obliged to apply to life what I call historical symptomatology, that I must comprehend history as well as individual human lives from out of their symptoms and manifestations because they are pointers to the real inner happenings. One must really have the will to look beyond external facts in order to arrive at their inner meaning.

Many people today would like to learn to develop super-sensible vision, but clairvoyance is difficult to achieve and the majority would prefer to spare themselves the effort. That is why it is often the case today that for those naturally endowed with clairvoyance there is a dichotomy between their external life and their clairvoyant faculty. Indeed, where this dichotomy exists super-sensible vision is of little value and is seldom able to transcend personal factors. Our epoch is an age of transition. Every epoch, of course, is an age of transition. It is simply a question of realizing what is transmitted. Something of importance is transmitted, something that touches man in his inmost being and is of vital importance for his inner life. If we examine objectively what the so-called educated public has pursued the world over in recent decades, we are left with a sorry picture—the picture of a humanity that is fast asleep. This is not intended as a criticism, nor as an invitation to pessimism, but as a stimulus to awaken in man those forces which will enable him to attain, at least provisionally, his most important goal, namely, to develop insight, real insight into things. Our present age must shed certain illusions and see things as they really are.

Do not begin by asking: what must I do, what must others do? For the majority of people today such questions are inopportune. The important question is: how do I gain insight into the present situation? When one has adequate insight, one will follow the right course. That which must be developed will assuredly be developed when we have the right insight or understanding. But this entails a change of outlook. Above all men must clearly recognize that external events are in reality simply symptoms of an inner process of evolution occurring in the field of the super-sensible, a process that embraces not only historical life, but also every individual, every one of us in the fullness of our being.

Let me quote¹ by way of illustration. Today we are very proud that we can apply the law of causality in all kinds of fields; but this is a fatal illusion. Those who are familiar with Hamerling's life know how important for his whole inner development was the following circumstance. After acting for a short time as a ‘supply’ teacher in Graz (i.e. a kind of temporary post before one is appointed to a permanent position in a Gymnasium) he was transferred to Trieste. From there he was able to spend several holidays in Venice. When we recall the ten years which Hamerling spent on the Adriatic coast—he divided his time between teaching in Trieste and visiting Venice—we see how he was fired with ardent enthusiasm for all that the south could offer him, how he derived spiritual nourishment for his later poetry from his experiences there. The real Hamerling, the Hamerling we know, would have been a different person if he had not spent the ten years in question in Trieste with the opportunity for holidays in Venice!

Now supposing some thoroughly philistine professor is writing a biography of Hamerling and wanted to know how it was that Hamerling came to be transferred to Trieste precisely at this decisive moment in his life, and how a man without means, who was entirely dependent upon his salary, happened to be transferred to Trieste at this particular moment. I will give you the external explanation. Hamerling, as I have said, held at that time a temporary appointment (he was a supply teacher, as we say in Austria) at the Gymnasium² in Graz. These supply teachers are anxious to find a permanent appointment, and since this is a matter for the authorities, the applicant for such a post has to send in his various qualifications—written on one side of the application form—enclosing testimonials, etcetera. The application is then forwarded to a higher authority who in turn forwards it to still higher authorities, etcetera, etcetera. There is no need to describe the procedure further. The headmaster of the Gymnasium in Graz where Hamerling worked as a temporary assistant, was the worthy Kaltenbrunner. Hamerling heard that there was a vacancy for a master in Budapest. At that time the Dual Monarchy did not exist and teachers could be transferred from Graz to Budapest and from Budapest to Graz. Hamerling applied for the post in Budapest and handed in his application, written in copper plate, together with the necessary testimonials to the headmaster, the worthy Kaltenbrunner, who placed it in a drawer and forgot all about it. Consequently the post in Budapest was given to another candidate. Hamerling was not appointed because Kaltenbrunner had forgotten to forward the application to the higher authorities, who, if they had not forgotten to do so, would have forwarded it to their immediate superiors and these in their turn to their superiors, etcetera, until it reached the minister, when it would have been referred back to the lower echelons and have passed down the bureaucratic ladder. Thus another candidate was appointed to the post in Budapest, and Hamerling spent the ten years which were decisive for his life, not in Budapest, but in Trieste, because sometime later a post feil vacant here to which he was appointed—and because, of course, the worthy Kaltenbrunner did not forget Hamerling's application a second time!

From the external point of view therefore Kaltenbrunner's negligence was responsible for the decisive turning point in Hamerling's life; otherwise Hamerling would have stagnated in Budapest. This is not intended as a ctiticism of Budapest; but the fact remains that Budapest would have been a spiritual desert for Hamerling and he would have been unable to develop his particular talents. And our biographer would now be able to tell us how it was that Hamerling had been transferred from Graz to Trieste—because Kaltenbrunner had simply overlooked Hamerling's application.

Now this is a striking incident and one could find countless others of its kind in life. And he who seeks to measure life by the yard-stick of external events will scarcely find causes, even if he believes that he is able to establish causal relationships, that are more closely connected with their effects than the negligence of the worthy Kaltenbrunner with the spiritual development of Robert Hamerling. I make this observation simply to call your attention to the fact that it is imperative to implant in the hearts of men this principle: that external life as it unfolds must be seen simply as a symptom that reveals its inner meaning.

In my last lecture I spoke of the forties to the seventies as the critical period for the bourgeoisie. I pointed out how the bourgeoisie had been asleep during these critical years and how the end of the seventies saw the beginning of those fateful decades which led to our present situation.^T1 I spent the first years of these decades in Austria. Now as an Austrian living in the last third of the nineteenth century one was in a strange position if one wished to participate in the cultural life of the time. It is of course easy for me to throw light on this situation from the standpoint of a young man who spent his formative years in Austria and who was German by descent and racial affiliation. To be a German in Austria is totally different from being a German in the Reich^T2 or in Switzerland. One must, of course, endeavour to understand everything in life and one can understand everything; one can adapt oneself to everything. But if, for example, one were to raise the question: what does an Austro-German feel about the social structure in which he lives and is it possible for an Austro-German without first having adapted himself to it, to have any understanding of that peculiar civic consciousness one finds in Switzerland? Then the answer to this question must be an emphatic no! The Austro-German grew up in an environment that makes it totally impossible for him to understand—unless he forced himself to do so artificially—that inflexible civic consciousness peculiar to the Swiss.

But these national differentiations are seldom taken into account. We must however give heed to them if we are to understand the difficult problems in this domain which face us now and in the immediate future. It was significant that I spent my formative years in an environment where the most important things did not really concern me. I would not mention this if it were not in fact the most important experience of the true-born German-Austrian. In some it finds expression in one way, in others in another way. To some extent I lived as a typical Austrian. From the age of eleven to eighteen I had to cross twice a day the river Leitha which formed the frontier between Austria and Hungary since I lived at Neudörfl in Hungary and attended school in Wiener-Neustadt. It was an hour's journey on foot and a quarter of an hour's by slow train—there were no fast trains, nor are there any today I believe—and each time I had to cross the frontier. Thus one came to know the two faces of what is called abroad ‘Austria.’ Formerly things were not so easy in the Austrian half of the Empire. Today one cannot say things are easier (that is unlikely), but different. Up till now one had to distinguish two parts of the Austrian Empire. Officially one half was called, not Austria, but ‘the Kingdoms and “lands” represented in the Federal Council’, i.e. Cis-Leithania, which included Galicia, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg, the Tyrol, Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, Istria and Dalmatia. The other half, Trans-Leithania,³ consisted of the ‘lands’ of the Crown of St. Stephen, i.e. what is called abroad Hungary, which included also Croatia and Slavonia. Then, after the eighties, there was the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied up to 1909 and later annexed, which was jointly administered by the two halves of the Empire.

Now in the area where I lived, even amongst the most important centres of interest, I did not find anything which really interested me between the ages of eleven and eighteen. The first important landmark was Frohsdorf, a castle inhabited by Count de Chambord, a member of the Bourbon family, who had made an unsuccessful attempt in 1871 to ascend the throne of France under the name of Henry V. There were many other peculiarities attaching to him. He was an ardent supporter of clericalism. In him, and in everything associated with him, one could perceive a world in decline, one could catch the atmosphere of a world that was crumbling in ruins. There were many things one saw there, but they were of no interest. And one felt: here is something which was once considered to be of the greatest importance and which many today still regard as immensely important. But in reality it is a bagatelle and has no particular importance.

The second thing in the neighbourhood was a Jesuit monastery, a genuine Jesuit monastery. The monks were called Redemptorists,⁴ an offshoot of the Jesuits. This monastery was situated not far from Frohsdorf. One saw the monks perambulating, one learned of the aims and aspirations of the Jesuits, one heard various tales about them, but this too was of no interest. And again one felt: what has all this to do with the future evolution of mankind? One felt that these monks in their black cowls were totally unrelated to the real forces which are preparing man's future development.

The third thing in the locality where I lived was a masonic lodge. The local priest used to inveigh against it, but of course the lodge meant nothing to me for one was not permitted to enter. It is true the porter allowed me on one occasion to look inside, but in strict secrecy. On the following Sunday, however, I again heard the priest fulminating against the lodge. In Brief, this too was something that did not concern me.

I was therefore well prepared when I matured and became more aware to be influenced by things which formerly held no interest for me. I regard it as very significant and a fortunate dispensation of my karma that, whilst I had been deeply interested in the spiritual world in my early years, in fact I lived my early life on the spiritual plane, I had not been forced by external circumstances into the classical education of the Gymnasium. All that one acquires through a humanistic education I acquired later on my own initiative. At that time the standard of the Gymnasium education in Austria was not too bad; it has progressively deteriorated since the seventies and of recent years has come perilously close to the educational system of neighbouring states. But looking back today I am glad that I was not sent to the Gymnasium in Wiener-Neustadt. I was sent to the Realschule and thus came in touch with a teaching that prepared the ground for a modern way of thinking, a teaching that enabled me to be closely associated with a scientific outlook. I owed this association with scientific thinking to the fact that the best teachers—and they were few and far betweenin the Austrian Realschule, which was organized on the most modern lines, were those who were connected in some way with modern scientific thinking.

This was not always true of the school in Wiener-Neustadt. In the lower classes—in the Austrian Realschule religious instruction was given only in the four lower classes—we had a teacher of religion who was a very pleasant fellow, but was quite unfitted to bring us up as devout and pious Christians. He was a Catholic priest and that he was hardly fitted to inspire piety in us is shown by the fact that three young boys who used to call for him everyday after school were said to be his sons. But I still hold him in high regard for everything he taught in class apart from his religious instruction. He imparted this religious instruction in the following way: he called an a pupil to read a few pages from a devotional work; then it was set for homework. One did not understand a word, learned it by heart and received high marks, but of course one had not the slightest idea of the contents. His conversation outside the classroom was sometimes beautiful and stimulating and above all warm and friendly.

Now in such a school one passed through the hands of a succession of teachers of widely different calibre. All this is of symptomatic significance. We had two Carmelites as teachers, one was supposed to teach us French, the other English. The latter in particular scarcely knew a word of English; in fact he could not string together a complete sentence. In natural history we had a man who had not the faintest understanding of God and the world. But we had excellent teachers for mathematics, physics, chemistry and especially for projective geometry. And it was they who paved the way for this inner link with scientific thinking. It is to this scientific thinking that I owed the impulse which is fundamentally related to the future aims of mankind today.

When, after struggling through the Realschule one entered the University, one could not avoid—unless one was asleep—taking an interest in public affairs and the world around. Now the Austro-German—and this is important—arrives at a knowledge of the German make-up in a totally different way from the Reich German.⁵ One could have, for example, a superficial interest in Austrian state-affairs, but one could scarcely feel a real inner relationship to them if one were interested in the evolution of mankind. On the other hand, as in my own case, one could have recourse to the achievements of German culture at the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century and to what I should like to call Goetheanism. As an Austro-German one responds to this differently from the Reich German. One should not forget that once one has become inured to the natural scientific outlook through a modern education one outgrows a certain artificial milieu which has spread over the whole of Western Austria in recent time. One outgrows the clerical Catholicism to which the people of Western Austria only nominally adhere, an extremely pleasant people for the most part—I exclude myself of course. This clerical Catholicism has never touched their lives deeply.

In the form it has assumed in western Austria this clerical Catholicism is a product of the Counter-Reformation, of the ‘Hausmacht’ policy of the Hapsburgs. The ideas and impulses of Protestantism were fairly widespread in Austria, but the Thirty Years' War and the events connected with it enabled the Hapsburgs to initiate a counter Reformation and to impose upon the extremely gifted and intelligent Austro-German people that terrible obscurantism, which must be imposed when one diffuses Catholicism in the form which prevailed in Austria as a consequence of the Counter Reformation. Consequently men's relationship to religion and religious issues becomes extremely superficial. And happiest are those who are still aware of this superficial relationship. The others who believe that their faith, their piety is honest and sincere are unwittingly victims of a monstrous illusion, of a terrible lie which destroys the inner life of the soul.

With a Background of natural science it is impossible of course to come to terms with this frightful psychic mishmash which invades the soul. But there are always a few isolated individuals who develop themselves and stand apart from it. They find themselves driven towards the cultural life which reached its zenith in Central Europe at the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century. They came in touch with the current of thought which began with Lessing, was carried forward by Herder, Goethe and the German Romantics and which in its wider context can be called Goetheanism.

In these decades it was of decisive importance for the Austro-German with spiritual aspirations that—living outside the folk community to which Lessing, Goethe, Herder etcetera belonged, and transplanted into a wholly alien environment over the frontier—he imbibed there the spiritual perception of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Herder. Nothing else impressed one; one imbibed only the Weltanschauung of Weimar classicism—and in this respect one stood apart, isolated and alone. For again one was surrounded by those phenomena which did not concern one.

And so one was associated with something that one gradually felt to be second nature, something, however, that was uprooted from its native soil and which one cherished in one's inmost soul in a community which was interested only in superficialities. For it was anomalous to cherish Goethean ideas at a time when the world around was enthusiasticbut the words of enthusiasm were pompous and artificial, without any suggestion of sincere and honest endeavourabout such publications (and I could give other examples) as the book of the then Crown Prince Rudolf An illustrated history of Austria. The book in fact was the work of ghost writers. One had no affinity with this trash, though, it is true, one belonged outwardly to this world of superficiality. One treasured in one's soul that which was an expression of the Central European spirit and which in a wider context I should like to call Goetheanism.

This Goetheanism, with which I associate the names of Schiller, Lessing, Herder and also the German philosophers, occupies a singularly isolated position in the world. And this isolation is extremely significant for the whole evolution of modern mankind for it causes those who wish to embark upon a serious study of Goetheanism to become a little reflective.

Looking back over the past one asks oneself: what have Lessing, Goethe and the later German Romantics, approximately up to the middle of the nineteenth century, contributed to the world? In what respect is this contribution related to the historical evolution prior to Lessing's time? Now it is well known that the emergence of Protestantism out of Catholicism is intimately connected with the historical evolution of Central Europe. We see, an the one hand, in Central Europe, in Germany for example—I have already discussed the same phenomenon in relation to Austria—the survival of the universalist impulse of Roman Catholicism. In Austria its influence was more external, as I have described, in Germany more inward. Now there is a vast difference between the Austrian Catholic and the Bavarian Catholic, and many of these differences which have survived date back to the remote past. Then came the invasion of Catholic culture by Protestantism or Lutheranism, which in Switzerland took the form of Calvinism or Zwinglianism.⁶ Now a high proportion of the German people, especially the Reich Germans, was Lutheran. But strangely enough there is no connection whatsoever between Lutheranism and Goetheanism! It is true that Goethe had studied both Lutheranism and Catholicism, though somewhat superficially. But when one considers the ferment in Goethe's soul, one can only say that throughout his life it was a matter of indifference to him whether one professed Catholicism or Protestantism. Both confessions could be found in his entourage, but he was in no way connected with them. To this aperçu the following can be added. Herder⁷ was pastor and later General Superintendent in Weimar. As pastor, of course, he had received much from Luther externally and was familiar with his teachings; he was aware that his outlook and thinking had nothing in common with Lutheranism and that he had entirely outgrown the Lutheran faith. Thus, in everything associated with Goetheanism—and I include men such as Herder and others—we have in this respect a completely isolated phenomenon. When we enquire into the nature of this isolated phenomenon we find that Goetheanism is a crystallization of all kinds of impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Luther did not have the slightest influence on Goethe; Goethe, however, was influenced by Linnaeus,⁸ Spinoza and Shakespeare, and on his own admission these three personalities exercised the greatest influence upon his spiritual development.

Thus Goetheanism stands out as an isolated phenomenon and that is why it can never become popular. For the old entrenched positions persist; not even the slightest attempt was made to promote the ideas of Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe amongst the broad masses of the population, let alone to encourage the feelings and sentiments of these personalities. Meanwhile an outmoded Catholicism on the one hand, and an outmoded Lutheranism on the other hand, lived on as relics from the past. And it is a significant phenomenon that, within the cultural stream to which Goethe belonged and which produced a Goethe, the spiritual activities of the people are influenced by the sermons preached by the Protestant pastors. Amongst the latter are a few who are receptive to modern culture, but that is of no help to them in their sermons. The spiritual nourishment offered by the church today is antediluvian and is totally unrelated to the demands of the time; it cannot lend in any way vitality or vigour. It is associated, however, with another aspect of our culture, that aspect which is responsible for the fact that the spiritual life of the majority of mankind is divorced from reality. Perhaps the most significant symptom of modern bourgeois philistinism is that its spiritual life is remote from reality, all its talk is empty and unreal.

Such phenomena, however, are usually ignored, but as symptoms they are deeply significant. You can read the literature of the war-mongers over recent decades and you will find that Kant is quoted again and again. In recent weeks many of these war-mongers have turned pacifist, since peace is now in the offing. But that is of no consequence; philistines they still remain, that is the point. The Stresemann⁹ of today is the same Stresemann of six weeks ago. And today it is customary to quote Kant as the ideal of the pacifists. This is quite unreal. These people have no understanding of the source from which they claim to have derived their spiritual nourishment.

That is one of the most characteristic features of the present time and accounts for the strange fact that a powerful spiritual impulse, that of Goetheanism, has met with total incomprehension. In face of the present catastrophic events this thought fills us with dismay. When we ask: what will become of this wave—one of the most important in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—given the atmosphere prevailing in the world today, we are filled with sadness.

In the light of this situation the decision to call the centre which wishes to devote its activities to the most important impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the ‘Goetheanum’ irrespective of the fate which may befall it, has a certain importance. That this building shall bear the name ‘Goetheanum’ for many years to come is of no consequence; what is important is that the thought even existed, the thought of using the name ‘Goetheanum’ in these most difficult times.

Precisely through the fact I have mentioned to you, Goetheanism in its isolation could become something of unique importance when one lived at the aforesaid time in Austria where one's interests were limited. For if people had understood that Goetheanism was something which concerned them, the present catastrophe would not have arisen. This and many other factors enabled isolated individuals in the German-speaking areas of Austria—the broad masses live under the heel of the Catholicism of the CounterReformation—to develop a deep inner relationship to Goetheanism. I made the acquaintance of one of these personalities, Karl Julius Schröer¹⁰ who lived and worked in Austria. In every field in which he worked he was inspired by the Goethe impulse. History will one day record what men such as Karl Julius Schröer thought about the political needs of Austria in the second half of the nineteenth century. These people who never found a hearing were aware to some extent how the present situation could have been avoided, but that it was nevertheless inevitable because no one would listen to them.

On arriving in Imperial Germany one had above all the impression, when one had developed a close spiritual affinity with Goethe, that there was nowhere any understanding of this affinity. I came to Weimar in autumn 1889—I have already described the pleasing aspects of life in Weimar—but what I treasured in Goethe (I had already published my first important book on Goethe) met with little understanding or sympathy because it was the spiritual element in him that I valued. Outwardly and inwardly life in Weimar was wholly divorced from any connection with Goethean impulses. In fact these Goethean impulses were completely unknown in the widest circles, especially amongst professors of the history of literature who lectured on Goethe, Lessing and Herder in the universities—unknown amongst the philistines who perpetrated the most atrocious biographies of Goethe. I could only find consolation for these horrors by reading the publications of Schröer and the excellent book of Herman Grimm which I came across relatively early in my life. But Herman Grimm was never taken seriously by the universities. They regarded him as a dilettante, not as a serious scholar.

No genuine university scholar of course has ever made the effort to take K. J. Schröer seriously; he is always treated as a light-weight. I could give many examples of this. But one should not forget that the literary world with its many ramifications—including, if I may say so, journalism—has been under the influence of a bourgeoisie that has been declining in recent decades, a bourgeoisie which is fast asleep and which, when it embarks upon spiritual activities, has no understanding of their real meaning. Under these circumstances it is impossible of course to arrive at any understanding of Goetheanism. For Goethe himself is, in the best sense of the word, the most modern spirit of the fifth postAtlantean epoch.

Consider for a moment his unique characteristics. First, his whole Weltanschauung—which can be raised to a higher spiritual level than Goethe himself could achieve—rests upon a solid scientific foundation. At the present time a firmly established Weltanschauung cannot exist without a scientific basis. That is why there is a strong scientific substratum to the book with which I concluded my Goethe studies in 1897. (The book has now been republished for reasons similar to those which led to the re-issue of The Philosophy of Freedom.) The solid body of philistines said at that time (it was a time when my books were still reviewed, the title of the book is Goethe's Conception of the World:^T3 in reality he ought to call it ‘Goethe's conception of nature.’ The so-called Goethe scholars, the literary historians, philosophers and the like failed to realize that it is impossible to present Goethe's Weltanschauung unless it is firmly anchored in his conception of nature.

A second characteristic which shows Goethe to be the most modern spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean age is the way in which that peculiar spiritual path unfolds within him which leads from the intuitive perception of nature to art. In studying Goethe it is most interesting to follow this connection between perception of nature and artistic activity, between artistic creation and artistic imagination. One touches upon thousands of questions—which are not dry, theoretical questions, but questions instinct with life, when one studies this strange and peculiar process which always takes place in Goethe when he observes nature as an artist, but sees it on that account no less in its reality, and when he works as an artist in such a way that, to quote his own words, one feels art to be something akin to the continuation of divine creation in nature at a higher level.

A third characteristic typical of Goethe's Weltanschauung is bis conception of man. He sees him as an integral part of the universe, as the crowning achievement of the entire universe. Goethe always strives to see him, not as an isolatcd being, but imbued with the wisdom that informs nature. For Goethe the soul of man is the stage on which the spirit of nature contemplates itself. But these thoughts which are expressed here in abstract form have countless implications if they are pursued concretely. And all this constitutes the solid base on which we can build that which leads to the supreme heights of spiritual super-sensible perception in the present age. If one points out today that mankind as a whole has failed to give serious attention to Goethe—and it has failed in this respect—has failed to develop any relation ship to Goetheanism, then it is certainly not in order to criticize, lecture or reproach mankind as a whole, but simply to invite them to undertake a serious study of Goetheanism. For to pursue the path of Goetheanism is to open the doors to an anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. And without Anthroposophy the world will not find a way out of the present catastrophic situation. In many ways the safest approach to spiritual science is to begin with the study of Goethe.

All this is related to something else. I have already pointed out that this shallow spiritual life which is preached from the pulpit and which then becomes for many a living lie of which they are unconscious—all this is outmoded. And fundamentally the erudition in all the faculties of our universities is equally outmoded. This erudition becomes an anomaly where Goetheanism exists alongside it. For a further characteristic feature of Goethe's personality is his phenomenal universality. It is true that in various domains Goethe has sowed only the first seeds, but these seeds can be cultivated everywhere and when cultivated contain the germ of something great and grandiose, the great modern impulse which mankind prefers to ignore, and compared with which modern university education in its outlook and attitude is antediluvian. Even though it accepts new discoveries, this modern university education is out of date. But at the same time there exists a true life of the spirit, Goetheanism, which is ignored. In a certain sense Goethe is the universitas litterarum, the hidden university, and in the sphere of the spiritual life it is the university education of today that usurps the throne. Everything that takes place in the external world and which has led to the present catastophe is, in the final analysis, the result of what is taught in our universities. People talk today of this or that in politics, of certain personalities, of the rise of socialism, of the good and bad aspects of art, of Bolshevism, etcetera; they are afraid of what may happen in the future, they envisage such and such occupying a certain post, and there are those who six weeks ago said the opposite of what they say today ... such is the state of affairs. Where does all this originate? Ultimately in the educational institutions of the present day. Everything else is of secondary importance if people fail to see that the axe must be laid to the tree of modern education. What is the use of developing endless so-called clever ideas, if people do not realize where in fact the break with the past must be made.

I have already spoken of certain things which did not concern me. I can now teil you of something else which did not concern me. When I left the Realschule for the university I entered my name for different lecture courses and attended various lectures. But they held no interest for me; one felt that they were quite out of touch with the impulse of our time. Without wishing to appear conceited I must confess that I had a certain sympathy for that universitas, Goetheanism, because Goethe also found that his university education held little interest for him. And at the royal university of Leipzig in the (then) Kingdom of Saxony, and again at Strasbourg university in later years, he took virtually no interest in the lectures he attended. And yet everything, even the quintessence of the artistic in Goethe rests upon the solid foundation of a rigorous observation of nature. In spite of all university education he gradually became familiar with the most modern impulses, even in the sphere of knowledge. When we speak of Goetheanism we must not lose sight of this. And this is what I should have liked to bring to men's attention in my Goethe studies and in my book Goethe's Conception of the World. I should have liked to make them aware of the real Goethe. But the time for this was not ripe; to a large extent the response was lacking. As I mentioned recently the first indications were visible in Weimar where the soil was to some extent favourable. But nothing fruitful came of it. Those who were already in entrenched positions barred the way to those who could have brought a new creative impulse. If the modern age were imbued in some small measure with Goetheanism, it would long for spiritual science, for Goetheanism prepares the ground for the reception of spiritual science. Then Goetheanism would again become a means whereby a real regeneration of mankind today could be achieved. One cannot afford to take a superficial view of our present age.

After my lecture in Basel yesterday^T4 I felt that no honest scientist could deny what I had to say on the subject of super-sensible knowledge if he were prepared to face the facts. There are no logical grounds for rejecting spiritual knowledge; the real cause for rejection is to be found in that barbarism which in all regions of the civilized world is responsible for the present catastrophe. It is profoundly symbolic that a few years ago a Goethe society had nothing better to do than to appoint as president a former finance minister—a typical example of men's remoteness from what they profess to honour. This finance minister who, as I said recently, bears, perhaps symptomatically, the Christian name ‘Kreuzwendedich’ believes of course, in his fond delusion, that he pays homage to Goethe. With a background of modern education he has no idea and can have no idea how far, how infinitely far removed he is from the most elementary understanding of Goetheanism.

The climate of the present epoch is unsuited to a deeper understanding of Goetheanism. For Goetheanism has no national affiliation, it is not something specifically German. It draws nourishment from Spinoza, from Shakespeare, from Linnaeus—none of whom is of German origin. Goethe himself admitted that these three personalities exercised a profound influence upon him—and in this he was not mistaken. (He who knows Goethe recognizes how justified this admission is.) Goetheanism could determine men's thinking, their religious life, every branch of science, the social forms of community life, the political life ... it could reign supreme everywhere. But the world today listens to windbags such as Eucken¹¹ or Bergson and the like ... (I say nothing of the political babblers, for in this realm today adjective and substantive are almost identical).

What we have striven for here—and which will arouse such intense hatred in the future that its realization is problematical, especially at the present time—is a living protest against the alienation of spiritual life today from reality. And this protest is best expressed by saying: what we wanted to realize here is a Goetheanum. When we speak here of a Goetheanum we bear witness to the most important characteristics and also to the most important demands of our time. And amid the philistine world of today this Goetheanum at least has been willed and should tower above this present world that claims to be civilized.

Of course, if the wishes of many contemporaries had been fulfilled, one could perhaps say that it would have been more sensible to speak of a Wilsonianum,¹² for that is the flag under which the present epoch sails. And it is to Wilsonism that the world at the present time is prepared to submit and probaly will submit.

Now it may seem strange to say that the sole remedy against Wilsonism is Goetheanism. Those who claim to know better come along and say: the man who talks like this is a utopian, a visionary. But who are these people who coin this phrase: he is an innocent abroad—who are they? Why, none other than those worldly men who are responsible for the present state of affairs, who always imagined themselves to be essentially ‘practical’ men. It is they of course who refuse to listen to words of profound truth, namely, that Wilsonism will bring sickness upon the world, and in all domains of life the world will be in need of a remedy and this remedy will be Goetheanism.

Permit me to conclude with a personal observation on the interpretation of my book Goethe's Conception of the World which has now appeared in a second edition. Through a strange concatenation of circumstances the book has not yet arrived; one is always ready to make allowances, especially at the present time. It was suggested by men of ‘practical’ experience some time ago, months ago in fact, that my books The Philosophy of Freedom and Goethe's Conception of the World should be forwarded here direct from the printers and so avoid going via Berlin and arrive here more quickly. One would have thought that those who proffered this advice were knowledgeable in these matters. I was informed that The Philosophy of Freedom had been despatched, but after weeks and weeks had not arrived. For some time people had been able to purchase copies in Berlin. None was to be had here because somewhere on the way the matter had been in the hands of the ‘practical’ people and we unpractical people were not supposed to interfere. What had happened? The parcel had been handed in by the ‘practical’ people of the firm who had been told to send it to Dornach near Basel. But the gentleman responsible for the despatch said to himself: Dornach near Basel; that is in Alsace, for there is a Dornach there which is also near Basel ... there is no need to pay foreign postage, German stamps will suffice. And so, on ‘practical’ instructions the parcel went to Dornach in Alsace where, of course, they had no idea what to do with it. The matter had to be taken up by the unpractical people here. Finally, after long delays when the ‘practical’ gentleman had satisfied himself that Dornach near Basel is not Dornach in Alsace, The Philosophy of Freedom arrived. Whether the other book, Goethe's Conception of the World, instead of being sent from Stuttgart to Dornach near Basel has been sent by some ‘practical’ person via the North Pole, to arrive finally in Dornach after travelling round the globe, I cannot say. In any case, this is only one example that we have experienced personally of the ‘practical’ man's contribution to the practical affairs of daily life.

This is what I was first able to undertake personally in a realm that lay close to my heart—more through external circumstances than through my own inclination—in order to be of service to the epoch. And when I consider what was the purpose of my various books, which are born of the impulse of the time, I believe that these books answer the demands of our epoch in widely divergent fields. They have taught me how powerful have been the forces in recent decades acting against the Spirit of the age. However much in their ruthlessness people may believe that they can achieve their aims by force, the fact remains that nothing in reality can be enforced which runs counter to the impulses of the time. Many things which are in keeping with the impulses of the time can be delayed; but if they are delayed they will later find scope for expression, perhaps under another name and in a totally different context. I believe that these two books, amongst other things, can show how, by observing one's age, one can be of service to it. One can serve one's age in every way, in the simplest and most humble activities. One must simply have the courage to take up Goetheanism which exists as a Universitas liberarum scientiarum alongside the antediluvian university that everyone admires today, the socialists of the extreme left most of all.

It might easily appear as if these remarks are motivated by personal animosity and therefore I always hesitate to express them. One is of course a target for the obvious accusation—‘Aha, this fellow abuses universities because he failed to become a university professor!’ ... One must put up with this facile criticism when it is necessary to show that those who advocate this or that from a political, scientific, political-economic or confessional point of view of some kind or other fail to put their finger an the real malady of our time. Only those point to the real malady who draw attention to the pernicious dogma of infallibility which, through the fatal concurrence of mankind has led to the surrender of everything to the present domination of science, to those centres of official science where the weeds grow abundantly, alongside a few healthy plants of course. I am not referring to a particular individual or particular university professor (any more than when I speak of states or nations I am referring to a particular state or nation)—they may be excellent people, that is not the point. The really important question is the nature of the system.

And how serious this situation is, is shown by the fact that the technical colleges which have begun to lose a little of their natural character now assume university airs and so have Bone rapidly downhill and become corrupted by idleness.

I want you to consider the criticisms I have made today as a kind of interlude in our anthroposophical discussions. But I think that the present epoch offers such a powerful challenge to our thoughts and sentiments in this direction that these enquiries must be undertaken by us especially because, unfortunately, they will not be undertaken elsewhere.

Our present age is still very far removed from Goetheanism, which certainly does not imply studying the life and works of Goethe alone. Our epoch sorely needs to turn to Goetheanism in all spheres of life. This may sound utopian and impractical, but it is the most practical answer at the present time. When the different spheres of life are founded an Goetheanism we shall achieve something totally different from the single achievement of the bourgeoisie today—rationalism. He who is grounded in Goetheanism will assuredly find his way to spiritual science. This is what one would like to inscribe in letters of fire in the souls of men today.

This has been my aim for decades. But much of what I have said from the depths of my heart and which was intended to be of service to the age has been received by my contemporaries as an edifying Sunday afternoon sermonfor in reality those who are happy in their cultural sleep ask nothing more. We must seek concretely to discover what the epoch demands, what is necessary for our age—this is what mankind so urgently needs today. And above all we must endeavour to gain insight into this, for today insight is all important. Amidst the vast confusion of our time, a confusion that will soon become worse confounded, it is futile to ask: what must the individual do? What he must do first and foremost is to strive for insight and understanding so that the infallibility in the domain that I referred to today is directed into the right channel.

My book Goethe's Conception of the World was written specially in order to show that in the sphere of knowledge there are two streams today: a decadent stream which everyone admires, and another stream which contains the most fertile seeds for the future, and which everyone avoids. In recent decades men have suffered many painful experiences—and often through their own fault. But they should realize that they have suffered most—and worse is still to follow—at the hands of their schoolmasters of whom they are so proud. It appears that mankind must needs pass through the experiences which they have to undergo at the hands of the world schoolmaster, for they have contrived in the end to set up a schoolmaster as world organizer. Those windbags who have persuaded the world with their academic twaddle are now joined by another who proposes to set the world to right with empty academic rhetoric.

I have no wish to be pessimistic. These words are spoken in order to awaken those impulses which will answer Wilsonism with Goetheanism. They are not inspired by any kind of national sentiment, for Goethe himself was certainly not a nationalist; his genius was universal. The world must be preserved from the havoc that would follow if Wilsonism were to replace Goetheanism!

• 1. R. Hamerling (1830–89). Early work lyrical poems. Homunculus (1888) attacked the soullessness of the epoch. Philosophy opposed to monism and pessimism.
• 2. The Gymnasium prepared pupils for the Abitur and the University. Main subjects Greek and Latin; two foreign languages, usually French and English, included in the curriculum.
• T1. i.e. the war of 1914–18
• T2. i.e. Imperial Germany.
• 3. Realschule. Here emphasis an Mathematics and Natural Sciences. This type of school had a vocational bias.
• 4. Leitha and Leithania. The Leitha a tributory of the Danube. Up till 1918 formed the frontier between Austria and Hungary. The Austrian half of the Empire called Cis-Leithania, the Hungarian half, Trans-Leithania. See The Hapsburg Empire by C. S. Macartney, 1968.
• 5. Redemptorists. St. Alfonso de Liguori (1696–1787) founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Members of this congregation called Redemptionists. Undertook missionary work in the dioceses around Naples, heard confession and supervised schools. St. Alfonso beatified 1816 and canonized 1839.
• 6. The ‘Reich German’ refers to the German who was born and lived in Imperial Germany pre-1918.
• 7. Gottfried Herder (1744–1807). A seminal influence in theology, history, philosophy and pedagogy. Friend of Goethe. See any history of German literature.
• 8. Karl von Linnä or Linnaeus (1707–78). Swedish naturalist. Inventor of artificial system of plant classification.
• 9. Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929). National liberal politician. Post-1918 advocated a policy of reconciliation. Chancellor 1923. Foreign Minister 1923–9. Nobel Peace Prize 1926.
• 10. K. J. Schröer (1825–1900). Literary historian. Professor of history of literature at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. Teacher of R. Steiner. See latter's Course of my Life.
• T3. Anthroposophical Publishing Co., London and Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1928.
• T4. Rechtfertigung der übersinnlichen Erkenntnis durch die Naturwissenschaft, 31st October, 1918 (see Bibl. Nr. 72).
• 11. R. Eucken (1846–1929). Professor of Philosophy, Jena. Pioneer of idealist metaphysics.
  
  H. Bergson (1859–1941). Professor at Collge de France. Famous for his book Creative Evolution and the idea of the elan vital as the fundamental stuff of the Universe.
• 12. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924). Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy. President U.S.A. 1912–20. Author of the ‘Fourteen Points’ as basis for peace 1918. Idea of a ‘League of Nations’ stemmed from him; also of a world government to prevent future wars.

My dear friends!

Before I begin my lecture, I have to report that our dear friend Nelly Lichtenberg has left the physical plane. The younger friends may know her from her participation in our events, but the older participants know her very well and have certainly taken her deep into their hearts – as has her mother, who is left in mourning.

Nelly Lichtenberg, who had recently sought recovery in Stuttgart, left the physical plane there a few days ago. She and her mother, who was there for her care, have been part of our anthroposophical movement since its inception. And if I want to express in a few words what, in my opinion, best characterizes the deceased, who has left the physical plane, and her mother, I would say: their souls were made of pure loyalty and pure, deep devotion to the cause of anthroposophy. We all appreciated, when our movement here in Berlin was still extremely small, the heartfelt loyalty and deep understanding with which they both clung to the movement and participated in its development. Baroness Nelly Lichtenberg carried this loyal soul in a body that caused extraordinary difficulties for her outer life. But this soul actually came to terms with everything in a wonderful spirit of endurance, a spirit of endurance that combined with a certain inner, inspired joy in absorbing the spiritual. And this spirit of endurance, combined with this inner joyfulness, warmed by a confidence in the life of the soul, on whatever plane in the future this soul life may unfold, all this was also found in the now deceased at her last sickbed in Stuttgart, where I found her in this state of mind and soul during my last visits. It is clear to you all that anyone who can in any way contribute to a person's recovery must do everything in their power to bring about that recovery; but you also all know how karma works and how it is sometimes simply impossible to achieve such a recovery. It was indeed painful to see only the future when one had the suffering woman before one in the last weeks. But her soul, which was also extraordinarily hopeful for the spiritual world, led her and those who had to do with her even in the last days beyond all that. And so we may say that in this soul, which left the physical plane with her, there lived here on earth one who had taken up anthroposophy in the true sense of the word – had taken it up in such a way that this anthroposophy was not just a theoretical world view, a satisfaction of the intellect or even a light satisfaction of the feelings, but was the whole content of her life, the certainty of her existence. And it was with this content of her life and with this certainty of her soul's existence that she left this physical plane. It is for us, especially for those of us who have gone through so many of the hours here in physical existence with her in the same spiritual striving, to turn our thoughts to her soul's existence. And that is what we want to do faithfully! She shall often find our thoughts united with her thoughts in the continuation of her existence in another realm, and she will always be a faithful companion of our spiritual striving, even in her further soul existence. We can be certain of that. And that we promise her this, that we want to powerfully direct our thoughts to her, as a sign of honor, we want to rise from our seats.

My dear friends!

In the first part of my lecture today, which I am very pleased to be able to give to you again during my journey, I would like to raise some points that may perhaps need to be discussed at some point. These points concern the change within our anthroposophical movement that is felt by many of you – and indeed more or less approvingly, but also negatively by some.

I am talking about such a change and I think that most of us feel this change. I will only briefly characterize some of this change, because I do not want to talk about it at length.

The older of our dear members look back to the times when Anthroposophy was cultivated in small groups — at least in smaller groups than it is now — merely, I would like to say, in the way that is appropriate for small groups that combine a certain need for knowledge with a religious need to strive for certain views about the spiritual world today. We have, and it is now a good two decades since in Berlin, repeatedly and repeatedly tried to esoterically deepen that which can be gained from today's conditions of the higher worlds of knowledge of spiritual life, based on the initial foundations that could be given years ago. And it is in the direction of this esoteric deepening that very many of our dear older members have found their deep satisfaction. It is fair to say that a kind of esotericism has gradually come to permeate everything, even the more public lectures. Regarding this esotericism that we have brought about, we can say, when we look at our branch life, that it has not been lost on us. This esotericism forms the basis of all branch life and has been cultivated in the branches as best as possible.

It seems to me that it would be unjustified for older members to feel dissatisfied with the progress and transformation of the anthroposophical movement because something else has been added to the original esoteric movement of the past – to what was distinctly esoteric in character. It has only been added, it has not been replaced. We may say that esotericism has not died out, but a further, different element has naturally entered into anthroposophical life. In order to gain a correct attitude towards this further, different element - regardless of whether we see in it something that we more or less accept or reject - we must say: we did not seek it, it more or less sought us. We must be clear about that. And just as we look with heartfelt, self-evident love at our esoteric element in the anthroposophical movement, so when it comes to relating this other element to our esotericism, we must not close our minds to the clear insight into what has very much entered the anthroposophical movement in recent times and taken its place alongside the esoteric. Do you not remember, I am addressing the older members among us, the small circles from which we started everywhere. At the beginning, the spread of our anthroposophical movement was also characterized by an esoteric element. It can be said that when anthroposophy was spread through the paths that were initially there for the wider public through the magazine “Lucifer - Gnosis”, this spread was also tainted with an esoteric character. Esoteric truths reached those who wanted to take note of them. Of course, one has to feel what was in the esoteric will of the time. But something gradually broke away from esotericism, which at first was basically not within our own control. At first, one might say, the matter went its own way, and within our ranks esotericism was further developed, which then took shape in the public lectures that were given. What was then there in a more or less - we may say - “finished state” developed and wanted something from us. It was not yet there in the time that preceded the war catastrophe; at that time it was only present in the very first traces in the very first beginnings. But it was already very strongly present when the catastrophe of the war entered into that stage which was present in about 1918. There was, so to speak, something present that had arisen without our direct participation, and it confronted us as something finished. And even if I can only characterize it with the degree of precision that is appropriate for a brief, sketchy description, I have to say that anthroposophy had penetrated into the most diverse circles of the world, especially into scientific circles. It had become known and had been judged, and people demanded “scientific justification” from anthroposophy. With this phenomenon, that something was simply there through the anthroposophical literature, which made demands that had to be met, something else was there at the same time: there were a number of younger scientists, and some older ones, who seriously examined anthroposophy from their scientific point of view and, from a wide variety of angles, gave certain parts of their world knowledge an anthroposophical character. Therefore, one can say: One is not at all in a position to answer the question: Is it now sympathetic or unsympathetic that the older, esoteric kind was joined by the newer one, which some perceive as perhaps “too” scientific, and that precisely this current, especially through the challenge of its opponents, has assumed an ever broader, public character. We cannot look at what has really come to us from outside with sympathies and antipathies, because it did not depend on us at all that it once stood there more or less ready. We can only say: the necessity arose to simply place anthroposophy in the scientific life of the present, which can be placed there without reservation, and which can fertilize and lead forward the highest scientific life of the present everywhere – leading it forward to those goals to which it must be led further.

It is from such a background that some older members, who were accustomed to attending the branch every week, may have heard something more or less esoteric there, as it then passed into our cycles, and they heard it in a language that is not yet permeated by science everywhere – even though it is a more durable language than the scientific language, I want to add this here in parenthesis -, some of the older members, who were accustomed to hearing in public lectures something different from what they heard in the branches, but still in a language that was extraordinarily familiar to their hearts and souls, because what was given there was only was only a kind of more exoteric continuation of what was done in the branches, it seemed to some of these older members when they came here or there, even if lectures on anthroposophy and perhaps even congresses or courses were held there, that anthroposophy no longer sounded the way it did years ago. For whereas in the past the spiritual substance lived more in what was expressed through the word, that spiritual substance that sinks directly into the soul through its spiritual power, something has now emerged that seeks to scientifically 'prove' and , which at every step maintains the thread of a strictly organized logic, which at every step also presents what the scientific achievements of the present give us as indications of what is sought through anthroposophy in the scientific sense. But all this was of no interest to those who in earlier years had expressed their longing for words shaped more substantially in a spiritual sense. So it came about that some of the older members had the feeling: Yes, what we are hearing now is not really what we are looking for. What we heard often in the past went straight to our souls. Now everything is being given a thousand different reasons, now everything is being presented in a way that suits the learned, the academic people – and not us!

In a sense, this is unjustified, because the branch life continued, and the esoteric lived alongside what appeared in such scientific aprons. And not everyone saw that it is simply a matter of time, that we simply cannot do otherwise than to anchor anthroposophy scientifically, that it has now been taken up by scientists and is also demanded by scientists. This is how the situation we are in today arose, which is actually more in the soul feelings of our dear membership than in the fact that it is always clearly presented to the soul from the outside. But anyone who takes a good look at the anthroposophical movement, which has grown considerably in recent times, will find that what I have just said is expressed everywhere in the moods, feelings and perceptions: many people think that we do not need all this evidence at all.

I do not want to talk today about the rather unpleasant character that the opposition has taken on in the present, but I do want to say that we are obliged to place anthroposophy on a firm basis in relation to those opponents who at least mean it to some extent honestly. This is also far too little considered within the anthroposophical movement. But let us take a somewhat objective view of the situation. Then, however, we are confronted with something today that we must be mindful of, and that can already be taken up as an impulse in our work. And that is actually why I am having this whole discussion today.

On the one hand, we have today what is available as our anthroposophical esoteric stream, as it is laid down in the cycles, as most of you carry it in your hearts, having absorbed it over the years. We have this anthroposophical spiritual movement with its inner life, with its inner strength, with its inner warmth – with everything that makes it a source of soul and life. And on the other hand, when we step out of the narrower circle of our branch of life, we have the representation of our anthroposophical movement, which, as I said, gives anthroposophy a scientific character everywhere, which does present anthroposophy to the world, but uses the thought forms and thought connections that are common in scientific life today. Thought forms and thought connections that are not right for a large number of our members because these members are of the opinion that they do not need all of this. I am not talking about the practical forms of anthroposophy, such as the medical-therapeutic efforts, but rather about what appears more or less as a teaching within the anthroposophical movement.

If we look at the matter objectively, on the one hand we have today everything that is more or less permeated by esotericism, and we find this expressed in the cycles; but it can also be found if those lectures that I am still allowed to give within smaller circles – since I also have to devote myself to the external life of the anthroposophical movement, as is my duty – are examined in this regard. We find it, for example, in the discussions of the Swiss assemblies, and those of our dear friends who have been to Dornach on one occasion or another will find that, in terms of inner esoteric development, what is usually presented there is not something that would not be the right continuation of the old branch and cycle life. This on the one hand.

On the other hand, something quite different, and it must be admitted that it is something quite different: you see how anthroposophy is formed from the concepts of modern physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, as they are science, or as they have emerged from history, pedagogy and so on, anthroposophy is formed in such a way that it can, as it were, present itself as a science alongside the other sciences that are taught at universities. In terms of the nature of the investiture, however, these two currents are very different from one another. Of course, what is spoken out of the spirit, which has been the sole ruling spirit until the last four to five years, is very different from what has now been placed alongside it, not instead of it. And only because — one would like to say, thank God! — our dear members also feel the duty to take part in everything anthroposophical — while, on the other hand, many are quite indifferent to chemistry and physics and all the other beautiful things that present-day science has — only because these other friends also go to these achievements, which are based on this ground, do those members then find that a character is emerging in the anthroposophical movement of which they believe they have no need, and which they believe is something that scholars can work out among themselves, but which does not belong in the whole breadth of the anthroposophical movement.

One could say that it might have been better – but this is not said in a conclusive sense – if one could have found a way out of the old esotericism into a wider dissemination in the same kind of language; for it is simply the case that anthroposophy must be accepted by today's world, by today's people, if the world is not to descend into decline. And so one could say: Oh, if only Anthroposophy had spread in a straight line from its esoteric beginnings!

Well, it was not like that. It was the case that in the course of this spread, one came up against what was brought to it scientifically and what was formed “underhand”, so to speak. So today we have these two currents side by side, they have them so side by side that one could say - even if this is a little radically expressed -: If someone who simply wanted to find out about anthroposophy was present at the [last] course here in Berlin, informed themselves there and perhaps observed some of what was presented quite critically within themselves, they might have the objection: What is being said may not be correct in their view, but it is said 'scientifically'. But if someone who was just listening from the outside to what was being said in the scientific sense could somehow come to a branch meeting where what is said in the cycles is presented, they would find a different world, a world that is quite different from what is found in the courses and congresses designed for the public. He could say: Out there, it seemed to me as if people might be going astray, but in there they have already gone completely mad!

If we want to look at the matter seriously, we must realize that there is still a deep gulf between what our esoteric work is in the branches and what we have to present to the world externally in many respects. It is the same inwardly, but there is a gulf between the two; and the fact that this gulf is really gaping is due to the fact that the matter was as I have described it: We initiated the spiritual anthroposophical movement out of the most heartfelt and sincere needs, and developed it in this way, but then something came from outside that now stands as a second current and has a scientific character.

The latter is not a direct continuation of the former, not even in the case of those who have come from their scientific studies to work on anthroposophy scientifically. For many of them, it has been the case that they have simply undergone scientific studies and, out of certain needs of the heart, have felt towards their other studies: There is something wrong in science. Then they came to anthroposophy and through it they changed their science. These are completely different paths from those that originally formed the anthroposophical branch. But these things are developing today in such a way that, when they go side by side and there are only a few really active co-workers, it is very easy for such a gulf to form. We simply have not yet had the opportunity to bridge this gulf.

My dear friends, there is a direct path from what is presented externally in a scientific form to the deepest esoteric! And if time and opportunity were given, it could, so to speak, begin with the external, even more scientific character of the one movement, and it could be continued down to the deepest depths of the esoteric life. But so far we have not been offered the time or opportunity to do so. Therefore, those who often approach our movement with the utmost seriousness find this inconsistent character: on the one hand, what is more set down in public literature; then they desire the cycles – and find something quite different. And as much as this bridge exists between the two in essence, it has not yet been created in fact today. Our active co-workers have simply had an enormous amount to do and work on in one movement or another, and so what should have been in between could not be put in the necessary way. This will have to be something that our work will have to take up again one day: This link between what no longer sounds like anthroposophy to many older members and what is outwardly alive in the congresses and courses today, and between what was there in the old branch work and the cycles.

And then there is this, which, in line with a pressing demand of the present, must be brought into the public sphere with the cycle work, so that – I would say – the two things can be placed directly next to each other. You have them standing side by side in the journal 'Die Drei', with which you are familiar, where one of my esoteric cycles has been printed over the course of many issues, sometimes alongside very scientifically written treatises; so that, for those who looked more deeply, the connection was there everywhere, but for those who looked at the different ways of speaking, things were juxtaposed that were fundamentally and deeply different from each other. To some extent, this does appear as something disharmonious in our anthroposophical movement today. We have no reason to relate to this disharmony other than to simply present it clearly to our souls — as clarity in all areas must be what is specifically intended for anthroposophical life. But one of the difficulties we face when we want to present anthroposophy to the world today — and it must be presented to the world because the world demands it — is that we have to present a kind of Janus face, so to speak. We encounter these difficulties everywhere. On the one hand, people read our philosophical and scientific treatises, on the other hand they read the more esoteric works, and thirdly they often read a more or less good combination of the two, and we simply have to be clear about the fact that much of what makes the work in the anthroposophical movement difficult comes from this. And it must also be part of our work to provide those with information when we believe that such information is appropriate: that it is connected with the historical development, that it is as I have characterized it. And in this regard, I would also appeal to the older members not to make things too difficult by acting in opposition to what they may not care about but which cannot be dispensed with in view of the demands that are being made on the anthroposophical movement today. One could even say: if one has gained an inner vision from the laws of the soul's development, which are quite justified and present, for example, from some historical phenomenon, and if one then hears how today our dear younger members – not on the paths by which some older members have gained an inner vision, I might say, as if 'flying' to the point of convincing power, but start with things that are of little interest to many older members: with the elements of physics or even with the elements of mathematics, and then move from these elements through strictly drawn logical conclusions to things that are again of little interest to those who already have the matter, and then do it again and again - and in this way, to a more or less expressed form of what the other person already knows through his quick intuitive way, then many feel as if they are where the deepest secrets of existence have been grasped at a certain level, and now someone comes along, climbs a ladder, then past the things and then back down. Many older members certainly feel these logical climbing skills. But the fact is that these older members should show understanding for the demands of the times and know that this cannot be otherwise, and that we are simply faced with an ironclad necessity.

That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to put before you today, to express to you that there is no will — not in the slightest — to leave the old esoteric paths in the old anthroposophical movement. There is no question of that. The only thing that can be said is that we have been confronted with demands of our time, and so, as much as possible, the esoteric foundations of our anthroposophical movement must of course continue to be cultivated, for there must be a number of personalities today who are so strongly connected with spiritual life that they can achieve what otherwise could only be achieved by mental crocheting — not Haeckel, the naturalist, is meant by this — with a simple beating of the thread. Of course, it can be quite uncomfortable to do this mental crocheting, but it has to be done because, according to their general view, our time has arrived at this mental crocheting. But some people, who have been directly involved in weaving threads from their hearts and their innermost spiritual understanding, must know that the time has come when a wave of spiritual life is breaking into this earthly life from the spiritual world and must be grasped by people as a wave of spiritual life.

I have mentioned before that the period up to the last third of the nineteenth century was actually the time when the intellect of civilized humanity grew stronger. Great intellectual achievements based on the results of natural science were built up in the last few centuries. But with the twentieth century, only the legacy of this intellectual civilization remains, and there is no prospect at all that humanity will progress from the twentieth century into the following centuries by intellectual means, just as it progressed from the preceding centuries into the twentieth century. The intellect continues as it was, but it can no longer be the continuing force in the overall development of human thought. The continuing force is the spiritual life, which has broken into our earthly life as if through special gates.

Now perhaps some will say: Yes, you are talking about the intellect only continuing to live at the level at which it was already, and that the spiritual has broken into earthly existence; but we do not see this spiritual life, the intellect is certainly cultivated, but one sees nothing of the spiritual. I would like to say: So much the worse!

The spiritual is there nevertheless, although people do not see it; it can be found everywhere if one wants to find it. And that is the bad thing: that people do not want to find it, that they close their eyes to it, that they do not open their hearts to it! That is the terrible thing, that must be overcome: that today is already the time when the spiritual life can be grasped just as the intellectual was grasped from the Copernican-Galilean time on, but that people turn away from this spiritual life! But anyone who can turn their spiritual gaze to the spiritual life will see it flowing into our human life everywhere. However, this spiritual life is not yet being taken up, and so we have a desolate, merely inherited intellect. For in reality, the intellect has not advanced further; it is only being carried on in its old form.

While this is the outward appearance of the case, an event of the greatest importance is actually taking place within. I have described some aspects of this event again and again in our branch lectures. Today, I would like to summarize and present some additional information.

If we now consider ourselves as physical human beings, we live here on earth within the forms of existence that older people called “elements”: earth, water, air, fire. Today we speak of the solid material, the liquid material, the gaseous material and the warm etheric. Our organism is woven from this fourfold materiality, as is everything that our organism moves towards between birth and death. Today's man looks at this materiality, forms his world view through his lawful perception of this materiality, which is essentially an external scientific one, even if ancient religious traditions play into today's concepts. But this materiality is based on spiritual beings. The earthly solid is based on spiritual entities from the sphere of the elementary spirits, older intuitive clairvoyance called them “gnomes” and the like. Today's intellectualism regards this as fantasy. What we call them is unimportant, but underlying all that is solid on earth lies a world of spiritual elemental beings who, I might say, in their physicality, invisible to human senses, have a greater degree of intellect, of pure rationality, than we humans have ourselves and who are extremely clever compared to us humans, clever to the point of cunning, clever to the point of speculation, clever to the point of the shrewd foreknowledge of that which always gets in the way of man in the work he does based on his lesser intellectuality. Underlying all earthly solid matter is a world of elemental beings that are truly extraordinarily clever, and whose cleverness is the fundamental character of their being.

And underlying everything that is liquid, watery, is a world of elemental beings that have developed to a particularly strong degree what we humans – on the one hand somewhat more robustly, on the other hand somewhat more neutrally – spiritual elementary beings, which have a sensitive feeling, a feeling that lives into the finest nuances of sensation, that everywhere relives that which people only feel externally. For example, we look at the trees in the forest with our eyes; at most, we feel when we approach the forest or are inside it, how the wind, shaking something, rushes through us, but otherwise we only see the trees moved by the wind; on the other hand, we see, for example, the sun's rays shining. Our perception is relatively coarse compared to that of all beings that belong to the watery liquid element and permeate and flow through it, that go along with all the movements that the tree branches perform in the wind, that move with the clouds, that experience the condensation of water droplets in the clouds, experience the dissolution of water droplets as they evaporate, solidify in the solidifying ice, lose themselves in the vastness as the evaporating water does – and emotionally participate in all of this. This is a second kind of elemental being that populates our earth just as we ourselves and plants and animals populate the earth.

We then have a third kind of elemental being in the airy element, these are the beings that have developed to an intense degree that which lives in our will, which have developed this will to such a strength that this will lives in them as 'will', then becomes outwardly visible as a natural force. We finally have a fourth kind of elemental being, the warmth or fire beings, which have developed that which we carry within us as the power of our self-awareness, as the power of our ego; at the same time, they are the beings that live in all that has a destructive effect within nature. And when we see, for example, how in spring the elemental beings mentioned first look out of the natural phenomena everywhere, with a real clairvoyance based on exact foundations, we see how the fire beings are active in all the destruction of autumn, yes, are most active when what they accomplish is expressed outwardly in cold snow and ice, as in its opposite.

The elemental spirits live in the elements, we are surrounded by them, they are just as present in earthly existence as we ourselves are. These elemental spirits want something. These elemental spirits are not as unfeeling, as stubborn, as closed to the incoming spiritual wave in our age as people often are. People only want to persist in observing the sensual and in thinking about the intellectual aspects of this spiritual world, which underlies the natural elements. These elemental spirits do not close their eyes to the spiritual waves breaking into the earthly, which are everywhere today, to the spirituality that wants to come in. And when I said, for example, that the elemental spirits of the earthly firmament are preferably shrewd and even intellectual, it is only natural that they have no sympathy for a spiritual wave entering the present day. But even if they have no particular sympathy, they do pay attention! They notice that this spirituality is breaking in today and that it carries on its waves a truly deepened knowledge of Christ, a truly deepened knowledge of the mystery of Golgotha. Even the clever beings of the earthly kingdom can see that. But they decide: if people remain stubborn towards the incoming spiritual world, then we will do our part, which would have been futile so far. For in the period from the fifteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, when people mainly developed their intellect, the gnome-like intellectual spirits of the solid, earthly realm could not do anything special, so to speak! They could use their cunning to peek into the earthly world here and there; and those who have perceptions of this peeking know this. But now that humanity is to meet the spirituality that wants to enter, the time has come when the intellect, having fallen into corruption, is only passed down as an inheritance and no longer has any fruitful suggestions - for the intellect decays over time, and if you look at it impartially, you can see it everywhere; if you compare today's scientific work with that of forty years ago in terms of the intellect that prevails in science, one can already speak of the decline of the intellect. Now the time has come when the other beings, who are there just as we humans are, by becoming aware of the incoming spiritual wave, say to themselves:

Now is our time, now we will do something! And they will decide, if people do not do their part, to put all their cleverness and intellectuality at the disposal of the Ahrimanic powers, so that Ahriman will become powerful over an enormous host of elemental beings that inhabit the earth. And these beings, who thus have intellect at their disposal, will be joined by other elemental beings, because man, in turn, will be influenced by the elemental beings, so that the danger of humanity becoming ahrimanized is present. This is a somewhat radical statement, but it is nevertheless a truth.

Forty years ago, if you looked at a person in terms of how they used their intellect intellectually, the person who made the training of the intellect his profession was active in his intellectual training. The human being was there. There were really great minds there, minds that were active; in the schools, minds were there that one could rejoice at the activity of the intellect. Today it is not so, and people seem as if the mind had moved a little deeper, and as if they were producing the mind as a mechanism. One feels how people speak in intellectual terms, but as if the mind were not even involved. There are some very simple phrases that you come across. The further west you go, the worse it is, but it is already taking hold in Germany. If someone writes a sentence and doesn't put the predicate where it is supposed to be for whatever reason, it is stylistically incorrect; and if you go to France, everything is already stylistically incorrect because the language has already become stereotyped. In Germany, you can still turn your sentences around to get different possibilities of expression, but in France people are gradually getting out of the habit of doing that. In the East – Bolshevism wanted to get rid of it, but it will make itself felt again – there is still a certain flexibility in the language. But in general, this flexibility decreases with civilization. It is especially the case with younger people that they talk like mechanisms. They start – forty years ago it would have been interesting to pay attention to how they would continue to talk – but today we already know it, we are no longer interested; they talk like clockwork. There has been – we can see it today, but we want to close our eyes to it – a certain calcification of people, even literally, so that the intellect has indeed slipped down. But Ahriman takes him in. He cannot work through the nervous-sensory system as humans do, but he works through the elemental spirits. What the brains and etheric bodies are for us, the elemental spirits are for Ahriman; he waits until they place themselves at his disposal. But he has them as his brain and as his heart, which has become a leather bag. It is the case that the elemental spirits place themselves at the disposal of the Ahrimanic powers. That is one side of it.

But if we look at the world externally, spatially and temporally, then we have, in addition to these elemental spirits, another world: the etheric world. We must preferably look down at the solid earth, at what surrounds and storms around this solid earth, flows around and flows around it as the water sphere, as the air sphere, which permeates and permeates it as warmth. We must preferably look down and straight ahead if we want to look at these kinds of elemental beings. But we must preferably look into the distance, that is, upwards. After all, warmth still belongs to the earthly, but above the warmth ether lie the light ether and the chemical ether. We must look into the distance if we want to look at the etheric. And when we look at the liquid and the elemental spirits on which it is based, we find a teeming population of individuals that clearly appear to us as single beings; there the number dominates. It is, so to speak, the world of the elemental realms populated by immeasurable elemental beings. But when we look at the ethereal world, there is more than one unit of spirituality living there. In the light ether, we can no longer distinguish the individual elemental spirits from one another, as we can in the air or water element or even in the earthly element. In the earthly element, it is the case that you go out into certain forests, track down some gnome's nest, and - you might say - thousands and thousands of elemental beings can be enclosed in a small globe, and then you are standing in front of a multitude. You have only a small ball in your hand and it is teeming with what it counts. There is the number, there is the teeming, that which forces us to count and which makes us admit that we cannot count at all because it is immeasurable and because every number is immediately exceeded. And of the one who has a spiritual vision, you can not say that he “miscalculates”. You can not distinguish what is there sooner or later; You think you have counted five, and see that you actually had to count eleven. But the six were not added, they were already there. The teeming of the number prevails. But in the etheric everything converges to a unity. Even in the light ether, the elementary beings form a unity. This is even more the case in the chemical ether, and it is completely the case in the life ether. And it was from this feeling that the idea contained in the idea of Yahweh was once formed, the idea of the one God Jehovah. This is the being that is unspokenly connected and composed of the many individual beings and that animates the ether, just as the many elementary beings animate the ether.

But just as when man disregards the irruption of spirituality into our time, then the world of the lower elementary beings connects with the Ahrimanic beings that are hostile to human development, so the luciferic If the forces of Lucifer, which can take hold of everything that is human will and feeling, combine with the ahrimanic beings that are hostile to human development, then these forces of Lucifer will snatch this element from the air and water beings and, as beings of Lucifer, will carry it into the ether.

Only with the help of human beings can the power of the unified God-being, which once designated a past time with the name Jehovah, be preserved in the ether. If people do not pick up the spiritual wave, then the being that appeared as Jehovah as the cohesive spiritual being will have to retreat from the onslaught of Lucifer, who rips the light beings, the chemical beings and the life beings out of the power of Jehovah. And from what I have described, a combined rule over the earthly of Ahriman and Lucifer would arise.

The only way to escape this is for people to gain a new understanding of Christ, a new understanding of the mystery of Golgotha, through the incoming spiritual wave. For the intellect would not die as a result; it would not develop further as intellect, but it would be enlivened by spirituality. It would come out of dead abstraction to a certain inner life. On the other hand, that which lives in human emotions and human instincts would not be taken up by an abstract unity in the etheric realm; it could not become Luciferic. We need a new understanding of Christ, a new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And we will also come to the right realization of how we need this if we properly consider what is threatening to occur as another grouping in the universe, as another grouping of elemental and etheric beings. Yes, one can really already perceive how, on the one hand, the intellect wants to descend to the Ahrimanic, to the lower elemental beings. On the other hand, it is clearly perceptible how today there is a certain tendency to move away from the actual Christ-being and to immerse oneself in that etheric unity, so that through this immersion, precisely through the denial of the Christ principle, something Luciferic is absorbed.

This, my dear friends, can be clearly seen, and I have actually spoken of this perception here several times. We see how an actual conception of Christ is fading, especially in newer theology. We see how, according to the view of the modern theologian - one need only recall Harnack's 'Essence of Christianity', for example - for many modern theologians Christ is actually denied. “The Son does not belong in the Gospel,” says Harnack, ‘only the Father.’ It could therefore be said that there is no longer any real concept of Christ, only of the one God. There is no longer any awareness of how the Son differs from the Father. It is like a return to the Old Testament and an obliteration of the New Testament. But this is the way to penetrate to the ethereal unity without warming it with the Christ impulse. In short, one sees everywhere how people often unsuspectingly expose themselves to the forces that draw their powers from the ethereal spirits on the one hand and from the elemental spirits on the other.

If, however, people not only find the same ego, the same self-awareness that they have carried up into the spiritual world through the centuries and millennia, but if they are able to gain a stronger hold within themselves through which they can absorb the Christ impulse, and if this stronger self were to develop only as such, it would degenerate into boundless egoism. It is precisely this self, as it grows stronger, that must develop the sense of what Paul meant by the words, “Not I, but the Christ in me!” When the Christ is in this self that has become strong, then humanity will find ways to prevent this regrouping and allow the earth to develop in the right way. Today, if I may express myself so, one must look behind the scenes of existence, where that takes place that remains unconscious to man, if one wants to see how man depends on holding on to the spiritual wave that brings him what he needs to can continue the God- and Christ-intended earthly nature; while if he does not accept this spiritual wave, something else would be formed out of the earth through the intervention of the ahrimanic and elemental beings together with the etheric beings, other than what should come of it. And man would be diverted from his path, for his cosmic destiny and the cosmic destiny of the earth are necessarily connected with each other.

Today, outer scientific life, outer science, is not enough. It can certainly be translated into the anthroposophical, indeed, it will only attain its true thoughts by being translated into the anthroposophical. And much can be achieved by speaking anthroposophically, and not in the external, hypothetical, materializing sense, for example, of the composition of hydrogen and oxygen to form water and of the other physical and other phenomena. But however necessary this may be to correct our increasingly false and erroneous views of the external world, it is all the more necessary, on the other hand, not only to talk about “solid quartz” on earth , of the “solid calcite” and other solids or of various watery substances and of the airy substances, but that we talk about the spiritual beings that we have with the substances and in the substances everywhere. We need not only a physics or a chemistry, but we need a doctrine of the social life of the elemental spirits, of the social life of the ethereal spirits; we need a view of the spiritual life of the world, which is indeed concrete.

But as long as there is a doctrine that only wants to prove that there is no spiritual world at all, an insurmountable barrier has been erected between the world where man is on one side and the Luciferic and Ahrimanic on the other, and that world where man can only form the real tasks of humanity today out of knowledge, including elementary and etheric beings. We must look beyond the exoteric for esoteric wisdom. We must not only ask ourselves about the attractions and repulsions of matter, we must ask ourselves about the cleverness of the elementary spirits of the earthy, about the fine sensitivity of the elementary spirits of the watery, about the will impulses of the elementary spirits of the airy, about the elementary spirits of fire or warmth that permeate everything with egoity; we must penetrate ourselves with the peculiar qualities of the spirits of light and warmth, which in their turn relate partly helpfully and partly antagonistically to the elemental spirits of air, and thus create a balance between them, where we can see an interaction between the spirits of light that have become more air-like and the air spirits that have become more light-like. Here we have the possibility of looking into the evolution of a cosmic body, which I was able to describe in my 'Occult Science' as 'Jupiter'. We must look into the spiritual evolution of the world, in a way quite different from the way in which physical science looks into the evolution of the world today. Here we enter, indeed, a sphere in which the conceptions that men have today about the spiritual must be essentially broadened. This view of the spirit must become familiar to people, as familiar as what they know today of the physical-sensual world. Humanity must learn to think about the relationship of the elemental and etheric spirits to humanity and about the coming of the spiritual wave, which can bring the relationship of the two into the right and necessary relationship for people. We can only speak correctly about the relationship of these beings, about the part they have in an earth that is suitable for people, as well as about the part they would have if the earth were to perish with humanity, if we show understanding for the spiritual wave that is about to break into human civilization and cultural development.

To have ears for what is bursting in, to have eyes, eyes of the soul, to see what is shining in and streaming in and radiating in from supersensible worlds into the sensory worlds for the perception of those beings who, in the world of sense, can see the supersensible if they want to – like human beings – to have an appreciation of these facts, that is what esoteric anthroposophy would like to inspire in those who come together for it.

That, my dear friends, is what I was allowed to present to your souls today, and in doing so I wanted to encourage you again in your souls to study the spiritual world as it may be proclaimed today. Depending on your karma, when the time is right, you will also find a living connection to this spiritual world more and more.

and more, if you do not shy away from taking on board, with confidence – but with a confidence that is based on knowledge, not on authority – what can be extracted from the spiritual world in terms of the highest truths,

It is easy to see how the conceptions of spiritual science that have been voiced for some years within our circle, and in the German section generally, are spreading more and more in the world, that understanding of them is beginning to find its way into the hearts and souls of our contemporaries. It is naturally not possible, although it might be a help to present day understanding, to speak casually of introducing the ideas, feelings, and knowledge of our spiritual movement into the modern world. Many of you might be glad to know how the spiritual nourishment you have received has affected other souls at the present time. It is only on certain occasions that we can speak of the spread of our spiritual ideas, but it may fill you with a certain satisfaction to know that we can see again and again how in different countries and in different hemispheres the spirit which inspires us is gaining a footing—more in one place, less in another. When I was in Triest a short time ago trying to arouse some comprehension of our point of view, I could see how the ideas we hold were gaining ground. And when from that southern city I passed northwards to Copenhagen, where, in a recent course of lectures, I tried to arouse some interest in the hearts of my hearers, it could be seen there also how the spirit we cherish under the symbol of the Rosy Cross is entering into them more and more. Taking together these separate facts one sees that a need and a longing for what we call “spiritual science” does exist at the present time.

That we should not carry on any agitation or propaganda is a fundamental principle of our spiritual movement; we should rather listen attentively to what of the great wisdom of the world the hearts and souls of the men of to-day required, so that they may have both the possibility and the certainty of life. We may therefore add to the thoughts put forward in a general lecture like this, one more—that we consider it a kind of duty at the present time to make of these spiritual. thoughts nourishment for other souls. This depends upon the whole manner in which we enter into the life of our time.

You have doubtless already accepted sufficient of the great law of Karma to know that it is not a matter of chance when an individual feels constrained at a certain point of time to assume a physical body and come down in the physical world. All the souls gathered here have felt a longing to assume a physical body at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because they desired to experience in their own souls all that was being prepared and carried out in their physical environment at this time.

Let us now consider our own age as it appears spiritually to souls, which, like our own, are born in it. Things were very different in the spiritual world, as well as in the external world, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to what they were even fifty or sixty years earlier.

The person who is making progress—and you are all in this position—is trying to learn something of the spirit, and of the spiritual guidance of the world; of what fills surrounding space as the creatures of the different kingdoms of nature, and of what enters into our own souls. For the past half century souls longing for the spirit found extraordinarily little true spiritual nourishment where they hoped to find it. This longing for the spirit exists deep within the souls of all men, it is easily silenced for it does not speak loudly, but the longing is there, and each one whatever he is, or does in life, can receive true spiritual nourishment. Whatever department of science people take up to-day, they only learn from it external material facts which serve to further the progress of civilisation in a bright and clever way, but they learn nothing of what is revealed to man through the spirit. Whether he works as an artist or in some practical walk of life he finds little of what he has need, nothing that can enter his soul, his head, or his hands, to give him power and impulse for his work, and also assurance, solace, and power in life. At the beginning of the nineteenth century people had already come to the conclusion that in the near future little of this would be found. Many a one said to himself in the first half of the nineteenth century when some remnants of the old life still remained even if in another form:—“There seems to be something in the air; it is as if the ancient treasures of the spirit that have come down to us from olden times were disappearing. It is as if the expected advance in culture of the nineteenth century had entirely wiped out the spiritual communications that have been handed down to us from ancient times.” Many such voices were,heard,in the first half of the nineteenth century. To show what I mean I will mention but one example. There was a man living at that time who knew the old kind of Theosophy well; he knew also that this old form would completely disappear in the course of the nineteenth century, yet he was firmly convinced that a future was coming when the old Theosophy would surely return. The passage I am about to read was written in the year 1847, when the first half of the nineteenth century was drawing to a close. He who wrote it was a thinker such as is no longer met with to-day, for he was still conscious of the last echoes of those ancient communications which have long since been lost to us:—

What Theosophy really desires is often difficult to discover from the older theosophists, and this is even less clear to-day, because on its present path theosophy can attain to no scientific existence, and therefore cannot have any great results. It would be most premature to conclude from this that it is a passing phenomenon without scientific justification. History loudly proclaims the opposite. It tells how it can never get to the bottom of this mysterious phenomenon which breaks out unnoticed again and again, and whose changing forms are preserved by the links of a never-dying tradition. At all times there has really been little that has connected this vital, speculative need, with vital religious needs. It is only for these last that theosophy exists. The main thing is, if it might one day become really scientific, and produce clearly defined results, so that it would become popular and come to be accepted generally, and in this way bequeath these truths to others who are unable to travel the path on which alone they could discover them for themselves. But all this rests within the womb of the future which we have no wish to anticipate; for the present we are thankful for the beautiful writings of Oetinger, which can certainly reckon on a large circle of sympathisers.¹

From this we see how the theosophic spirit was regarded in 1847 by a man like Richard Rothe of Heidelberg.

What kind of spirit is the theosophic spirit really?

It is a spirit without which true culture would never have taken place. When we think of what is greatest in this, we think of the spirit without which there would have been no Homer, no Pindar, Raphael or Michelangelo, without which there would have been no deep religious feeling in man; neither spiritual life nor external culture. Everything a man creates must be created by the spirit; if he thinks he can produce anything without it, he is unaware that his whole spiritual endeavour would in that case fail for a certain time. The less spiritual the source from which anything comes the sooner it dies. Anything having enduring worth must have its source in spirit. The smallest creative act, even in everyday concerns, has an eternal value and connects us with what is eternal; for everything done by man is under the guidance of spiritual life. We know that theosophical life as cultivated by us is founded in Rosicrucianism, and it has often been explained that since the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Masters of Rosicrucian wisdom had been preparing what has come to pass since the end of the nineteenth century and will go on further into the twentieth. What was indicated by Rothe as a “future” he hoped and longed for, has already become “present” for us to-day, and will continue to become so more and more. This had long been in preparation by those who allowed this spiritual influence to pour, at first unconsciously, into mankind.

What in a special sense we have called the “Rosicrucian path” has been consciously accepted within our theosophical movement since the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and what the spirit has imprinted as science on the people of Europe, has since then flowed into our hearts.

Can we form an idea from what has taken place in our civilisation of how this spirit works?

I have said that since the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it has “worked” as the true Rosicrucian spirit, but it was always there, and has only assumed this last form since the dates mentioned. This spirit that is active at present as the Rosicrucian spirit goes back to very early ages of humanity. Its mysteries existed in Atlantis. The activity it has recently developed, becoming ever more and more conscious, streamed not so very long ago in an unconscious way into the hearts and souls of men. Let us try to form some idea of how this spirit entered man unconsciously.

We meet together here, and our studies show us how the human soul has developed in this or that, till it has gradually attained to a region where it understands spiritual life, where it may even perhaps see spiritual life. Many of you have striven for years to fill your souls with thoughts and ideas which can set the spiritual life before your eyes. You know the way we regard the secrets of the world. I have often explained the different stages of development the soul passes through, and how it rises to higher worlds. You know that we have to distinguish a higher from a lower part of the self; that man has come over from other planetary conditions and has experienced the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions. During these his physical body, etheric body and astral body were formed; he then entered on his earthly development. You know that something dwells within us that passes through its training here so as to rise to higher conditions. You have heard that certain Beings remained behind on the Moon as Luciferic Beings, and these later approached the human astral body as tempters, giving to humanity in this way what they had to give. Then we have often spoken of how man has to overcome certain things in his lower self, that he has to conquer them before he can enter those spheres to which his higher self belongs—that in order to reach these higher regions he has to fulfil the saying of Goethe:—

Und so lang du das nicht hast
Dieses Stirb und Werde,
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde.

“So long as thou hast not experienced death and becoming, thou art a gloomy (sorry) Guest upon a dark earth.”

We have also said that the human evolution possible to-day, and that can give us power, certainty, and real content in our lives, is only to be attained when we learn, for instance, of the manifold natures of man, and that this man is not put together in any chaotic manner, but consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. This must not be accepted merely as words, but by describing different temperaments, by studying the education of man, we have presented clear conceptions of these things, showing how up to his seventh year he is concerned with the development of the physical body, up to his fourteenth year with that of the etheric body, and up to his twenty-first year with the astral body. And we learnt from our studies dealing with the mission of truth, of devotion, of anger and so on that what we describe as physical body, etheric body, and astral body, feeling-soul, rational-soul and consciousness-soul are no abstract ideas, but that they impart life to our whole mental outlook, making everything around as clear and full of meaning.²

It is possible by such ideas to gain understanding of the secrets of the world. And if there are many who consciously or unconsciously persist in their materialistic opinions, there is also a certain number of souls who feel it as a necessity of existence to listen to such statements as we are able to give. Many of you would not have shared in what has been practised herefor years if it were not a necessity of your life. Why are there souls present to-day who understand the views and ideas evolved here, and who conduct their lives in accordance with them? Because, as you have been born into the world with longings such as I have described, so your forefathers (which means many souls present here to-day) were born in past centuries into other surroundings and into another world than that of the nineteenth century. Let us look backwards to the sixth and seventh, or to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when many who are here now were incarnated, and let us see what these souls experienced at that time.

There was no theosophical society in those days where people discussed things as we do here, but souls then heard something quite different from the people about them. Let me try to call up before you what these souls heard. They did not travel from place to place in order to hear lectures on spiritual science, but they heard rhapsodists who passed from village to village, from place to place, declaring things concerning the spirit. What did these people say? Let us recall a single instance of this. People did not then say:—“We have a Theosophy, a teaching concerning the lower and higher ego, that deals with the different members of man's Being and so on,” but rhapsodists travelled through the land, men who were called by the spirit to declare somewhat as follows:—(I am now repeating some of the things that were spread abroad through Middle and Eastern Europe at that time).

There was once a king's son. He rode forth and came presently to a deep ditch, he heard moaning proceedi.ng from it. He followed the course of the ditch to discover the cause of the moaning, and there he found an old woman. He left his horse, descended into the ditch, and helped the old woman out. He then saw that she could not walk for she had injured her leg, so he asked her how this accident had come about. She then told him:—I am an old woman and I must rise early soon after midnight in order to go to the town to sell eggs. On the way I fell into this ditch.” The king's son said:—“Thou canst” not now reach thine own dwelling. I will set thee on my horse and take thee there.” This he did. The old woman said:—“Although of noble birth thou art a kind and good man, and because thou hast helped me, thou shalt receive a reward from me.” He now guessed that she was something more than an old woman. Then she said:—“Because of the kindness thou hast shown me thou shalt receive the reward that thy good soul deserves. Dost thou desire to marry the daughter of the Flower-Queen?” “Yes,” he said. Then, she continued:—“To do so thou hast need of what I can easily give thee.” And she gave him a little bell, saying:—“When this is rung once the king-eagle will come with his hosts to help thee, whatever the position in which thou mayst be, when thou ringest twice the king of the foxes with his pack will come to help thee, wherever thou art, and if thou ringest thrice the king of the fishes will come with his hosts and will help thee wherever thou art.”

The king's son took the little bell and returned home and said that he was going to seek the daughter of the flower-queen, and rode forth. He rode a long, long time and no one could tell him where the daughter of the flower-queen dwelt. His horse was by this time worn out and broken down, so that he had to pursue his wanderings on foot. He met an old man and asked him where the dwelling of the flower-queen's daughter was. “I cannot tell thee,” said the old man, “go on further and ever further, and thou wilt find my father, and he will perhaps tell thee.” So the king's son went on further, and at last found a very ancient primeval man of whom he asked if he could tell him where the flower-queen dwelt with her daughter. Then the old man said to him:—“The flower-queen dwells afar in a mountain that thou canst see in the distance from here. She is, however, watched over by a savage dragon. Thou canst not reach her, for the dragon never sleeps in these days; there is only a certain time in which he sleeps, and this is his waking time. But thou must go still further to another mountain, there lives the dragon's mother. Through her thou will reach thy goal.” Courageously he went on. He reached the first mountain, then the second mountain; there he found the dragon's mother, the archetype of all ugliness. But he knew it depended on her whether he would find the daughter of the flower-queen or not. He then saw near the first, seven other dragons who all desired to watch over the flower-queen and her daughter, who had long been held prisoners and who were to be liberated by a king's son. He said to the dragon's mother:—“O, I know that I must be thy bondsman if I am to find the flower-queen!” “Yes,” she answered, “thou must be my bondsman,” and thou must do me a service that is not easy. Here is a horse, thou must lead him out to pasture the first day, the second and the third day. If thou bringst him home safe then on the third day perhaps thou mayst attain thy desire. But if thou doest not bring him safe home the dragon will eat thee—we shall all eat thee.” The next morning he was given the horse. He tried to lead it to the pasture, but soon the horse escaped from him. He sought it but could not find it, and was most unhappy. He remembered the little bell the old woman had given him. He drew it forth and rang it once. Then many eagles appeared led by the king-eagle. They found the horse, and he was able to lead it back to the mother dragon. She said:—“Because thou hast brought it back I will give thee a mantle of copper; with it thou canst take part in the ball that is to be given tonight in the circles of the flower-queen and her daughter.”

On the second day he was again to take the horse to the meadow. It was given to him, but soon it escaped again, and nowhere could he find it So he drew forth the little bell again and rang it twice. Immediately the king of the foxes appeared with a large following. They found the horse, and he was able to restore it to the dragon's mother. She then said to him:—“To-day thou shalt receive a silver mantle with which thou canst again attend the ball that takes place tonight in the circle of the flower-queen and her daughter.” At the ball the flower-queen's daughter said to him:—“Demand on the third day a number of these horses, with them thou canst rescue us and we shall be united.” On the third day the horse was again handed over to him so that he could take it to the pastures. At once it escaped again, for it was very wild. He drew forth his little bell and rang it three times. The fish-king then appeared with his following. They found the horse and he took it back a third time. He had successfully performed his task. The dragon mother then gave him as recompense a mantle of gold as his third covering; with it he could take part on the third day at the ball at the flower-queen's dwelling. Besides this he was able to bring as a fitting present to her those horses that he had taken care of. With them he could carry the flower-queen and her daughter to their own fortress. And round this fortress which all the others wished to steal from her they allowed a thick hedge of bushes to grow so that the fortress could not be taken.

Then the flower-queen said to the king's son:—“Thou bast won my daughter, thou shalt have her by and by, but only on one condition. Thou shalt only have her for half the year, the other half she must withdraw from the surface of the earth so that she may be with me; only thus is it possible for thee to be united with her.”

In this way he won the daughter of the flower-queen and lived with her always for half the year; during the other half she was with her mother. This and other stories entered into very many souls. They listened to them, but did not interpret them allegorically after the manner of the strange theosophists of recent times; for these things have no value as symbolic or allegoric statements. No! people accepted them because they found pleasure and joy in them, they felt warm life flow through their souls when they listened to such tales.

There are many souls living now who heard such tales and accepted them with joy. And when received in this way they continued to live within these souls, they turned into thought-forms, into feelings and perceptions, thus they became something different than they were before. This produced results, it imparted powers to such souls, and these powers were changed, they were transformed into something else. Into what were they changed?

They were changed into that which lives in men's souls to-day as longing for a higher elucidation of these same secrets, a longing for theosophy. The rhapsodist did not tell of people who strove towards their higher self, and to attain it must conquer the lower self which held them down, but they told of a king's son who, as he rode forth through the world, found an old woman in distress, and did a good and kindly deed! To-day, we say:—People must do good deeds, deeds of love and sacrifice. At that time men spoke in images. To-day we say:—Men must feel within such sympathy for the spirit that they divine something of the spiritual world, something that connects them with it, and enables them to develop forces that can put them in touch with it. In earlier times men were told in parables of the old woman who gave the king's son a bell. To-day they are told:—Man has taken all the other kingdoms of nature into himself, what lives scattered in them is united harmoniously in him. But he must understand how something lives in him which lives in all surrounding nature, that he can only overcome his lower nature when this is brought into right relationship with himself so that it can help him.

We have often spoken of the evolution of man through the Saturn, Sun and Moon epochs, how he left the other kingdoms of nature behind him, retaining the best out of each, so that he might rise to something higher. By what means has he evolved? By means of that which Plato uses as a symbol—the horse; on this he rides forward from incarnation to incarnation. At that time the image of the bell was used; it was rung to summon the kingdoms of nature through their representatives—the Eagle-king, Fox-king, and Fish-king—so that he who was to become the ruler of these kingdoms might be brought into right relationship with them.

The soul of man is untamed, and only when love and wisdom control it is it brought into the right relationship. At one time this was brought to man's notice in pictures; his soul was guided so that he could understand what to-day is told us differently. At that time he was told:—When you ring the bell once the Eagle-king comes, when you ring it twice the Fox-king comes, and when you ring it three times the Fish-king; these brought back the horse. This means the storms which rage in the human soul must be recognised, and when we recognise them we can free it from the lower disturbances and bring it into order.

Man must learn to know how his own passions, anger and so on, are connected with his development from one seven years to another seven; he must learn to know the threefold nature of the human sheaths. In former days we were presented with a wonderful picture. Every time the king's son rang the bell (that is when by his own power he had subdued one of the kingdoms) he acquired a covering, a sheath.

To-day we say:—We study the nature of the physical body; at that time an image was used, the dragon-mother gave the man a mantle of copper. To-day we say:—We study the nature of our etheric body; then it was said:—The dragon-mother gave him a silver mantle. Again we say:—We learn to know our astral body with all its surging passions. At that time they said:—The dragon-mother gave him on the third day a golden mantle.

What we learn to-day concerning the threefold sheath-nature of man was brought to people at an earlier day through the image of the copper, silver, and golden mantles. And to the souls that then received the thought-form of the copper, silver, and golden mantles, we say to-day:—What brings you understanding of the dense physical body, is related to the other bodies as copper ore is to silver and gold. To-day we say:—Backward Luciferic Beings of seven different kinds remained behind on the moon and worked upon the human astral body. The rhapsodists said:—When the king's son came to the mountain where he was to be united with the flower-queen's daughter, he met seven dragons who would have devoured him if he had not accomplished his day's task. We know that if our evolution is not carried out aright it is owing to the power of the seven different kinds of Luciferic Beings. To-day we say:—In carrying out our spiritual development we find our higher self. Formerly, people were presented with a picture. The king's son they were told united himself with the flower-queen's daughter. We say:—The human soul must attain to a certain rhythm.

In one of the earlier lectures in this course I said:—When an idea rises in a man's soul he must allow it time to mature, he will then observe a certain rhythm. After seven days the idea has entered deeply into his soul; after fourteen days, the idea now being more mature, is able to lay hold of the outer astral substance, and to allow itself to be “baptised by the universal spirit”; after twenty-one days it has matured still further, and only after four times seven days does it reach the stage where he can give it to the world as his own personal gift. What I have described is an inner rhythm of the soul.

A man can only create successfully when he has no desire to impart hurriedly to the world what has chanced to come to him, but knows that the orderliness of the external universe must enter in his soul. We must live so that we repeat the macrocosm microscopically in ourselves.

These pictures which were told everywhere—and hundreds of them could be cited—stimulated the powers of the human soul by means of thought-forms, so that such souls are to-day ripe enough to listen to the other form of instruction, the form cultivated in spiritual science. But the longing for this had first to become very strong. All the conscious striving of men's souls had first to disappear from the physical plane. Then with the coming of the second half of the nineteenth century materialistic culture arose, and all was desolation as regards spiritual life. But the longing, on the other hand, grew ever greater and greater, the more the ideal of a future spiritual movement grew. There were but few remaining in the first half of the nineteenth century who felt, as in a faint memory, and experienced in silent martyrdom, how the ideas which were once perceived, discussed, and developed, still existed; but were in decline.

In 1803 a man was born in whose soul some echo of the wisdom of an earlier day still remained. Something dwelt in him that was closely related to our theosophical ideas. His soul was filled with longing to solve the secrets of spiritual science—his name was Julius Mosen. His life could only be preserved by spending the greater part of it in bed. His soul no longer suited his body, for owing to the way he had grasped these things, yet was unable spiritually to enter further into them, he had drawn his etheric body out of his physical body, and consequently he had become an invalid. He had, however, risen spiritually to considerable heights. In the year 1831 he wrote a remarkable book called “Ritter Wahn.” He knew of a wonderful legend in Italy about the Knight Wahn, and when studying it he said to himself:—Something of the spirit of the universe lives in this legend, this saga has arisen in the way it has, these pictures have been formed as they are, because those who formed them were filled with the living spiritual guidance of the world. What was the result? In 1831 he wrote a most wonderful dramatic work. It has naturally been forgotten—as everything is that originates in this way from greatness of spirit. Ritter Wahn sets out to conquer death. On the way he meets with three old men. It occurred to Julius Mosen strangely enough to translate the name of one of the old men, it Mondo, as Ird (earth), for he knew something special lay in translating it thus into German. The name of tile three old men whom Ritter Wahn met when he set out to conquer death were Ird, Zeit, and Raum—earth, time and space. The three could not help him for they were subject to death. Ird (earth) is that which is subject to the laws of the physical body, and therefore to death; Zeit (time), the etheric body, is transient; and the third, the lower astral body, which gives us the impression of space, is also subject to death. Our individuality passes from incarnation to incarnation, but that by which we are fixed within our three sheaths according to this Italian legend is Ird, Zeit and Raum (earth, time and space). What is the Ritter Wahn?—Illusion.

We have often spoken of what enters us as Maya. We ourselves are it; we who go on from incarnation to incarnation look out on the world, and are confronted with the great illusion. Each one of us is a “Ritter Wahn” and each one goes forth, if we live in the spirit, to conquer death. In this life we meet the three old men, our sheaths. They are very old. The physical body has existed since the age of Saturn, the etheric body since the Sun-age, the Astral body since the Moon-age, and that which dwells in man as the “I” has been united with him since the coming of the Earth-age. Julius Mosen represents this in such a way that the soul, by which Ritter Wahn would conquer death, first storms out into the world as a rider, thus employing the Platonic image which was prevalent all over Central Europe and far beyond it. So Ritter Wahn rides forth, and would conquer heaven with the aid of materialistic thoughts—as people do who trust to the senses—thereby remaining entangled in delusion and Maya.

But when at death they enter the spiritual world, what happens is beautifully described by Julius Mosen—life is not exhausted, souls long to return to earth to carry out their further development. Ritter Wahn comes down to earth again. And as he sees the beautiful Morgana, the soul as it is stirred by everything earthly—just as was the flower-queen's daughter—and revealing its union with everything that can only come to man through earthly schooling, there when united with the beautiful Morgana, when again united with the earth, death falls away from him. This means he passes through death in order to raise his own soul (represented by Morgana) ever higher, to purify and develop it further in each incarnation.

From images like these, which bear the stamp of many centuries, ideas enter into man and are aided by artists like Julius Mosen. They sprang in his case from a soul too great to live healthily in a body belonging to the age of materialism that was approaching, therefore, owing to the greatness of his glowing soul, he suffered a silent martyrdom. This was in the year 1831. All these thoughts lived in the soul of a man in the first half of the nineteenth century. They must rise again, but now so that they will kindle human powers, human forces. Yes, they will rise again This gives us some understanding of what is meant when we speak of a theosophical spirit, the spirit of Rosicrucianism which must enter into mankind.

We now divine that what is cherished in our movement has existed always. We fall into the illusion of Ritter Wahn if we imagine anything can prosper without active co-operation of this spirit.

Whence came the Rhapsodists of the seventh to the twelfth century; the men wandered through the world giving rise to thought-forms so that souls might comprehend things somewhat differently.

From what centre did they come? Where had they learnt how to present such pictures to the souls of men They learnt this in those temples, which we recognise as the schools of the Rosicrucians. The Rhapsodists were pupils of the Rosicrucians. Their teachers told them:—You cannot go forth to-day and speak to mankind in ideas as will be done later; to-day you must speak to them of the king's son, of the flower-queen, of the three mantles. By this means thought-forms are built up which will live in men's souls, and when these souls return they will understand what is necessary for them for their further progress.

Spiritual centres are continually sending their messengers out into the world, so that in every age that which lives in the depths of the spirit may be brought near to the souls of men.

It is a trivial point of view when people think they can construct such tales as I have been describing from fancy. Ancient legends which express the spiritual secrets of the world arise because the men who compose them have harkened to and been purified by those who impart these secrets; the whole form of the legends is constructed in accordance with these spiritual secrets. The spirit of all humanity—both of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm—lives in them.

The Rhapsodists were sent to spread their meaningful legends through the world from the same temples whence originates the special knowledge of to-day; knowledge that entering into men's hearts and souls makes the culture they demand possible. In this way the spirit that is deeply implanted in humanity passes on from epoch to epoch. And in this way the great Beings, who in pre-Christian times instructed individualities within the holy temples concerning the things they had brought over with them from earlier planetary conditions, strengthened this teaching by introducing into it the Christ so that their work might continue in accordance with this superlative Being—the Christ who had now become the great leader and guide of mankind!

When I tell you that the tales which have endured for so many centuries and called forth thought-forms in Western culture came from the same source, and expressed the same things—only in pictures—that we tell the world to-day concerning the Christ; you will realise how in the time following the Mystery of Golgotha the spiritual guides of humanity did in fact further arid support the teaching of Christ in their centres of learning. All spiritual guidance is connected with the Christ. When we are aware of this connection we catch a glimpse of the light we must have, and must make use of, more especially in respect of the things our souls longed for when they came into incarnation in the nineteenth century. If we allow those forms to affect us which can inform us regarding the longings of earlier days, we feel we can rely upon our souls and can say—those others waited so that we might accomplish what they longed for. What spirits like Julius Mosen had longed for, because they felt within them all that the messengers of the Holy Temples had related in countless pictures, so as to prepare souls for times to come; what these souls longed for is set forth in the words of Richard Rothe, who, when speaking of theosophy in 1847 at Heidelberg, says:—“Would that one day it might become really scientific, and produce clearly defined results, so that it might become popular and be generally accepted; for only in this way can it bequeath those truths to others who are unable to travel the path on which alone they could discover them for themselves.”

In those days Rothe felt this longing—not only for himself but for his contemporaries—he found resignation in saying:—“All this lies as yet within the womb of the future which we have no wish to anticipate!” Those who knew the secrets of the Rosicrucians did not speak in 1847 so that these could be perceived in an external way. But what rests within the womb of the future comes to life when a sufficient number of souls are found who realise that knowledge is a duty. We dare not give back our souls unevolved to the Spirit of the Universe, for in that case we would have deprived the Spirit of something He had implanted in us. When souls are found who realise what they owe to the Spirit of the Universe because of their strivings to solve the secrets of the world, they will have fulfilled the hopes cherished by the best men of an earlier age. These men looked to us who were to come after them and said:—“Once this knowledge becomes scientific it must become popular and lay hold of men's hearts.”

But such hearts must first exist, they must be there I This depends on those who have joined our spiritual society realising:—“I must gain spiritual illumination, I must learn the secrets of existence I” It depends on each separate soul within our society, whether the longing I have described is to be but a vain dream of those who hoped for the best from us, or a worthy dream that we can realise for them.

When we perceive the emptiness in modern science, in art, and in social life, we feel there is no need to be lost in this desert, we can get out of it. An age has once more come round in which the Holy Temples speak, not now merely in images and parables, but in truths, which, though still regarded by many as theoretical, will become ever more and more a source of life, and will pour living sap into the souls of men.

Each one can determine with the best powers of his soul to receive this living sap into himself.

These are the thoughts we would impress on your souls at the present time, being the sum of all we have received concerning the true meaning of the spiritual guidance of mankind. When we allow such thoughts to work within our souls we have a lively stimulus for future endeavour, and we see how much of constructive force they contain that is quite independent of the actual words with which these thoughts have been expressed.

However imperfect my words may be, it is the reality that matters, not the way the thoughts are expressed, and this reality can live in every soul. For the sum of all truth dwells in each separate soul like a seed which can blossom when this soul accepts it.

• 1. From the introduction by Richard Rothe to “The Principles of Theosophy according to Frederick Cristopher Oetinger,” Tubingen, 1847.
• 2. “Metamorphoses of the Soul Volume One,” and “Metamorphoses of the Soul Volume Two,” (see Book Catalogue).

Yesterday our theme was more connected with the external, exoteric aspect of spiritual science.¹⁷⁴ Today we will have some comments on the inner, esoteric aspect of spiritual science.

When one speaks to a large or also a smaller audience about the discoveries made in spiritual research, which is our mission today, people will soon ask where such knowledge comes from. How can one also come to learn something about the higher worlds oneself? The question is very much to the point. One has to understand, however, that one cannot make one's own observations at a very early stage, and certainly not before one is familiar with the important ideas in the science of the spirit. It is necessary first to make the acquaintance, in a way, of the general ideas and thoughts that are part of the anthroposophical approach. One must have made the effort to gain some idea, and it is possible for everyone to do so, that there is truth in anthroposophy. Finally one must have tried, using human logic, to grasp the inner connections in what is taught in the science of the spirit.

In principle there can be no objection today to someone wanting to ascend through the stages of higher knowledge himself. Yes, people talk a great deal of the dangers and obstacles one meets in occult development—which is the term used for our inner development. There is much talk of hatha-yoga and raja-yoga,¹⁷⁵ but this is really just theory. If the thing is done the right way, if the individual who guides such inner development is also entitled to do so, there is really no danger. It is important to do things the right way, that is what matters. A lecture like the one I am giving today is not designed to give instructions—please let me stress this—for these must always be from person to person. Giving such instructions is a tremendous responsibility, and receiving them one must understand that the chosen individual really deserves one's trust. This trust is absolutely essential.

Occult or inner human development will thus gradually take the individual through the stages of higher knowledge. Let me give you an outline of the essential aspects of this, for information, as I said, not in form of instructions.

When someone has reached the summit of understanding, when someone is up on the mountain top, he has an open view in all directions. That is how it is in physical existence and also in the process of gaining insight. One does not have that open view when one has not yet reached the top but is on the way up. As one climbs higher, one is able to perceive more and more, but a great deal continues to be hidden by the mountain. This image of a mountain is a good one for inner development. Everyone who seeks to ascend to levels of higher insight must start from a point that is right for him. This means, people are different on this earth, also in their physical, etheric and astral constitutions. The outer natures of a Hindu, a person from the Near East, a European or American differ, much more so than someone who does not have occult knowledge may think. Exercises suitable for the inner development of anyone who has the Hindu nature cannot be used in that way for a Western person. It was wrong, therefore, to transfer the Oriental yoga teaching to Europe. This has done much harm. A Hindu's much softer body can be developed in a very different way than a European organism which has grown much harder due to Western civilization. Human natures thus differ much more than you may think. An anatomist cannot tell you anything about this, but someone who is clairvoyant and looks inside knows how tremendously natures differ.

We can divide present-day humanity into three types. There are still those for whom the Oriental yoga initiation is essentially right, others for whom the gnostic Christian way is open, and finally those—and they are by far the greatest in number—for whom the way known as the Rosicrucian way from the 14th century is the right one. Please note, these ways do not lead to different insights, for once you are up on the summit all things are the same. But the ways that lead to the summit are and must be different.

Many things can be achieved by taking the gnostic Christian way, and it is possible to gain the most sublime insights. But the Rosicrucian way is suitable for modern people because they may find themselves in situations where doubts arise and trouble looms because of our present-day way of life, and these must be removed for the sake of the individuals concerned and for their work in the world. This is only possible if one goes through inner training based on the Rosicrucian method, which is the right one for the Western world.

Let me present some aspects of gnostic Christian initiation, so that you may see it as a field about which much can still be learned today. I am then going to go straight on to Rosicrucian training. We'll leave the Oriental yoga way aside for today.

The Christian way is laid down in a text that is little understood outside occult circles. The gospel of John gives a complete outline of the right way of Christian initiation.

John's gospel is one of the most profound texts in the world, but one has to be able to read it in the right way, that is, one should not think that just reading it is enough and the right thing to do. It is a book for life. Above all you have to understand that even the first words are not written just for people to read or for philosophical speculation. They are written for meditation. We have to have them the proper way, however, not in the usual translation. The first verses of John's gospel must be created out of the substance of the language so that one has not only the meaning of the sentences but also their sound quality. The sound quality or value still matters for genuine occult life.

To meditate, we enter deeply into particular formulas, sentences or even words. But meditation as an important means of inner development is not a matter of entering into something we are given by our occult teacher in a philosophical or intellectual way. It is a matter of entering into the actual sound qualities. If you were to think about a sentence your teacher has given you, you could only develop thoughts about it that you already have. You are, however, to have something new. That is the important point. Sentences given for meditation open up the gates to the world of the spirit for you. They are based on experience gained over hundreds of years. Every letter, every turn of phrase is known to have an effect on the soul. You therefore need to meditate those first sentences to the letter. Correctly translated they are:

In the origin was the word, and the word was with god, and a god was the word.

This was in the origin with god.

All things have come into being through it, and except by this, nothing of what has arisen has come into being.

In it was life, and the life was the light of humanity. And the light shone into the darkness, but the darkness did not grasp it.

There came to be a human being, sent by god, his name John.

He came to bear witness that he might bear witness to the light and that through him all might believe.

He was not the light but a witness of the light.

For the true light that enlightens all human beings was to enter into the world.

It was in the world, and the world came into being through it, but the world did not recognize it.

Into individual human beings (all the way to the I-human beings) it came, but the individual human beings (the I-human beings) did not receive it.

Those however who did receive it were able to reveal themselves through it to be god's children.

Those who put their trust in its name have come into being not out of the blood, not out of the will of the flesh, not out of the will of man, but out of god.

And the word came to be flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard its teaching, the teaching of the one son of the father, full of loving devotion and truth.

If we had more time together I could tell you many things about these first sentences. Hundreds and hundreds of people have gone through the things I am now telling you about this Christian initiation. It has become practical experience for thousands. Let me just briefly indicate some stages of Christian initiation.

The pupils would first of all be told: For weeks, months, years you must set some time aside every morning when you let these first lines of John's gospel come alive in your soul. Turn your attention away from everything that is going on around you during this time. You must turn blind and deaf to everything around you, and these words should arise in your soul as though you were hearing them, day by day, over and over again.

This exercise will first of all have a particular effect on the soul. Its magic brings it about that such a person suddenly finds his dreams becoming regular, assuming regular forms. And then a moment will come when the individual knows that he is not in a dream world. Instead he'll know that he has a new reality around him—imaginative astral reality. Just as in ordinary conscious awareness we see tree and shrub around us, so we now see the things experienced in yonder world. Initially like dream images, and then more and more in a living vision seen in the waking state, the pupil will see the first twelve chapters of John's gospel before him.

After this experience the teacher of Christian initiation will say to his pupil: ‘You must now prepare for the experience of the 13th chapter. Imagine a plant. This grows out of the mineral world. If it were able to think and have inner responses it would have to say to the mineral world: “I grow out of you. You may be a lower world than I am, but I could not possibly live without you.” And it would have to bend down to the mineral world in gratitude and say: “I thank you, stone! I owe to you my whole existence.”’ An animal would have to speak in the same way to the plant. And man would have to bend down to the lower worlds of nature and have the same inner response. And everyone who has advanced more on the social scale should bend down before those who are below him and say: ‘Without you I could not have life.’

The pupil has to practice giving himself up to this completely and do so for weeks and months. Then two symptoms will arise, which are the same for everyone. He will first of all experience both the external and the inner symptom as a particular fact. He will see himself as the thirteenth, who washes the feet of the twelve. In washing their feet, Christ Jesus sought to make this great truth apparent to the twelve. This wondrous inner experience comes to the human being in the process of initiation. It also goes as far as external symptoms. He will experience something that feels as if he was dipping his feet in water. Nobody needs to be afraid of this; it will soon pass.

When the pupil has gone this far, the teacher will come and say: ‘Now you must enter into another sphere of inner responsiveness. In life pain and suffering come to us from all directions. You must enter into a condition where you meet all the suffering and all the pain that are coming from all directions in this world as an upright human being, so that they cannot harm you. You must stay with these things for weeks and months.’ Then a time comes when an astral symptom shows itself. He'll see himself in a vision of the scourging, with a sensation rather like it felt all over the body, which will pass; but the result will be that the pupil lets this feeling enter into the whole of his body. With this he has reached a level of maturity where he is able to land upright as life plies its scourge.

For the third stage he is given the instruction: ‘You must now enter into an inner feeling of how things would be with you if you not only had to bear pain and suffering but had scorn and derision poured over all that is most sacred to you. You must be able to stand up, using the powers of your inmost soul, and have a centre in you that enables you to stand erect.’ A new vision will then come, where the pupil sees himself wearing the crown of thorns. The external symptom of this is a kind of headache. This indicates, right down into the limbs, that this great experience has come.

Then comes the fourth station. The earthly body must become an outside thing for the pupil. Most people feel it is their I. The body has to be like a piece of wood, something external. The pupil must learn to say not ‘I am walking through this door’, but ‘I carry the body through this door.’ His body must be very much an object to him. Having lived into this for weeks and months, the pupil will have a vision, an astral experience where he sees himself crucified. That is the fourth station. Stigmata will appear for a brief period during meditation as an external symptom on the hands, feet and in the right side—not the left, as is generally thought. They indicate that this degree of development has also entered into the flesh.

The stages that follow cannot be discussed, for we do not have words for them. The fifth stage is the mystic death, where the pupil will first truly have the experience of a black curtain between him and reality. He will feel lost in a way, utterly isolated, as it were, until insight is gained. It is as if the world of the flesh has vanished, and something like an impenetrable black curtain lies before the eye of the soul. This is a moment everyone must go through on this way to initiation. You encounter all the truly great suffering and pain that may rest deep down in the soul, and all the evil there is in the world. This is the descent into hell. Then it seems to the pupil as if the veil tears apart and he looks into the other world.

There follows the entombment, an experience where one feels at one with the planets, and the seventh level, of which we cannot speak, for the individual has to separate his thinking from his brain to have even an inkling of it. This is ascension into heaven.

My aim in giving you this description of Christian initiation was to help you understand what it is about. It is a way full of renunciation. It may be followed quietly, attracting no notice, and there are people among you who have gone through all this. It happens between the lines in life, as it were, and the more serious it is the less will it be visible on the outside.

People must go through the Rosicrucian initiation to be armed against anything that may come from the outside. Many of the things you read about this in books are apt to make you think that the Rosicrucians are really charlatans, for that is how learned people often describe them.

True Rosicrucians have recognized one another by a secret sign since the 14th century. They must never speak of the true nature of Rosicrucianism to an outsider. But from a particular point in time that came in the 19th century it has indeed become necessary to tell people the elementary aspects of Rosicrucian initiation. Human beings are very gradually growing up and developing the maturity they will need if they are to learn something about these things. We'll not be able to go into the question today as to why it has to be like this and why the more sublime secrets must still remain hidden.

Rosicrucian initiation is also in seven stages. These are 1) study, Rosicrucian study; 2) gaining imaginative perception; 3) learning the occult script; 4) finding the philosopher's stone; 5) living experience of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm; 6) entering wholly into the macrocosm, and 7) godliness.

Let me say once again that I can only give an outline, and no more.

Study is not the kind of learning we generally know. Instead one has to discover that there is a way of thinking that is still fluid and real, keeping out all sensory perceptions of the world around us. Western philosophers deny the existence of such a way of thinking.¹⁷⁶ They say it is only possible to think if the thought still has a residue of sensory perception in it. Those gentlemen do not know that other people have been able to do this, and they do not wish to believe it because they themselves are unable to think in this way. Man must learn to forget everything, to leave everything aside that influences the senses from the outside, yet without being an empty vessel. This is possible if one enters wholly into a pure thought content that has no sensual connection, as given by the spiritual scientist, and reflects on the thoughts that evolve. I have shown this way in my books, writing them in such a way that one element arises from another, as in a living being, so that one thought follows organically from another. You give yourself selflessly to the thought, and an inner separation results. Anyone who wishes to move to a higher level must read things written out of the science of the spirit in this way. Anyone who does not wish to reach a higher level may read them like an ordinary book. The former is the case because higher perception takes the human being into other worlds. You are now living on the physical plan—plan, not plane, for like the plan of a house it has nothing to do with being level. You thus come to different plans, into different worlds. At first you live here in the physical world, then you enter into the astral, imaginative world. It is a world we may describe as follows. Imagine a plant, green, with a red flower. You do special exercises that enable you not only to see what the senses see but to perceive how a cold flame form arises from the plant, is it were. You perceive floating colours. You thus perceive spiritual entities that you cannot perceive with the ordinary senses. Everything evaporates from the surface of things and becomes the expression of purely astral events. This world is much more real than our sense-perceptible world, for the world of the senses has been created out of that world of the spirit. This physical world has condensed out of the astral world. Matter is condensed spirit to the true occultist, and we can dissolve it again. The whole of our sense-perceptible world is condensed astral reality.

Behind this astral world is yet another world which may best be described by showing you how human beings come to gain living experience of it. When someone does the exercises I have described in my books, his dreams will first of all become regular. Try and enter into the nature of dreams. What is a dream? Let me give you some examples. They are taken from life, for I do not speak of other things.

Someone has dreamt he has caught a tree frog and then finds he has taken hold of a corner of his bed covers. The dream symbolized the occurrence. Another example is someone dreaming that he's in a dark, musty hole of a cellar full of spiders' webs. He wakes up with a headache. Some dreams may involve high drama. A student is standing at the door of the lecture theatre. Another one comes in jostles him, and a duel is fought with pistols. The shot rings out—and the chair next to the bed has fallen over. This minor incident has come to symbolic expression in the whole dramatic story of the dream. A farmer's wife dreams she's going to town and entering a church where the priest's sermon is of sublime things. Just when it gets really sublime, the priest begins to change. It looks as if he is growing wings and then he suddenly begins to crow. At that moment the farmer's wife wakes up and the cock is crowing outside. The cock's crow has been transformed and taken symbolic form in the dream.

Dreams are thus highly creative. Everything is chaotic in them. But life is given to this world and everything becomes harmonious and regular if you gain the certainty, up to a point, that this represents a reality. This is how it first shows itself, and later one takes things perceived in the world of dreams across into everyday life. Something develops which we may call ‘continuity of conscious awareness’.

Human beings also have dreamless sleep. The Rosicrucian pupil next learns to perceive entities and events around himself in a sleep state. The revelations of the spirit world sound forth from the darkness of dreamless sleep. In the Pythagorean schools this was called the world of the music of the spheres. The world of the spirit sounds forth. If you really want to hear something about the devachan, this must be such that it is described to you as a world of sound. Goethe, who had this degree of Rosicrucian initiation, knew of this: ‘The sun proclaims its old devotion in rival song with brother spheres.’ That is either nonsense or a higher truth. The physical sun does not resound, but the spirit of the sun is a real, resounding entity. And Goethe stayed with the metaphor; in part 2 of Faust, he wrote: ‘Resounding now for ears of spirit the new day is already being born.’ He wrote like that because the music of the spheres of which the Pythagoreans spoke was a reality to him. I can only refer to these things briefly. All things will speak to us, a new revelation will come forth.

Those are the stages the Rosicrucian pupil can reach by means of exercises. The worlds are always completely different, and someone who only knows the physical world can have no idea of the things one can learn in other worlds. One thing is the same for all worlds, however, and that is logical thinking. Our perceptions are entirely different in the astral, in the devachanic world, but the laws of thinking are the same in all three worlds. A Rosicrucian pupil must therefore first learn this way of thinking, so that he may keep to the proper path and not lose his way.

The 2nd stage consists in gaining imaginative perception. I can only tell you a few things that should explain what is meant by this. When you see a tear rolling down a cheek, you conclude that the soul is filled with sadness. When you see a cheerful face you conclude that the soul is cheerful. You draw these conclusions in relation to people. When you want to ascend to imaginative perception you must do this in relation to the whole world. The life of plants, animals and stones should express the physiognomy of the world soul for you. Some things must be like our cheerfulness, other things like tears wept by the earth spirit. This must become very real to the person. And much can be experienced in this way. The secret of the holy grail, the ideal of medieval Rosicrucian pupils, is connected with this.

Let us take an example. The Rosicrucian pupil would meet his teacher who would give him an exercise to do. I am going to put this in the form of a dialogue, though it has never been spoken dialogue. But what it conveys was practised and became living experience. It is entirely true and absolutely correct in every detail. The pupil would come to his teacher who would say to him: ‘Look at the plant. It extends its root into the soil, it grows upwards, opening its calyx at the top, and in there are its organs of fertilization and reproduction. Chastely and nobly and in purity it lets the sun's ray kiss it; the light, the sacred lance of love, which penetrates the calyx as a sunbeam and calls forth the potential that lies in the plant's organs of fertilization. You would have the wrong idea if in comparing the plant with a human being you were to think that the root is the head and the flower the lower part. Man is an inverted plant.’

The occultist thus sees the inverted plant in man and the inverted human being in the plant, with the animal between the two. ‘Look at the plant. It is the arm of the cross that goes down, the animal is the horizontal arm, and man the vertical arm.’¹⁷⁷ That is the original significance of the cross. It is the symbol for plant, animal and man as three realms of nature. Plato therefore wrote that the world's soul was crucified on the world's body. And the teacher would go on to say to the pupil: ‘Look at the human being, the human being in the flesh. What is this human flesh? Compare it with the matter contained in a plant. Plant matter is chaste and pure. Human flesh is full of passion and desire. Man is higher up on the evolutional scale, but this also means that he has taken in passion and desire.’ And the occult pupil would begin to intuit a future human being whose flesh would be pure and chaste again, like the chaste calyx of a flower which holds out its organs of fertilization to the sunbeam's sacred lance of love. Then his productive powers would reach out to the spirit just as today the plant reaches out to the lance of love, to the light. Those who sought to achieve this went through a transformation of the flesh. And so the pupil was presented with the great ideal of the human being who one day will be as pure and chaste as the plant. This ideal is called the holy grail. It is one of the images that speak to the heart and the whole soul. The pupil was able to rise higher not through thoughts but through images that influence the whole soul, captivating heart, mind and soul. Only then can imaginative perception be achieved.

The 3rd level involves learning the occult script. Something exists in this world which in occult life is called the vortex. It is to be found everywhere in nature and in the world of the spirit. Imagine you are looking up to the Orion nebula, which is a distinctive spiral. If you were a seer you would see that a vortex emerges like a figure 6, with a second vortex that is darker. The two intertwine. This also occurs in the world of the spirit.

We live in the age that follows the great Atlantean flood. Before that, our earliest ancestors were human beings of a very different kind. People imagine today that in those times human beings were just as they are now. But the physical conditions were completely different then. Atlantis was always in darkness, enveloped in masses of dense fog. It is important for you to know this. Old German mythology holds memories of Niflheim [land of mist] and Nibelungs [creatures of the mist]. Under those conditions the human constitution was very different. The Atlanteans also had a completely different culture. You might get an idea of this if I were to give you details of the way people heard articulated sounds in all things at that time. There were no moral laws. If someone wanted to know how to relate to a neighbour, he could not appeal to some authority or other; he would listen to the waves and then he would know.

It was a culture of which no trace seems to remain. It perished. When did this happen? We can see that in the heavens. About 8 centuries before the Christ was born the sun rose in the Ram. It takes about 2160 years to move through a sign of the zodiac. The sun moved into the sign of the Ram, or the Lamb, about 800 years before Christ. People felt the new constellation had brought them the new fruitfulness of spring, something new and good. We see from this that they felt the Lamb or the Ram to be important. Many things point to this, among them the legend of the Argonauts, in which the golden fleece plays such a role. The Christ himself is called the Lamb of God. The lamb was the symbol for offering veneration. Before that, the sun had been in the sign of the Bull, hence the veneration of the bull in Egyptian and Persian culture. Even earlier the sun passed through the sign of the Twins. In accord with this, duality played a great role in the Persian teachings of Ormazd and Ahriman. Traces of this still persisted in ancient Germanic culture. Before that, the sun was passing through Cancer. This was the period that followed the Atlantean flood. A vortex had occurred in the realm of the spirit.

This constellation with the occult sign of Cancer can still be seen in the calendar today. Many such signs are known to man. In reality this is nothing but a recreation of primal forces of nature. If you train your heart and mind to understand the occult signs you will steel your will with this occult script. You get to know the ways of the spirits that are behind nature. A faint echo remains in symbolic signs such as the pentagram and hexagram. One occult sign you often read about is the swastika.¹⁷⁸ The strange explanations given for it are quite unbelievable. In reality it is nothing but the sign for the astral sense organs, the wheels or lotus flowers, several of which are potentially present in the astral body—in the heart, the larynx, between the eyebrows. Astral vision begins when the last named of these wheels begins to turn. The swastika is the sign for this astral organ of perception.

The 4th level is called preparing the philosopher's stone. This is a reality. At the end of the 18th century someone who had got hold of something, but not exactly the right idea, put quite a good description of the philosopher's stone in a journal. He actually did not know himself how good it was. At that time a number of things from the occult school were wrongly made public, and so someone also described the philosopher's stone. This is actually something familiar to everyone, and many people handle it daily without having an idea. To help you see what this is about, follow me in a brief line of thought. Consider human breathing. We inhale oxygen, which changes our blue blood to red, and we exhale carbon dioxide, which means we are all the time exhaling poisonous matter. Plants on the other hand take up the carbon dioxide exhaled by humans and animals and retain the carbon to build up their bodies. They release the oxygen, so that humans can inhale it again. This is a cycle. Occultists attached great importance to this process. If you dig up a plant form that has become coal today you can see that the plant built up its body of carbon. Humans take in oxygen, changing blue blood into red; plants take in carbon dioxide and return the oxygen which humans then take in again.

Let us try and see what happens when the breathing process is regulated in a particular way in Rosicrucian training. The way in which it is done can only be passed on from person to person, but it is possible to speak of the effect. ‘A steady drip will hollow the stone’, as the saying goes. And that applies with the process I am now describing. The occult pupil is instructed by his teacher on doing his breathing exercises out of the spirit. It is an instruction, therefore, to regulate his breathing process in a particular way and this makes it possible for the human mind to expand a little as time goes on. It is something of which human beings normally know nothing and has to do with something that happens in the plant. The plant now becomes at one with him. Normally human beings exhale carbon dioxide and take in oxygen. The pupil must bring this to mind consciously. In his breathing he consciously experiences the change from carbon to oxygen, blue blood to red blood. He learns to do something in himself that is normally left to the plant. He will then be able to build up his own body. He learns to do so by means of regular breathing. This, then, is a real process in which the human being learns to purify his flesh also at the physical level. The alchemy of the human body lies in this. The human being is transformed into the vehicle for a pure, chaste incarnation that may be compared to a plant. The pupil is aware of something sublime, light and bright. He knows he only had to go through the flesh. That is the transformation of coal into diamond. You'll now understand the significance of bringing rhythm into the breathing in Rosicrucian training and know what was meant by the philosopher's stone. The regulated breathing process is the way to the philosopher's stone.

I am only touching on things lightly, but you'll understand that something profound lies behind the search for the philosopher's stone, something connected with the transformation of the whole of mankind, so that human beings will be different from the way they are today—they and the whole earth. That is how great and strong and firm, morally great, the powers of soul must be if man is to make the flesh, too, part of the process of redemption. We also have to redeem everything that exists around us, all creation.

The 5th level is to enter deeply into the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. A great occultist of medieval times, someone we must first learn to read, used a beautiful image to show the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm. Paracelsus said: You see there the individual letters. Man is the word made up of the letters. And so we have to see man spread out in the whole of nature, and man himself as a compendium of nature. Paracelsus referred to a cholera patient as Arsenicus, for example, for the powers active in him are the same as those active in arsenic.

But there is more. When someone concentrates really hard on a particular part inside him, the point between the eyebrows—this, of course, is only a reference point—he will have a particular experience in which he is taken into the inner events of the great world. These correspond to the part which in the human microcosm lies between the eyes. And so the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm has to be experienced bit by bit. Entering deeply into his inner life, the pupil must get to know the outside world.

At the 6th and 7th levels the Rosicrucian pupil comes to be at one with the whole world. He gains true knowledge of the outside world. And his feelings and his whole soul become one with the outside world to the same degree. This is the condition known as godliness. The earth's body is then his body. And the pupil achieves the stage known as being at one with the universe. It is a long road along one particular path. Those who have gone through it become messengers of the spiritual world, speaking from real experience.

It is a road anyone can follow today—certainly in principle. It will take a long time for some, and a shorter time for others. One of the best theosophists, the late Subba Row, said about the time needed, which people ask about so often: ‘It is true that one person needed 70 incarnations, another 7 incarnations, someone else again 70 years or perhaps 7 years; there have been people who achieved it in 7 months, and some in just 7 days, depending on their karma from former lives on earth.’ Setting out on the road one must be patient and persevere, knowing that one will be exposed to great dangers unless one has first gone through character training.

Let me give you an analogy. Take a green liquid produced by mixing blue and yellow. You can separate the blue from the yellow by using a chemical agent. Before that, the individual properties of the two solutions were not apparent. Now they show those properties. And that is how it is with the human being. High and low qualities are mixed. The lower ones are prevented from taking full effect because the higher ones have been added. If you now separate the two by doing the exercises you may find that someone who until now was more or less bearable grows malicious and cunning and also shows a whole lot of other bad characteristics. This is something you have to understand. The danger can definitely be prevented by doing specific preliminary exercises that establish a particular inner morality full of character.

The pupil must first learn to keep strict control of his thoughts. He must practise making one thought the focus of his inner life for a long period, the more intensely so the better. He must stick with it and let all thoughts follow from it. This exercise must be done for at least five minutes every day. The more the better, but one should not overdo it.

2) It is necessary to be able to take initiative in one's actions. This is done by the pupil doing one particular thing on his own initiative every day. It may be something quite small and insignificant, for instance watering one's flowers. After a time one takes up another initiative.

3) One has to gain mastery over pleasure and pain. There must be no more of being on top of the world one moment and down in the dumps the next. This mastery will make you more subtly receptive, but you yourself must be the master, not your inner responses.

4)There is need to be positive. A Persian legend about Christ Jesus will show you what is meant. The Christ was walking with some of his disciples. A dead, partly decomposed dog was lying by the roadside. The disciples turned away and said: ‘How horrible that creature is!’ The Christ stopped, however, and said: ‘Look how beautiful the animal's teeth are!’ You can look for and find something beautiful in the ugliest things, something great in the smallest of things. One must always look for the positive side.

5) One has to learn to be completely unbiased towards anything new. Absence of bias to the highest degree. People tend to say: ‘I've never heard of this before, seen this before; I don't believe it!’ We have to learn in the widest possible sense never to say something is impossible. There should be a place in our hearts where one allows it to be possible, say, that the church tower is at an angle if someone says it is at an angle. We should at least consider it to be possible if we hear such a thing.

The 6th level consists in bringing the 5 qualities into harmony.

The pupil will then have developed such inner strength that he will be protected from anything occult training might otherwise do to him. It would be wrong to set limits to occult training and say: ‘All I want is the ethical value.’ Anyone wishing to enter into the higher worlds must follow the indicated route. The road to the most sublime insights is also the way of greatest compassion. We must gain such compassion from insight, not with phrases. When someone has broken a leg all the people standing around full of compassion will be of no use, only the one individual who knows what to do and does it properly. Merely to preach theosophy is like standing in front of the stove and saying: ‘It is your duty to get the room warm.’ And it is the same if you tell people to practise brotherly love. Just as you have to put wood in the stove and put a match to it, so you have to give people what they need if their souls are to unite in one great brotherhood, and that is insight. True insight is the fuel for the great brotherly union among human beings. Today we have the age of materialism, and because of this people have gone their separate ways.

• 174. Public lecture on spiritual research and its mission given in Vienna on 21 February 1907. Rudolf Steiner spoke on the same subject in Berlin on 11 October 1906 (see Supersensible Knowledge (GA 55); tr. R. Stebbing. Hudson & London: Anthroposophic Press & Rudolf Steiner Press 1987.
• 175. Hatha-Yoga uses mainly external methods such as holding one's breath and special body positions. Raja-Yoga is the 6th to 8th stages on the way to salvation in Sankhya philosophy—concentration, meditation, complete absorption.
• 176. Rudolf Steiner was probably thinking mainly of E. von Hartmann. See note 166.
• 177. Rudolf Steiner often referred to this, e.g. in a lecture he gave in Basel on 22 Nov. 1907 (in GA 100); Typescript notes EN 50 at Rudolf Steiner House Library, London. There he said: ‘You draw the plant vertically, pointing to the earth, the human being also vertically, but pointing away from the earth, and the animal horizontally.’ Also in Berlin on 29 May 1905, in The Temple Legend GA 93); tr. J. Wood. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1985. This is in contrast to the drawing for the lecture given in Leipzig on 16 February 1907 (in this volume); see note 168.
• 178. The next public lecture Rudolf Steiner gave was the one on 29 April 1906 (in this volume). There followed the fundamental course of lectures he gave on 22 August–4 September 1906 in Stuttgart (At the Gates of Spiritual Science; GA 95).

Wishing to bear in mind the importance for the present time of penetrating into the world in accordance with Spiritual Science, we should not fail to notice that this penetration, as we may have gathered from the various studies made here, will bring with it an essential increase in man's understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And it may be said: whoever in his whole soul, his whole heart and not just by ordinary intelligent reflection, unites himself with the knowledge gained by anthroposophical research, when in any other way he is connected with modern culture, will have repeatedly to ask himself what attitude to the Mystery of Golgotha is taken by anyone to a certain degree changed through knowledge derived from this anthroposophical research? From very various points of view we have surveyed this most important of all events for mankind. Today we will try to look at it in such a way that we shall be striving to follow the stream flowing from this mystery down into the most recent times. The fruitfulness of anthroposophical knowledge can be shown in a certain sense by its success, or at any rate its ability to succeed, in rightly understanding in a similar way what has happened both in the world and in mankind up to the present. Whereas human observation otherwise generally recoils in fear from having recent history permeated by what is spiritual.

In contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha we shall have our attention drawn above all to the impossibility of this Mystery of Golgotha being grasped, being understood, if we wish to start out from a material study of world events. It is only when we try to grasp a spiritual event spiritually that we arrive at area understanding of the eatery of Golgotha. It is true that you may say the Mystery of Golgotha is for all that like other historical events a physical event of the physical world. But only recently I have pointed out to you that knowledge at the present time, when sincere, cannot say this. It cannot recognise the Gospels as historical records in the same sense as other historical records, neither can it accept in the same sense as historical records the few highly contestable historical notes which, in addition to the Gospels, we have about the Mystery of Golgotha. These cannot indeed be taken like the historical accounts about Socrates or Alexander the Great, about Julius Caesar, the Emperor Augustus and people of this kind. And I have often emphasised that just what creates the special relation of Spiritual Science to the Mystery of Golgotha is that Spiritual Science will establish the Mystery of Golgotha as a reality at the very time when every other method of mankind, all other paths of mankind, will be found to lead to nothing when trying to draw near to the Mystery of Golgotha as a reality. For the Mystery of Golgotha must be understood spiritually as a spiritual event. And it is only through spiritual understanding of the Mystery at Golgotha that the external reality of this Mystery of Golgotha can be grasped. (see The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind)

Now what is of most significance in the Mystery of Golgotha? In spite of all the so-called liberal theology of Protestantism the most significant part of the Mystery of Golgotha is the thought of Resurrection. The saying of Paul is still undoubtedly true: “And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain”. In other words, it is necessary for Christianity, true, real Christianity, to have the possibility of understanding that Christ Jesus went through death and overcame this death after a certain time by livingly re-uniting Himself with earthly development. It goes without saying that in relation to its inner law this belongs only to the spiritual worlds.

Now I have also pointed out to you something that, when looked at purely from the point of view of reason, might break our hearts because it represents one of these contradictions there must always be in life, which logic would always like to clear away—the Christ was put to death. The most guiltless One who ever trod the earth was put to death through the guilt of man. We can gaze upon this human guilt and regard it in the way human guilt, such great human guilt, is regarded. This is the one side of the matter. But next we have to look at the other side and say to ourselves: And had Christ not been crucified, had He not passed through death, it would not have been possible for Christianity to arise. This means, the greatest human guilt was necessary for the greatest blessing to enter the evolution of the earth, for the evolution of the earth to acquire its meaning. We could speak of this point in paradox—had men not taken upon themselves the burden of that guilt, that greatest of all guilt, the significance of the earth would not have been fulfilled. And in this way we characterise one of those great, fundamental contradictions life provides, which the logic of the world would do away with. For what is logic meant for? Logic is meant to do away with contradictions wherever they are found. Logic today however does not yet know what it is doing by this. With the removal of the contradiction, logic kills the life in human understanding. This is why people do not arrive at any living understanding when they want to give merely abstract, logical form to this understanding. And because of this a man comes to a living understanding only when he is willing to rise above logic to Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition.

Looked at superficially, the Mystery of Golgotha gives this picture—that at a certain point of time, in a little mentioned province of the world-wide Roman Empire, the man Jesus was born, lived thirty years in the way we have often described and was then permeated by the spirit of the Christ; as Christ-Jesus he lived on another three years, during the last year going through death and rising again. This event at first remained unnoticed anywhere in the whole Roman Empire. Throughout the centuries this event worked in such a way that the culture of the civilised world not only was absolutely transformed but entirely renewed. This is to begin with the external side. We penetrate to the inner side by trying to become clear how this Mystery of Golgotha arose out of Judaism and within the midst of the heathen world. In its religious conception Judaism has something radically different from any heathen religious conception. It may be said at once that Judaism and paganism exclude each other as the two poles of all religious conception.

Let us therefore first consider paganism. All paganism—whether or no what I want to say is, in paganism, more or less hidden—all paganism starts out with the idea that for human perception the divine-spiritual is in some way to be found in nature. Pagan religion is at the same time essentially the perception of nature. In the heathen the contemplation of nature is always there as a more or less unconscious basis: he feels that even man arises out of the becoming and the weaving of the phenomena of nature, that as man he feels himself related in his whole existence in his whole evolving, with what is there in nature and what is coming into existence through nature. Then, to crown what he is able to gain by his perception of nature, the heathen seeks to grasp as it were with his soul what is living in this nature as divine and spiritual. We see this in those ancient times by the way which man out of his own bodily nature becomes able to grasp the divine spiritual, in visions, in atavistic clairvoyance. In the lofty Culture of Greece we see how man tried in pure thought to grasp the divine spiritual. But everywhere we see man as a heathen tries to prepare a path for himself leading straight from the observation, the contemplation, of nature to the crowning point of her edifice—the perception of the divine spiritual within nature.

Now if one goes deeply into the essential being of all paganism—today I can only give an outline of these things—it will be noticed that a perception such as this cannot bring us to a full understanding of the moral impulses in the human race. For however hard it is sought to recognise from nature the divine spiritual impulse, this divine spiritual impulse remains without morality as a content. In the culturally advanced pagan religion of the Greeks we see that the Gods cannot be said to have had much moral impulse.

Naturally everything is expressed in a more or less masked way, the reality clothing itself in some kind of metamorphosis: but to all intents and purposes it is quite possible to say that in Judaism the matter, the very basis of the matter, shows itself as the polar ic opposite of the pagan religion. If we would put it tritely, Judaism might be called the actual discovery of the moral impulse in the evolution of man. The characteristic feature of all ancient Jewish religion lies in the essential pulsing and weaving of the Jahve Impulse into mankind in such a way that its weaving and coming into being bring the moral too into the development of mankind. But this caused a difficulty to enter into this Jewish religious conception which the pagan religious conception did not have. This difficulty lay in the inability for Judaism to arrive at an intelligent relation to Nature. The God Jahve, Jehovah, waves and weaves through the life of man. But when man then turns his gaze to the Jahve God who brings about human birth, then punishes bad and rewards good actions in the course of life, and when he next turns his gaze away from the Jahve God to the events of nature into which man also is interwoven on earth, then there is no doubt it becomes impossible to bring the events of nature into harmony with the working of the Jahve God. The whole tragedy of this impossibility of reconciling what happens in nature with the impulse of the Jahve God is expressed in the great and powerful tragedy of the Book of Job. In this Book of Job we are particularly shown how, purely in the course of nature, the just can suffer, can be brought to misery, and how in contradiction with what nature brings, the just man has to believe in the justice of his Jahve impulse. The whole underlying tone, however, the deeply tragic underlying tone, which might be said to ring in the human soul of the Book of Job with a feeling of isolation, from nature, from the cosmos, shows us what difficulty exists between the simple conception of what the Jahve-Being actually is, and an unprejudiced contemplation of what presents itself to the human gaze, to everything in human life, as the course of natural events in which won is interwoven. And yet this Jahve-God, this Jahve-impulse, what is it for those who really grasp the Old Testament but the essential innermost being weaving in the human soul itself? Whither is the ancient Hebrew conception driven by being so polarically opposed to the outlook on nature prominent in paganism?

The old Hebrew conception is with necessity driven by all this to the idea of a being in addition to the Jahve impulse, a being having a part in human nature as this human nature is in the present time of world existence, namely, the serpent of Paradise, Lucifer. Satan, a being who, opposed to the God, the Jahve God, is obliged to play a part in what man has become in earthly existence. A believer in the Old Testament must look upon the Jahve-God as the innermost impulse to which he directs his veneration and devotion. But it is not possible for him to ascribe to this Jahve impulse the only share in bringing about man; he has to ascribe a substantial share in man to the devil, as he was called in the Middle Ages. But it is mere dilettantism to believe that it is very scholarly to establish the contrast between the Jahve-God and the devil, the old serpent, as though it were the same as, for instance, the contrast between Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Persian religion. The basis of the Persian religion is indeed of pagan nature and Ormuzd and Ahriman confront each other in such a guise that we can rise by way of the perception of nature to their essential being in the world-outlook. And the whole process of the world struggle, represented by the Persian religion in the battle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, is a process such as has been taken up by the other pagan religions into their religious conceptions. What in the Old Testament is thought of as the contrast between the Jahve-Impulse and and the satanic impulse, on it meets us in the Book of Job, is a moral contrast; and in this book of Job the whole picture of this contrast is permeated through and through by a moral tone. There a spiritual kingdom is in fact indicated, in which are the good and the evil and this is rather different from the Kingdom of Nature. It may be said that at the time the Mystery of Golgotha was approaching human evolution, mankind had not come to the point of having done with these two main streams—the pagan way to the divine and the Jewish way to the divine. Both of these, however, had reached their highest point of development. For it must not be forgotten, again and again we must remind ourselves, that such a refinement of spirituality, such a height in the conceptual life of man, as had developed in the paganism of the Greeks is unique in human evolution. Neither has it since been reached again nor was it there before. On the contrary, a firm, clear hold on the moral Jahve-impulse through natural events, such as is found in the Book of Job, is also unique and not to be discovered anywhere else. In this particular direction the Book of Job is indeed one of the miracles of human evolution.

When the time of the Mystery of Golgotha was coming near, mankind had arrived as it were at a dead end. They could go no further. They had conceived, or had tried to conceive, Nature in the old sense, on the one hand, on the other hand the moral world in the old sense. It was impossible for them to advance. In their outer form both had in man's view reached the highest point and there was no higher point to be gained. And now world-evolution actually resulted in contrasts. It does not move forward so simply, so easily, in such a straight-forward ascending development as the modern theory of evolution would have it. This modern theory of evolution imagines, first, what is simple then rising in a straight line—and so on and so forth. But this evolution is not like that; another evolution lies at the basis of this one, in that certain evolutionary impulses reach their highest point, but at the same time as these impulses are approaching the highest point, others are descending to the lowest depths. There are always these two streams flowing—the one to the highest outer development and at the very time one is coming to this highest outer development the other is coming to its greatest inner development. And at the same time men have arrived on the one hand at a certain height, where the pagan conception is concerned, and on the other hand at a certain height in regard to the Jewish conception, what developed inwardly in mankind on earth was only to be reached through such an event that indeed happened historically, although outwardly it took the form, as it were, of a world symbol.

Thus, it could only be the death of the spirit that was to give the earth its meaning. Highest life, as this life developed in the course of ages, highest life brought to its zenith, at the same time inwardly, spiritually, implied the necessity of death. Only out of death could new life then proceed. This death on Golgotha is therefore the necessary contrast, and the greatest contrast to the abundant life acquired at this time in the world-outlooks of the areas and the Jews.

It is true that the matter can be represented from the most varied standpoints. We have already done this. But the following, for example, can also be said: the old world-outlooks all more or less based on atavistic clairvoyance, outlooks which were first advanced to pure thought by the Greeks—all these ancient world-outlooks were finally aimed at discovering man here on the earth. And particularly in Greece, and in another way in Judaism, this is exactly what happened at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Going farther back in former times it is found that to a certain extent man in that he was thinking about himself was nearer the divine not having yet come to a conception of himself. At the time the Mystery of Golgotha took place man had arrived at his own conception of himself. For when such a thing comes about there arises one of those events when in a certain measure through its on force the event changes into its opposite.

Now if you watch a pendulum swinging from left to right you will find the following. I have often used this illustration. Whereas the pendulum swings here it falls back again here through gravity; and having sunk to here through gravity, at this point because the pendulum cord is in exact opposition to the direction of gravity the latter cannot work; but the pendulum does not remain still. And why? It is because by falling down, as the physicist expresses it (and we can apply the same expression though it is not correct spiritually) the pendulum has gathered so much inertia that through its own inertia it swings to the other side.

This inertia is exhausted, reduced to nil, the moment the pendulum has swung out as far to the left as it did to the right. The agent towards the left comes about through the pendulum's own inertia but is then exhausted. This is a universal law in any process in the world at all, namely that something happens and in happening nullifies the impulse to happen. And so the moment pagan and Jewish culture had reached their zenith the force that had brought them there was exhausted and brought to naught. And the entrance of a new impulse into the world was needed to lead evolution onward.

This impulse was the Christ, for Whom in the way we know, the vessel of Jesus was prepared. So we can put it thus, that had a man been able, at the point in our reckoning of time which might be called zero, to see right into what was actually taking place inwardly in mankind, he would have had to says mankind at this moment meet the tragic destiny that the forces given them at the outset of earthly evolution had been brought by the time at which we have arrived to their highest development where the inner constitution of soul was concerned, but that at the same time these forces had been exhausted. Men were faced with the death of the culture that at the beginning of earth evolution took the course of the impulse which the men of old had received as mankind's heritage. Then anyone thus experiencing mankind's fate could look to the hill of Golgotha and see the external historical symbol, the dying body of Jesus, the dying representative at mankind, and from the Resurrection could take hope that a new impulse would not abandon mankind on the earth but would lead them onward. This impulse, however, could not arise out of what it was possible up to then for earth to give mankind. In other words looking to Golgotha and on Golgotha experiencing the possibility of mankind's further development, men had to aspire to something the world was not able to give. To look up to something coming as a new impact into the evolution of the earth—this is what had to be done, or would have had to be done at that point of time by anyone with an intimate vision into the affairs of mankind's evolution. This is what happened and this was the significance of it. It is a matter of external history whether certain events have been more or less grasped. The essential for Christianity is that this happened, and took place as an objective fact. Christianity is not a doctrine. Christianity is the perception of this objective event being played out in earthly evolution.

And now let us look at the remarkable way in which this perception of Christianity was spread abroad. Recently I have expatiated on this fact from another point of view. Today we will observe only how the conception of the Christ impulse, that has come into earthly evolution, spread out over the lands of Judaism, of Greek paganism, of Roman paganism, If without prejudice we observe the historical development we cannot help saying—Christianity most certainly did not take such thoroughly deep root in Judaism, but in spite of the Gospels having been written out of the Greek spirit, neither did Christianity take deep root in Greece, and when we come to the Roman Empire it quite decidedly did not do so there. You need only take what is left of the Christianity out of the Roman Empire, namely Catholicism, and out of this Roman Catholicism merely take the Mass, in its way great and powerful, it is true, and you will see what a peculiar significance underlies this very spreading of the Christian conception throughout the old Roman Empire.

For what strictly speaking is the Mass? The Mass, as well as other ceremonies of the Catholic Church, are indeed in their magnificence, in their incomparable greatness, taken from the pagan mysteries. You have only to look at the Catholic ritual and to understand it correctly, and you have in this ritual a reproduction of the way of initiation in the old pagen mysteries. The chief parts of the Mass—Gospel, Offertory, Transubstantiation, Communion—represent the path of those seeking initiation in the Ancient pagan mysteries. The Christ impulse had to be clothed in the form of the old pagan mysteries to be spread abroad throughout the regions of the Roman Empire. You can reed in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact how what has been experienced in the conception of Christ-Jesus was represented to those entrusted with the results of Initiation in the old pagan mysteries. There we are shown how on Golgotha, on the scene of world-history, there took place what otherwise was always presented as individual human experience on another plane, in the secret depths of Mystery Initiation, Thus we see that the secret of Christianity in its diffusion over the civilised countries of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, known to us as the Greco-Latin epoch, is steeped in pagan ritual. What was received in the Christ-impulse as idea, lived on in the sacrifice of the Mass. To all intents and purposes it still lives on today in the Catholic sacrifice of the Mass. For he is an orthodox Catholic who experiences Christ-Jesus in all His mystery when at the altar they elevate the Host, the Bread transformed into the body of Christ. In this ritualistic action the true Catholic who experiences the pagan form of Christianity feels what he is intended to feel. This is not an immediate relation to Christ-Jesus; here we have a relation in which through the form of the pagan ritual it is sought to come on, to press on to man.

It is only when having passed through the civilised lands of the south which imbued it with paganism or Judaism it arrives among the barbarians of the north, that Christianity first arises in a quite different form, a form that is intimate and human. For this reason the prevalent attitude of these northern barbarians to Christianity was such that they accepted it in a much more primitive form. And for a long time these barbarian Arians (cf. R. XLVII.) of the north, kept aloof from the complicated conceptions simply embodied in the pagan ritual, and represented Christ-Jesus to themselves more or less as an idealised man, as an idealised man raised to the level of the divine, as the foremost brother of mankind, though still a brother. The relation of the Christ to some kind of unknown God did not much interest them; on the contrary, what interested them extraordinarily was how human nature stood in relation to the Christ nature, what immediate connection the human heart, the human mind, is able to have with the ideal man Christ-Jesus, And this was bound up with the outlook concerning the external social structure for mankind. Christ became a special King, a special Leader of the people. How in their imagination they would follow a leader in whom they had trust so they wished to follow Christ-Jesus as the outstandingly illustrious Leader. Something here arose that might be described as seeking a personal relation to Christ Jesus in contrast to the complicated relation of the south, which could only be expressed by the imaginative picture realised in the ritual.

Now what brought this about? Indeed, my dear friends, these barbarian peoples to whom Christianity penetrated in the north are the germ of what later was to arise in human evolution as the fifth post-Atlantean period. They were not completely men by the time the people of the fourth post-Atlantean period had already come to a comparatively high point. They absorbed into their still primitive human nature what can only enter a highly developed mankind in the form of the realised imaginations of the ritual. The barbarians' hearts and minds absorbed intimately, personally, what in a changed human nature was received in lofty spirituality, nevertheless in the south received only in a pagan form.

Thus we see the germ of Christianity falling into southern hearts and into hearts of the barbarians of the north quite differently. These northern barbarian hearts are far less mature than the hearts of the southern peoples, and the Christ impulse sinks into this immaturity. And we are faced by the remarkable fact that in the whole south, throughout Christianised Judaism, throughout the Christianised paganism of the Greeks, the Christianised paganism of Rome, Christianity so permeated the spirit that before the coming of the Christ impulse that was approaching man, the Christ conception was determined and was given form in the way it was possible to form it according to the old experiences of the soul. For these ancient people had a significant life of soul, a life of soul, in a certain sense, of grandiose development. The northern barbarians had a primitive, simple soul-life, accustomed only to what was nearest the soul, to the closest relations of a personal kind between man and man. And into these close relations there streamed the Christ impulse. These men had no conception at all of scientific knowledge as it was developed among the Greeks, nor had they any political views concerning the structure of the State, as formed by the Romans. There was nothing of this kind among the northern barbarians. Their conceptual life of soul could be said to have been so far disengaged. They could not think much. They could hunt, they could fight, they could do a little tilling of the ground, they could do something else too—well, you have only to read about the old barbarians of the north; but they could not develop any kind of organised science. They had no conceptual life before the coming of the Christ impulse, conceptions could only come to the people with the Christ impulse. Therefore it may be said that to men in the south Christ came in such a way that He to come to had to standstill in face of the Conceptual life which they brought to meet Him. These men of the south erected a gateway. “You must first pass through this”, they said to the Christ. This gateway was still what had been built out of the old traditional conceptions. The barbarians of the north had no such gateway, there was no barrier to admission, the Christ impulse could enter freely. Between the people or peoples who lived their lives there in the north as barbarians, these peoples to whom the Christ came, and Jesus himself as the individual man to whom Christ came, there is only a difference of degree. In Palestine Christ came to the individual man Jesus. Then the impulse spread itself out over the southern lands; everywhere in these southern countries was the gateway of the conceptual life, where the impulse could not enter as it entered into the man Jesus. In the way the Christ impulse came to the northern barbarians it could not, it is true, enter every individual man—they were no Jesuses—but it was able to enter the folk souls; these in a certain relation accepted it as the Christ. And between the folk souls and the Christ a process took place similar to the one between Jesus and the Christ. (cf. R XLVII.)

This is the inner secret of the journey of Christianity up through the southern lands to the barbarians of the north. But they had not progressed very far, these northern barbarians. And even when the Christ had been able to make a direct entry there was nothing very grand in the dwellings He could set foot in. Primitive, the most primitive conceptions, were there. I might say: what in the south was already highly developed had been unfolded as if beneath the aegis of world evolution, but the evolution of a previous stage—what was highly developed in the

south during the fourth post-Atlantean, the Greco-Latin culture stage, in the north was still quite embryonic, waiting on till later. Thus it may be said: we have the fourth post-Atlantean culture stage, the fifth post-Atlantean culture stage; (cf. R XLVII.) we know that the fourth post-Atlantean culture stage runs from 747 years before the event of Golgotha to the year 1413 of our era after which it still goes on; we live now in the fifth post-Atlantean culture epoch. Take any point of the fourth post-Atlantean culture stage, let us say a point during the fifth century before the event of Golgotha, when evolution was already advanced in the Greco-Latin countries; it was, however, very backward among the northern barbarians. It was awaiting the later development; the same point only arrived for them much later. In other words, in the north, even though they finally came to a higher stage, men were much later in arriving at the same point as was reached earlier by men in the south. It is important to bear this in mind. For only by remembering this do we see how the inner evolution, the inner development, of human life takes form throughout the earth.

Only consider to what a height this Graeco-Latin culture has come by the time the great—one cannot call him merely a philosopher but the great man Plato arose in this Greco-Latin culture, Plato with his raising of the human myth into the kingdom of ideas. When he spoke of ideas, it was not to the abstract ideas spun by modern men Plato looked up. Plato's ideas are the very being of the spirit itself. Whoever really knows in Plato on whet heights this old Greco-Latin culture of the fourth post-Atlantean culture period stood. During the time the great Plato was towering above all that was Greece, the northern barbaric culture still had much to pass through until, for its part, it had brought forth out of its own flesh and blood, if only for the fifth post-Atlantean period, the same as had been produced out of Greece in the lifetime of Plato.

We may ask when it was that the barbarian natures of the north, out of their own flesh and blood, first worked themselves up to the heights on which Plato had already stood at an earlier epoch? An the answer to the question is, at the time of Goethe! What in the Greek civilisation was Platonism, is Goetheanism for the fifth post-Atlantean period. For how many years go by, my dear friends, in one culture period? You know that if you take 1413 years after the Mystery of Golgotha and 747 years before, that gives us one culture period, 2160 years, a little over 2000 years. This is about the time that passed between Plato and Goethe, a rather long culture period lies between these two.

And while we consider Plato, one thing stands out concerning him that lights forth from the rest of ancient culture in a grandiose way. There meets us what lies in Plato's words when his philosophy ascends to religious inspiration and he says: “God is the Good”, where he has the feeling that the perception of nature in accordance with ideas must be bound up with the moral ordering of the world—the divine is the good. With these words the promise of Christianity enters Greek civilisation.

But with these words there would also be an indication of a promise with Goethe in the north—an expectation of a renewal of Christianity. Who could look inwardly upon Goethe either in any way but as having within him the promise of a renewed understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha? The boy Goethe, the seven-year-old boy, still stood like a pagan before nature, and lived again all that once lay in Greece. He takes a reading desk, places on it all kinds of stones and bits of rock representing nature's processes, lights a pastille from the direct light of the sun through a burning-glass and thus offers his sacrifice to the great God of nature. Purely pagan worship of nature, nothing lives in this of Christ-Jesus, in this lives the God who can be contemplated in nature. And Goethe is sincere to the innermost fibre of his being. Outwardly he does not acknowledge any God, any divine Being, with whom he cannot inwardly unite himself in all sincerity. To agree with the conception of God given him by a priest is for him an impossibility; to learn outwardly what does not surge up from his inmost soul is an impossibility. Thus, still in the year 1780, there springs forth from his inner being his Hymn to Nature. that wonderful Hymn in prose to nature which begins:

“Nature! We are surrounded and enveloped by her, unable
to step out of her, unable to get into her more deeply.
She takes us up unasked and unwarned into the circle of
her dance and carries us among till we are wearied and
fall from her arms . . . (see George Adams translation: A. Q.)

Everything is nature. We belong to her, she drives us along with her. Even what is unnatural is nature, The greatest philistinism has something of her genius. It is she who places me here and she will not hate her work. The profit is hers, the debt is hers.

This outlook itself springs forth from his intimate inmost being because Goethe is so honestly seeking it in the way it has to be sought by him as representative of his stage of humanity in which there is nothing Christian. You find a wonderful leaning towards God in the whole prose-hymn to Nature, almost as though he were still the seven-year-old boy erecting his pagan altar with its products of nature; but you do not find anything Christian. For Goethe stands as the honest representative of mankind in the fifth post-Atlantean period which for him stood as the period of waiting. But Goethe clearly expresses that it is not possible to remain at the stage of paganism, when on the one hand, in his morphology and his colour theory he comes to his grandiose outlook on nature, an outlook that is at the same time scientific. But this is also expressed from another aspect when he has to go beyond this perception of nature, beyond this paganism. From this point of view take the inner impulse of Faust, take from this point of view particularly all that Goethe has secretly introduced into his fairy tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, take everything about the re-birth of man expressed in this fairy tale—and then try not just to remain on the surface but to press on to what was living in Goethe's mind, then, my dear friends, the idea will come to you: here in the soul of a man is living a new Christ impulse, a new impulse for transforming mankind, brought about by the Mystery of Golgotha, a striving after a new understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha. For the whole fairy tale of the Green Snake end the Beautiful Lily breathes forth this mood of expectation.

Where Plato stands in the culture of the Greeks, Goethe stands in the fifth post-Atlantean period. The question “Where does Goethe stand” leads us on to say: As Plato with the definition of the Divine as the Good pointed to the Mystery of Golgotha as a key to understanding the fourth post-Atlantean period, in all that rings forth from his fairy tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, Goethe was pointing to the fresh understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha that had perforce to come. This is the answer to the question of where Goethe stands. What is there that up to most recent times one can picture as spiritualising all that happens to mankind? The outer historical understanding that just counts up men and events one after the other, says actually nothing at all that can touch upon the real inner being of man. But if we look at the inner side of what happens, if we see that at the same point as Plato stood for the fourth post-Atlantean period, Goethe now stands for the fifth period, then there is revealed to us the spiritual wave that up to the present day has been creatively surging into the world. During very recent times history for modern man has in general became thoroughly unspiritual in the way it is grasped. Goetheaism is at the same time a mood of expectancy in which one is waiting for a new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

We come to an understanding of what happened as the eighteenth century passed into the nineteenth, only by trying to penetrate to the depths of the events affecting mankind. (cf. Karma of Vocation.) My dear friends, as ennobling conceptions can be called up in the human heart if anyone tries today to renew certain experiences that were aroused in paganism—for example if we look up to the conception of the great Isis of the Egyptians. Certainly even up to the time of Plato the conceptions about the Egyptian Isis as the impulse holding sway throughout nature still resounded towards men. If today we hear about Isis, if we hear about Isis without powerfully experiencing anew what people felt in those times, we are left with the mere words. If we are honest it is all mere words. If we are not intoxicated by the sound of words simply words are there—the matter does not grip the heart. what can modern man do if he wishes to awaking the same conceptions within him that in ancient days were aroused in human hearts when Isis was spoken of?

Modern men can let work upon him Goethe's Hymn in prose to Nature. There man is spoken to in the same way as when Isis was spoken of to those men of old. And what sounded to those men of old when Isis was spoken of rings still directly from the hidden depths of the cosmos.

Let us for once think what wrong we do, wrong to world evolution as well as to our own hearts, when we do not wish to hear in this way, when we prefer to take up a purely external attitude, because the way in which the men of old spoke about Isis has round it a glory of the past. When Isis was spoken of by those ancient people there sounded forth from the words a primeval holy secret. And language in our time ought to speak of this secret, truly, actually speak of this secret deeply in the same way as it came from the lips of the Egyptian Priests when they sang about Isis. We should not fail to recognise when deep things hold sway in the new life of spirit. In this way, too, we shall once again feel ourselves true men when we are not prosaic in our feeling, when what is holy sounds towards us in the way it will sound forth out of the newer impulse of historical evolution. Then when we prepare ourselves by paganism, as one might say, through something of the nature of the hymn in prose, with all the widening of soul we can get from this, with all the deepening of soul that makes itself felt within us, with all the ennobling of soul we can experience, we shall sink deeply into what there is in many of the scenes in Faust or in the fairy tale of The Green snake and the Beautiful Lily, where we shall find expressed the mood of waiting for a new understanding among the most modern people of the Mystery of Golgotha.

This is an indication of something about the finding of Goethe and Goetheanism that I wanted to give you, not in the form this discovery often takes but a discovery that really finds the Goethe spirit in the whole course of human evolution, for the understanding of the immediate present, for the strengthening of the impulse we need if we would take our right place today and in the near future, in which we must take our place not sleeping—as I have so often emphasised—but awake, if we do not want to sin against the progress of man's evolution.

More of this tomorrow.

I'd like to ask your forgiveness, first of all, for being unable to speak to you tonight in your native language. But friends who have been attending my lectures to members of the Anthroposophical Society this week have assured me that it would be all right to speak to you on a spiritual scientific subject in German.

The local members have also suggested the underlying theme of this evening's talk; I am to speak on the relationship of spiritual science—or anthroposophy, as it may also be called—to Christianity. In order to do so, I must first say something about the nature and significance of what is meant by spiritual science, about the point of view from which I shall be speaking.

This spiritual science is not trying to found either a new religion or a new religious sect of any kind. It hopes to be able to fulfill the tasks required spiritually of our contemporary culture.

Several hundred years ago, the dawning of the modern scientific age signified an advance in human cultural life which can be compared to the steps we must now take in mankind's development if further progress is to be made. Natural science opened the modern age for mankind through the knowledge of external physical laws. Spiritual science should play a similar role in the present and near future in recognizing the laws of the realms of soul and spirit and applying them to ethical, social, and all other aspects of cultural life.

Although it is still misunderstood and misrepresented—and understandably so—it can trust the power and effectiveness of its truth when it considers the course of natural science at the beginning of the modern age. Natural scientists, too, had to face prejudices hundreds and even thousands of years old. But truth possesses powers which always help it to victory against any hostile forces.

Now that we have mentioned the trust the spiritual scientist has in the truth and effectiveness of his work, let us turn to the nature of that research which is the basis for this spiritual science.

The spiritual scientist's way of looking at things is wholly in keeping with the methods of natural science. However, it must certainly be clear that since spiritual science covers an entirely different field from the external sense-perceptible field covered by natural science, researching the spiritual realm requires a fundamental modification of the natural scientific approach. The methods of spiritual science are in keeping with those of natural science in the sense that any unprejudiced person trained in natural science can accept the premises of spiritual science. However, as long as the natural scientific method is conceived one-sidedly, as all too often happens today, then prejudice will be heaped upon prejudice when it comes to applying the natural scientific approach to spiritual life. Granted, natural scientific logic must be applied to what most concerns man but which is most difficult to investigate for that very reason. Granted, this way of thinking must be applied to the very being of man himself. Granted, in spiritual science man must examine his own nature, making use of the only tool that he has at his disposal—himself. The premise of spiritual science is that in becoming an instrument of investigation into the spiritual world, man has to undergo a transformation that enables him to look into the spiritual world, something he cannot do in ordinary life.

I'd like to start with a comparison from natural science, not to prove anything but just to make it clear how the spiritual scientific way of looking at things rests entirely on the premises of natural scientific thinking. Let us take water as an example drawn from nature. Suppose we are looking at the qualities of water as we find it around us. Then along comes the chemist and applies his methods to the water, breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen. Well, what is he doing to the water? As you all know, water doesn't burn. The chemist takes hydrogen out of the water, and hydrogen is a gas that burns. No one just looking at water can tell that it contains hydrogen and oxygen, which have totally different properties from water.

As spiritual science shows, it is equally impossible for us to see the inner qualities of another person. Just as the chemist can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, the spiritual scientist, by means of an inner process which must be prepared in the soul's very depths, is able to distinguish between the external physical and soul-spiritual aspects of what confronts him outwardly as a human being. He is interested initially in examining, from the spiritual scientific viewpoint, the soul-spiritual aspect as something separate from the bodily nature. No one can discern the real facts of the soul-spiritual from looking at the merely external bodily nature, any more than the nature of hydrogen can be discerned without first extracting it from water.

Nowadays it very often happens that as soon as one begins to say this sort of thing one hears: “This conflicts with monism, which must be adhered to at all costs.” Well, monism can't keep even chemists from splitting water into two parts. It's no argument against monism when something that can actually happen does happen—for instance, when the soul-spiritual is recognized as distinct from the bodily nature by applying the methods of spiritual research.

These methods, however, cannot be applied in laboratories or hospitals, but are processes that have to take place in the soul itself. They are not miraculous qualities; they are faculties which we possess to a certain degree in daily life. But they have to be infinitely heightened if we are to become spiritual researchers.

I don't want to beat around the bush with all kinds of general statements, so I'll come right to the point. We are all familiar with the soul capacity known as memory, and are aware of how much depends on it. Imagine waking up some morning with no idea of where we've been and who we are. We would lose everything that makes us human. Our memory, which has possessed inner coherence ever since early childhood, is essential to our life as human beings. The study of memory leaves contemporary philosophers perplexed. There are already some among them who go so far as to turn away from the monistic-materialistic view when it comes to looking at memory. In precise research they find that, although sensory perception (if one may refer to an activity of soul in this way) is superficially bound to the body, it will never be possible to say that memory is bound to the body at all. I am just calling this to your attention. Even the French philosopher Bergson, a man who certainly shows no tendency to delve into anthroposophy, has pointed to the spiritual nature of memory.

How do memory and the power of recall actually confront us? Events long past enter our soul as images. Although the events themselves may lie far in the past, our soul is actively involved in conjuring them up from the depths of our inner life. And what emerges from these depths can be compared with the original experience, though in contrast to the images provided by our sensory perceptions memories are pale. However, they are closely connected with the integrity of our soul life. And without memory, we would not find our way in the world. But memory is built upon the power to recall, through which the soul can conjure up what is hidden in its memories.

This is where spiritual science comes in. Please note that it is not memory as such, but the power of summoning up a mental content from the soul's depths, which can be infinitely strengthened. Then this power can be used not only for conjuring up past experiences but for quite other purposes as well. Methods of spiritual research are not founded upon any external procedures applicable in laboratories or upon anything perceptible to external senses, but rather upon intensive soul processes which anyone can undergo. What makes these processes valuable is the boundless heightening of our attentiveness or, in other words, the concentration of our thought life.

What is this concentration of thought life?

This evening I have only a short hour to speak, so I'll just be able to touch on the principles of the topic under discussion. You can find the details in my books, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, Occult Science—an Outline, and The Threshold of the Spiritual World. Let me outline the basic soul activities which represent a boundless heightening of the attentiveness necessary for human life. Only this heightening makes spiritual research possible.

What activity does a person usually engage in when he confronts his surroundings? He perceives things; he applies his brain-bound thinking to them and forms mental images about them. As a rule he does nothing further with these images. But methods of spiritual science, based upon the concentration of thinking, begin just where our everyday mental activity leaves off. Anyone wanting to become a spiritual researcher must carry on from this point.

We must choose mental images which we ourselves can form for ourselves in detail and bring them into our field of consciousness. These should preferably be symbolic images that do not need to correspond with the external world. We must place these images, taken from the practice of spiritual science or suggested to us by the spiritual researcher, at the center of our full consciousness, so that for a longer period we turn our attention away from everything external, concentrating on a single image. Whereas we usually move on from one mental image to another, in this case we marshal all our soul forces, concentrate them on one chosen image, and devote ourselves totally to this image. A person observed in this activity seems to be engaged in something resembling sleep (although it is in fact radically different). For if such concentration is to be fruitful, that person must indeed become in some respects like a sleeper.

Just before we fall asleep, we feel how the will forces in our limbs quiet down, how a kind of twilight settles around us, how the activity of the senses ebbs away. Then we lose consciousness. In concentration, as in sleep, our senses must be wholly shut off from all impressions of the outer world; the eye should see as little, the ear hear as little as in sleep, and so on. Then the whole soul life is focused on a single mental image. This is what makes concentration radically different from sleep. In fact, it could be called fully conscious sleeping. Whereas in sleep the darkness of unconsciousness floods the soul, the aspiring spiritual researcher lives in a heightened state of soul activity. He mobilizes all the strengths of his soul and focuses them on the chosen image. The point here is not that we observe the mental image; it rather gives us the opportunity to pull our soul forces together and channel them. That's the important thing, because in this way we gradually succeed in wresting our soul-spiritual being free from our bodily nature. Again I refer you to my books for the details.

What I've just explained cannot be achieved all at once. Most people, even those who are not distracted by the demands of daily life, have to work for years on such concentration exercises; it is impossible to keep at them for more than a few minutes at a time, or for more than a fraction of an hour at most. We must repeat them again and again until we really succeed in strengthening the powers that otherwise slumber in everyday life (but are nevertheless there) so that they become effective in us to the point of freeing our soul-spiritual being from our bodily nature.

Let me share facts with you rather than talk abstractions, and say at once that if the spiritual researcher succeeds, by persevering energetically and devotedly in his exercises, in reaping the fruits of his efforts, then he arrives at an experience of what could be called purely inner consciousness. From then on, he can make sense of a statement that previously meant nothing to him: “I know that I am outside my body; in grasping and experiencing my inner being, I am outside my body.”

I'd like to describe this experience to you in detail. We notice first of all that the power of thinking, which is usually active only in the affairs of daily life, frees itself from the body. To begin with, this experience is faint, but it makes its appearance in such a way that, having had it, we know it for what it is. Only when we return to our body and have submerged ourselves in the life of the brain, manifested in physical substance, do we realize what resistance the brain offers. We are aware that we use the brain as an instrument for ordinary thinking; but now we know that we have been outside it. We gradually learn to make sense of the statement, “You are experiencing yourself in the soul-spiritual element.” We experience our head as though clothed in its thoughts. We know what it means to have separated our soul-spiritual element from our external bodily nature. First we get to know the resistance that bodily life puts up, and then to know life independent of the body. It is just as if hydrogen were to become aware of itself outside of the watery element. That is the case with a person who does exercises of this kind. And if he continues to do them faithfully, the great and significant moment comes when real spiritual research begins—a profoundly shattering moment that has far-reaching consequences for our entire existence. This moment can occur in thousands of different ways, but I will characterize it in the way it most typically comes about.

If we have carried on these exercises for a certain period of time, training our souls in conformity with the natural scientific approach, then that moment finally comes, either during waking life or in a sleep from which we awaken to realize that we are not dreaming but experiencing a brand new reality. The experience can be such, for example, that we say, “What is going on around me? It is as though my surroundings were receding from me, as though the natural elements were striking like lightning and destroying my body, and I nevertheless maintained myself, unlike this body.” We come to know what seers throughout the ages have always pictured as “reaching the gates of death.” This image brings home to us the true soul-spiritual state of man when he is living purely in the soul-spiritual element, instead of perceiving himself and the world through the instrument of his body (and this we experience only through the image; the reality is met only in death).

The shattering thing is to know that we have released ourselves from our body with our thinking capacity. And other forces can be similarly released so that we become ever richer and more inward as regards our soul life.

But the one exercise that I have characterized as concentration or as an unbounded heightening of attentiveness is not enough. We achieve the following result with this exercise: When we have arrived at the point where the soul experiences itself, images that we can call real imaginations make their appearance. Images rise up, but they are vastly different from those of our ordinary memory. Whereas ordinary memory contains only images of external experiences, these images arising now from the grey depths of our soul have nothing in common with anything that can be experienced in the outer world of the senses. Objections that we might easily be deceiving ourselves, that what thus arises from these grey depths of soul may merely be reminiscences produced by memory, don't hold up. For the spiritual researcher learns to distinguish exactly between what memory can summon up and something radically different from the content of memory.

We must keep one thing in mind, however, when talking about this moment of entering the spiritual world: namely, that people who suffer from visions, hallucinations, or other such pathological conditions are not well suited to spiritual research. The less a person tends in that direction, which is a mere reflection of ordinary experience, the more safely and certainly he advances in the field of spiritual research. A large part of the preparation for spiritual research consists in learning to distinguish exactly between something that arises in an unconscious and pathological manner from within, and the new element which can make its appearance as spiritual reality following a spiritual scientific schooling of our soul.

I'd like to mention a radical difference between visionary or hallucinatory experiences and what the spiritual researcher perceives. Why is it that so many people believe themselves to be already in the spiritual world, when they are only having hallucinations and visions? How unwilling people are to learn anything really new! They cling to the old and familiar. These sick soul-figments appear to us in hallucinations and visions in basically the same way as external sensory reality. They are simply there, confronting us; we do nothing to make them appear. The spiritual researcher is not in the same situation with regard to his new spiritual surroundings. I've told you how he has to concentrate and refine all the forces of his soul that are usually asleep. This requires him to exert a strength and energy of soul not present in external life. He must constantly hold on to this strength when he enters the spiritual world. It is characteristic of hallucinations and visions that a person remains passive; he doesn't need to exert himself. However, as soon as we become passive toward the spiritual world for even a moment, everything disappears. We have to stay with it and to be continuously active. That is why we cannot be mistaken, since nothing of the spiritual world can appear to us in the way a vision or hallucination does. We must be fully active in confronting every least detail of what appears to us out of the spiritual world, so that we grasp what we are facing. This uninterrupted activity is vital for true spiritual research. But only then do we enter a world radically different from the world of the senses, a world where spiritual actualities and beings surround us.

But another thing is still needed: Wresting the soul free of the body happens as described. This further need, however, can again be explained with a scientific comparison. When we extract hydrogen, it remains separate at first, but then it combines with other substances, becoming something quite different. The same thing must happen to our soul-spiritual being after its separation from the body. This being must link itself up with beings not of the sensory world. It must unite with them and thus perceive them.

The first stage of spiritual research is separation of the soul-spiritual from the bodily nature. The second is entering into relationship with beings that work behind the scenes of the sensory world. To say this is held against one nowadays, even more so than any vague talk of “spirit” in general. Many people today feel the urge to acknowledge the existence of something spiritual; they speak of a spirit behind the world order and are perfectly satisfied to be pantheists. But as the spiritual researcher sees it, pantheism is just like taking someone out into nature and remarking, “Look, all this around you is nature,” instead of saying, “Those are trees, clouds; that's a lily, that's a rose.” Leading a person from one experience of nature to another, from one being to the next, and saying, “All this is nature,” is to tell him nothing. The facts must be presented concretely and in detail. It is acceptable today to speak of an all-pervading spirit, but the spiritual researcher cannot rest content with that. After all, he is entering a realm of spirit beings and spiritual realities which are differentiated, just as the external world is concretely differentiated into clouds, mountains, valleys, trees, flowers, and so on. But although we differentiate natural phenomena into plant, animal and human kingdoms, it is not acceptable today to speak of concrete details and facts encountered upon entering the spiritual world. The spiritual researcher cannot help but point out that entering the spiritual world means entering a world of real, concrete spiritual beings and events.

Another exercise we need to do is to intensify our feeling of devotion—devotion felt in everyday life and in life's special moments as religious reverence. This devotion must be boundlessly heightened and developed, so that a person can reach the stage of giving himself devoutly over to the stream of cosmic events, as he does in sleep. In contemplation or meditation, he must forget about any bodily movement, again as he does in sleep.

This is the second exercise, and it must alternate with the first. The person doing the exercise forgets his body so completely that he not only stops thinking about it but can even shut out all stirrings of feeling and will, just as in sleep he shuts out all awareness of bodily stirrings. But this condition must be brought about consciously. Adding this exercise in devotion to the first, he will succeed in making himself at home in the spiritual world with the help of his awakening spiritual senses, just as he finds his way into his physical surroundings with the help of his external senses.

A new world now dawns before him, a world that is always inhabited by his soul-spiritual being. A reality becomes apparent to his inner observation—a reality still rejected by current prejudices, although it is just as much a fact of strictly scientific research as our modern evolutionary theory. I am referring to the fact that he comes to know the soul-spiritual core of his being in such a way the he realizes: “Before I was conceived and born into this life which clothed me in a body, I existed as a soul-spiritual being in a spiritual realm. When I pass through the gates of death, my body will fall away. But what I have come to know as the soul-spiritual core of my being, which can live outside my body, will pass through the gates of death. From then on, it lives in a spiritual world.”

In other words, we come to recognize the immortality of the soul already in this life between birth and death. We become familiar with something we know to be independent of the body and with the world that the human soul enters after death. We come to know this soul-spiritual core in such a way that we can describe it with scientific clarity.

Observing a plant, we see how the seed germinates, how leaves and blossoms develop, and how the fruit forms, producing new seed. We realize how its life culminates in this seed. Leaves and blossoms drop off, but the seed remains, bearing the promise of a new plant. We become aware that the seed, the essential part of a new plant, is already living in the plant we are observing. As we look at life between birth and death, we thus come to recognize that something develops in the soul-spiritual element that passes through the gates of death and is, moreover, the germ and essential core of a new life. The soul-spiritual core of our being, which is hidden in everyday life but reveals itself to spiritual science, carries the potential for a new human life just as certainly as a plant seed has the potential to become a new plant. Looking at things in this way, we arrive at the realization of repeated earth-lives in full harmony with the natural scientific approach. We know that the sum total of man's life consists not only of the life between birth and death but also of the life running its course between death and rebirth, from which man then embarks upon a new incarnation.

The only possible objection to what I've just said is that the germinating seed could perish if conditions didn't foster the development of a new plant. Spiritual science meets this objection by pointing out that, though the plant seed in its dependence on outer conditions may perish, there is nothing in the spiritual world to hinder the gradual ripening of the core of the human soul as it prepares for a new life on earth. In other words, the core of the human soul which matures during one earth-life will appear again in a further life on earth. I can only indicate briefly how the spiritual researcher, faithful to natural scientific methods of investigation, comes to this view of repeated earth-lives.

People have accused spiritual science of being Buddhistic because it speaks of reincarnation. Spiritual science certainly does not draw what it has to say from Buddhism; it is firmly founded on the premises and principles of modern natural science. But spiritual science widens modern natural science to cover the life of the spirit without even taking Buddhism into account. Spiritual science can't help acknowledging the truth of reincarnation. It can't change the fact that in ancient times Buddhism spoke out of old traditions about repeated earth-lives.

I'd like to mention in this connection that Lessing's mature thinking, deepened by experience, led him to speak about reincarnation. At the end of a long working life, Lessing wrote his treatise on the education of the human race, in which he advanced the idea of repeated earth-lives. He said somewhat as follows: “Is this teaching to be rejected just because it appears at the dawn of human culture, before any scholarly prejudice could cloud it?” Lessing refused to be swayed by the fact that this teaching was a product of ancient times, a teaching that was later pushed into the background by scholarly prejudice. Spiritual science also doesn't need to shy away from it simply because it appears in Buddhistic doctrine. That is certainly no reason to accuse spiritual science of Buddhistic leanings.

Spiritual science recognizes the truth of repeated earth-lives out of its own sources, and it points us to our connection with the totality of human life through the ages. For the souls living in us have been here many times before, and will return again and again. Let us look back on early cultural epochs—for instance, to the time when people lifted their eyes to the pyramids. We know that our souls were already living at that time and that they will appear again in the future; they take part in every epoch.

It is still perfectly understandable today that people have a bias against such teachings. There are also people who take everything the way they want to see it. They know that Lessing was a great man, but it makes them uncomfortable to know that he acknowledged the truth of reincarnation at the height of his career. So they say, “Oh, well, Lessing was getting senile in his old age.” That makes people more comfortable than to think that we have each been part of every civilization that ever existed on the earth.

Now, how does spiritual science want to introduce the facts I've just explained into contemporary culture? Why, no differently than natural science presents its findings, although this means that spiritual science is subject to the same prejudices as the initial findings based on the modern natural scientific approach. Just think of Copernicus, Galileo, or Giordano Bruno. What happened when Copernicus claimed that the earth didn't stand still, but revolved around the sun, and that the sun actually stood still in relation to the earth? How did people react? They thought that religion was at stake, that people's religious piety was jeopardized by this advance in knowledge.

It took the Church until the nineteenth century to remove the teachings of Copernicus from the Index and to integrate them into its doctrine. In every age advances in thought have had to fight against old prejudices. This young spiritual knowledge wants to make itself felt in human culture today in the same way as the new natural scientific knowledge did in its day. Spiritual science wants to emphasize the fact that mankind is ready to acquire knowledge of the spirit, just as in the achievements of Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno the need for a new science of nature was made evident at a time when mankind was ready for it.

In his day, even Nicholas Copernicus, a canon of the Church, was accused of not being a Christian. And now it is easy in certain respects to accuse spiritual science of being unchristian. When this happens, I always think of a priest who, on becoming rector of his university, delivered a lecture about Galileo. He spoke somewhat as follows: “In those days people had religious prejudices against Copernicus. But a truly religious person knows that God's glory and light are not dimmed when we consciously penetrate the secrets of the universe. He knows that the grandeur of our view of God has in fact only increased as a result of extending our knowledge beyond the realm of the senses to calculate the course of the stars and the particular characteristics of the heavenly bodies.”

A truly religious person can grasp that religion is only enriched and deepened by scientific knowledge. Spiritual science doesn't want to have anything to do with founding a new religion or to give rise to prophets or founders of sects. Mankind has matured; the time for prophets and founding religions is over. And in future people who feel the urge to be prophets will suffer a different fate from the prophets of old, who, in accordance with the ways of their times, were rightly revered as outstanding individuals. People of today who try to be prophets in the old sense will simply be laughed at. Spiritual science doesn't need any prophets because by its very nature it bases what it has to say upon the depths of the human soul, depths which our souls cannot always illuminate. And the spiritual scientist simply wants to investigate his subject as an unassuming researcher, drawing attention to vital matters. He says, “I've discovered it; you can discover it for yourself, too, if you try.” It won't take long until the spiritual investigator is recognized as a researcher just like any chemist or biologist. The difference is that the spiritual researcher does his research in a field of concern to every human soul.

Tonight I could only sketch the activity of the research done in this field. But if you study the matter in more detail, you will find that it addresses the most vital questions of the human soul, questions concerning the nature of man and his destiny. Both are questions which can stir human beings to their depths every hour of every day; they give us strength for our work. And because the concerns of spiritual science deal with the depths of the human soul, it is only natural that it should grip us and unite with our inmost self, thereby deepening and enhancing our religious feeling to an unusual degree.

Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity.

Can it be said that when Copernicus was arriving at his concept of the solar system in the peace and quiet of his study, he wanted to reshape the order of nature? It would be mad to say anything of the sort. Nature stayed as it was, but people learned to think about nature in a way that accorded with the new view of the world. I've taken the liberty of calling a book on Christianity that I wrote many years ago Christianity as Mystical Fact. No one used to mulling over what he presents to the world would choose such a title without weighing it carefully. Why, then, did I choose it? Only in order to show that Christianity is not a mere doctrine to be interpreted this way or that; it has entered the world as a fact that can only be understood spiritually. Nature didn't change because of Copernicus, nor does the truth of Christianity change when spiritual science is used as a tool for understanding it more completely than was possible in times gone by.

I've taken more time than was intended, but perhaps you will let me draw your attention to one concrete aspect of Christian spiritual research. Studying ancient pre-Christian cultures from the viewpoint of the spiritual researcher, we find that they all had mystery places which were simultaneously centers of religion, art, and science. Although the exoteric cultures of earlier times did not allow people to delve into the spiritual world by means of the spiritual scientific methods I have described, it was possible for certain individuals to be admitted into the mysteries as pupils or candidates for initiation. The art of the mysteries helped them to achieve what I have just been describing—namely, withdrawing from the physical body and developing a body-free soul life. And what came of it? The achieving of this body-free soul life enabled them to experience the spiritual world and the pivotal event in man's evolutionary history, the Christ Event.

Exoteric scholarship pays far too little attention to the role played by these pupils of the mysteries, although this is not for lack of available material on the subject.

Let me mention a symptomatic instance. St. Augustine said that there have been Christians not only since Christ's appearance on earth, but even before His coming. Anyone saying that today would be accused of heresy. A Church Father could say it, however, and that was indeed St. Augustine's opinion. Why did this Christian teacher state such a thing? We get a sense of why he said it when we see in reading Plato, for instance, how he prized the mysteries and how he speaks of their significance for the whole life and being of mankind. Some words of Plato that seem harsh have come down to us. He said that human souls live in muddy swamps after death if they have not been initiated into the holy mysteries. Plato spoke out of his conviction that the human soul is essentially of a spiritual nature, and that he who withdraws his soul from the physical body as a result of initiation can behold the spiritual world. A person who has not worked his way into the mysteries seems to Plato to be cut off from his true being. The crucial point is that in ancient times the mysteries were the only way to leave the world of the senses and gain entry into the world of the spirit. So it was that those who were recognized as schooled in the mysteries, men like Heraclitus and Plato, were called “Christians” by the Church Fathers because the mysteries had taught them to see the spiritual world.

That, however, is no longer the case. The relationship of the human soul to the spiritual world is tremendously different today than it was in pre-Christian times. What I have been describing tonight about what every soul can undertake for itself to succeed in entering the spiritual world has been possible only since the founding of Christianity. Since then, every soul who applies the methods set forth in the books mentioned above can ascend to the spiritual world through a process of self-education. In pre-Christian times the mysteries and the authoritative guidance of teachers were essential; there was no such thing as self-initiation then. And when spiritual science is asked what brought about this change, the reply based on its research must be that it was brought about by the Mystery of Golgotha. The founding of Christianity has introduced to mankind a reality that can only be researched spiritually. Christ Himself could be found previously in the realm of the spirit only by a person who had learned in the mysteries to withdraw from his body. He can be found since the Christ Event by every human soul willing to make the effort. What the mysteries once introduced to human souls dwells since the Mystery of Golgotha in every human soul, shared by all alike.

How is this to be understood?

Those who were recognized as schooled in the mysteries, men like Heraclitus and Plato, were called “Christians” by the Church Fathers because the mysteries had taught them to see into the spiritual world. Spiritual science shows that while Jesus was living in the way the Gospels tell of it, there came a moment in His life—the baptism in the Jordan—when Jesus was transformed. A Being not there before entered into Him and lived within Him for the next three years. The Being that thus entered Him went through the Mystery of Golgotha. This is not the time to go into detail concerning the Mystery of Golgotha, but spiritual science, from its fully scientific point of view, confirms what the Gospels relate. Through the Event on Golgotha the Being Who could previously be experienced only in spiritual heights united with earthly humanity. Since the time He passed through death on Golgotha, Christ lives in all human souls alike. He is the source of strength whereby every soul can find its way into the spiritual world. Human souls on earth have been transformed by the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ came, as He said, “from above,” but He has taken up His earthly abode in our human world.

Spiritual science is reproached for saying that Jesus was not always the Christ, but that Christ's life on earth began only when Jesus was thirty years old. Prejudiced humanity confronts spiritual science with one superficiality after another. The mere stating of the fact instantly invites prejudice. And the same holds true of almost everything that our opponents say regarding the position spiritual science takes on Christianity.

Don't we all agree that a child only begins to remember around his third year? Does this mean that what lives in him now was not already present before then? When we speak of Christ's entering into Jesus, are we thereby denying that Christ had been related to Jesus from birth on? We would not deny this any more than we would deny that the child has a soul before the soul becomes aware of itself during the third year of life. If we understood rightly what spiritual science had to say, we would not oppose it.

Anthroposophy is further reproached for making Christ a cosmic being; however, it only widens our earthly way of looking at things beyond merely terrestrial concerns into the far reaches of the universe. Thus our knowledge can embrace the universe spiritually, just as Copernicus, with his knowledge, embraced the external world. The need spiritual science feels to encompass what is most holy to it is simply due to a feeling that is religious and deeply scientific at the same time. Before Copernicus, people determined the movements of the stars on the basis of what they saw. Since Copernicus, they have learned to draw conclusions independent of their sensory perception. Is spiritual science to be blamed for doing the same with respect to the spiritual concerns of mankind? Up until now, people regarded Christianity and the life of Christ Jesus in the only way open to them. Spiritual science would like to widen their view to include cosmic spiritual reality as well. It adds what it has researched to what was known before about the Christ. It recognizes in Christ an eternal Being Who, unlike other human beings, entered once only into a physical body and is henceforth united with all human souls.

Those persons who make Christianity the basis for battling against spiritual science commit a peculiar error. Just inquire of spiritual science whether it opposes what it finds in Christianity! It affirms everything Christianity stands for and then adds something more to it. But to suppress what spiritual science has to add is not to insist on Christianity but rather to insist on a narrow view of it. In other words, it means to behave just like those who condemned Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno. It is easy to see the logical error at the root of this argument. People come along and say, “You talk of a cosmic Christ living in the far reaches of the universe; this makes you a Gnostic.” This is the same kind of error that we fall into if a person says to us, “I've just been given money by someone who owed me thirty crowns. But he gave me forty, because he was lending me ten in addition.” If we now insist that the man hasn't paid his debt because he returned forty crowns instead of thirty, we're talking nonsense, aren't we? If people reproach the spokesmen of spiritual science with the remark, “You are not only saying what we say about the Christ, but you add to it,” they don't notice what a monstrous mistake they've made; they are not speaking truly objectively, but out of strong emotion. Let people argue whether or not the findings of spiritual science about Christianity mean anything to them. That depends on what people think they need. Of course it would be possible for us to reject Copernicus, Galileo, or Giordano Bruno. But we cannot claim that spiritual science has less to offer on the subject of Christianity or that it is hostile to it.

And there's something else that must be added here when the relationship of spiritual science to Christianity is discussed. Mankind changes as each individual goes from life to life in succeeding epochs. Our souls incarnated in times before Christ united with the earth, and they will continue to be reborn into further earth-lives in which the Christ is joined with the earth. From now on, Christ lives in each human soul. If our souls acquire ever greater depth as they live through successive earth-lives, they become increasingly independent and inwardly ever more free. Therefore they need fresh means of understanding ancient wisdom and need to continue making progress out of this inner freedom. It must be stated that spiritual science confidently proclaims these ancient Christian truths in a new form because it has understood the depth, truth and significance of Christianity. Let those who insist on clinging to their prejudices believe that spiritual science undermines Christianity. Anyone familiar with modern culture will find that it is precisely those people who cannot be old-fashioned Christians who have been convinced of the truth of Christianity by spiritual science. For what it has to say about Christianity can be said by spiritual science to every human soul, since the Christ of Whom it speaks can be found by every human soul within itself. But spiritual science can also say that it sees Christ as the Being that once really entered into human souls and into the earth-world through the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. Faith has nothing to fear from knowledge, for the elements of faith, raised to the level of the spirit, need not shun the light of knowledge. Thus spiritual science will win those souls for Christianity who could not be won by speaking to them like a prophet or as a founder of a sect, but instead they need to be addressed by an unassuming scientist who draws their attention to what can be found in the field of spiritual science and who sets the strings in every human soul vibrating in harmony.

Anyone can become a researcher in the field of the spirit; you can find the ways described in the books mentioned earlier. But it is also true that a person who is not a researcher in this field can be permeated by the truth if he lets it work upon him without bias. Otherwise, he won't be able to free himself from prejudices. All truth resides in the human soul. Not everybody may be able to achieve the seer's view of spiritual truth, but the more our thinking is freed from sensory realms, the more fully it can follow the spiritual scientist as he draws our attention to his findings along spiritual paths. He only wants to make us aware that there are truths that can spring to life in every soul because they are already dormant in it.

Before closing I'd like to point out how spiritual science fits into our cultural life today. Spiritual science is in full agreement with the natural scientific way of seeing and thinking about things. It wants to present itself to culture in the same way that the loyal canon Copernicus and Galileo and Giordano Bruno presented themselves in their times.

Let's think for a moment of Giordano Bruno—what did he really do? Before he appeared on the scene and spoke words so significant for human evolution, people gazed into the skies and talked of the heavenly spheres in the way they thought they saw them. They spoke of the blue vault of the heavens as the boundary of the universe. Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno had the courage to break through sensory appearances and to establish a new way of thinking. What was Giordano Bruno actually saying to his listeners? He said, “Look at the firmament, the blue vault of the heavens. The limitations of your knowledge have created it. That is as far as your eyes see; it is your eyes that create this boundary.” Giordano Bruno extended their view beyond these limits. He felt it permissible to point out that everlasting starry worlds were embedded in the vastnesses of space.

What is the task of the spiritual researcher? Let me try to express it in terms of recent spiritual evolution. The researcher must point to a sort of “firmament of time,” to birth and death as the boundaries of human life. He maintains that the exoteric viewpoint sees birth and death as a “firmament of time” because of the limitations of human understanding and perceptive capacity. Like Giordano Bruno, the spiritual researcher must point out that this “time firmament” doesn't really exist, but that people think it does simply because of their limited way of seeing. Giordano Bruno pointed beyond the supposed limits of space to endless worlds embedded in its vast expanses. The spiritual scientist must similarly explain that behind the supposed boundaries of birth and death there stretches never-ending time, in which the eternity of the human soul, the eternal being of man as it passes from life to life, is embedded. Spiritual science is in complete harmony with the impulses that brought about these changes in natural science.

May I be allowed to draw attention once again to the fact that spiritual science has no desire to found a religion of any kind; rather does it want to set a more religious mood of soul-life and to lead us to the Christ as the Being at the center of religious life. It brings about a deepened religious awareness. Anyone who fears that spiritual science could destroy his religious awareness resembles a person—if I may use this analogy—who might have approached Columbus before he set sail for America and asked, “What do you want to discover America for? The sun comes up so beautifully here in our good old Europe. How do we know if the sun also rises in America, warming people and shining on the earth?” Anyone familiar with the laws of physical reality would have known that the sun shines on all continents. But anyone fearing for Christianity is like the person described as fearing the discovery of a new continent because he thinks the sun might not shine there. He who truly bears the Christ-Sun in his soul knows that the Christ-Sun shines on every continent. And regardless of what may still be discovered, either in realms of nature or in realms of spirit, the “America of the spirit” will never be discovered unless truly religious life turns with a sense of belonging toward the Christ-Sun as the center of our existence on the earth, unless that Sun shines—warming, illumining, and enkindling our human souls. Only a person whose religious feeling is weak would fear that it could die or waste away because of some new discovery. But a person strong in his genuine feeling for the Christ will not be afraid that knowledge might undermine his faith.

Spiritual science lives in this conviction. It speaks out of this conviction to contemporary culture. It knows that truly religious thinking and feeling cannot be endangered by research of any kind, but that only weak religious sentiment has anything to fear. Spiritual science knows that we can trust our sense for truth. Through the shattering events in his soul life which he has experienced objectively, the spiritual researcher knows what lives in the depths of the human soul. Through his investigations he has come to have confidence in the human soul and has seen that it is most intimately related to the truth. As a result, he believes—signs of the times to the contrary—in the ultimate victory of spiritual science. And he counts on the truth-loving and genuinely religious life of the human soul to bring about this victory.

Recently we have had repeated occasion to cite a result of spiritual-scientific investigation that, in fact, is of most far-reaching significance. You will remember how we described the relationship of the human head and the rest of the human body to the whole cosmos, and how this then shows the way the head is related to the rest of the body. We said that the shape and structure of the human head and all that pertains to it is a transformation, a metamorphosis. The head is a transformation and reconstruction of the entire body from the previous incarnation. So, when we observe the entire body of the present incarnation, we can see how it contains forces that are capable of transforming it into nothing but a head, a head with all that pertains to it: with the twelve pairs of nerves that originate in it, and so on. And this head that is developed from our entire body will be the head we bear in our next incarnation. The body of our next incarnation and everything to do with it, on the other hand, will be produced during the time after our present life is over, the time between death and the birth which begins our next incarnation. In part it will be produced during the time between death and a new birth from the forces of the spiritual world, and in part from forces of the physical world during the time between our conception and birth into the next incarnation.

These facts should be viewed as truths that testify to their own inherent validity, truths that point to connections of major significance; they should not be treated like the truths of everyday life or of normal science. The truths of everyday life consist more or less in descriptions of ourselves and our surroundings; but truths like those we have just mentioned provide us with the light by which we are able to read the cosmic significance of our surroundings and ourselves. The truths of ordinary life and ordinary science are like descriptions of how the shapes of a row of letters are combined into words or, at most, they are like a clarification based on grammatical laws. But understanding the kind of truths we have been describing is comparable to reading without first having to resort to a special description of the shapes of the letters or to a grammatical consideration of how they are combined into words. Just consider how different is the content of what we read from what our eyes see written upon the page. And so it is that, when we cite truths such as those we have just been discussing, we have before our eyes not only what is now being said, but also the whole, far-reaching significance of such things for the role of humanity in the cosmos. Thereby we are, so to speak, able to read profound, living, spiritual truths that have nothing to do with the shape of the body or the head as it is studied by an anatomist or physiologist, or as one refers to it in ordinary life. It is not enough to describe the human being in the manner of ordinary life and ordinary science; only if one can read man can he be understood.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, and in the sense they indicate, I want to turn yet again to what we have been considering during the past few weeks. I want to direct your attention to the twelve senses of man.³⁰ Let us once more allow these twelve senses to pass in review before us.

The I sense: Again I ask you to remember what has been said about this sense of the I. The sense of I does not refer to our capacity to be aware of our own I. This sense is not for perceiving our own I, that I which we first received on Earth; it is for perceiving the I of other men. What this sense perceives is everything that is contained in our encounters with another I in the physical world.

Second, comes the sense of thought: Similarly, the sense of thought has nothing to do with the formation of our own thoughts. Something entirely different is involved when we ourselves are thinking; this thinking is not an activity of our sense of thought. That still remains to be discussed. Our sense of thought is what gives us the ability to understand and perceive the thoughts of others. Thus this sense of thought does not, primarily, have anything to do with the formation of our own thoughts.

The sense of speech: Once again, this sense has nothing primarily to do with the formation of our own speech or with our ability to speak. It is the sense that enables us to understand what others say to us.

The sense of hearing, or tone: This sense cannot be misunderstood.

The senses of warmth, sight, taste, smell and balance: I have already characterised these senses on previous occasions, as well as in this course of lectures.

The senses of movement, life and touch.

Those are the twelve senses, the senses that enable us to perceive the external world while we are here in the physical world. As you know, materialistic thinking speaks of only five senses, for it only distinguishes the sense of hearing, the sense of warmth—which it throws together with the sense of touch—the sense of sight, the sense of taste and the sense of smell. But it must be said that the physiology of our more recent science has now added the senses of balance, movement and life, and also distinguishes between the senses of warmth and touch. But the physiology of our ordinary science still does not refer to a special sense of speech, or to a special sense of thinking—or thought. Nor, because of the nature of the thinking it employs today, is it able to speak of a special ego sense. Materialistic thinking is happy to restrict its view of the world to only those things that can be perceived by the senses. Of course, there is a certain contradiction in saying ‘perceived by the senses’, because the realm of the sensibly perceptible has been arbitrarily restricted—namely to what can be perceived by the five senses. But all of you know what is meant when one says, ‘Only what can be perceived by the senses is valid according to the ordinary materialistic point of view, so it also investigates the organs of perception that belong to these senses.’ Since there are no apparent organs to be found for perception of another's I, or for thought or speech,—nothing, for example, that would correspond to them as the ear corresponds to the sense of hearing or the eye to the sense of sight—it makes no mention of the sense of another I, the sense of thought or of the sense of speech. For us, however, a question arises: Is there really an organ for the I sense, for the sense of thought and for the sense of speech? Today I would like to investigate these matters more exactly.

So the I sense gives us the ability to perceive the I of others. One of the especially restricted and inadequate views of modern thinking is the view that we always more or less deduce the existence of another ego, but do not ever perceive it directly. According to this line of thought, we deduce that something we encounter is the bearer of an I: We see it walking upright on two legs, putting one leg after the other or placing one next to the other; we see that these two legs support a trunk which has, hanging from it, two arms which move in various ways and carry out certain actions. Upon this trunk is placed a head which produces sounds, which speaks and changes expression. On the basis of these observations—so goes the materialistic line of thought—we deduce that what is approaching us is the bearer of an I. But this is utter nonsense; it is really pure nonsense. The truth is that we actually perceive the I of another just as we see colours with our eyes and hear sounds with our ears. Without a doubt, we perceive it. Furthermore, this perception is independent. The perception of another I is a direct reality, a self-sufficient truth that we arrive at independently of seeing or hearing the person; it does not depend on our drawing any conclusions, any more than seeing or hearing depend on drawing conclusions. Apart from the fact that we hear someone speak, that we see the colour of his skin, that we are affected by his gestures—apart from all of these things—we are directly aware of his I. The ego sense has no more to do with the senses of sight or sound, or with any other sense, than the sense of sight has to do with the sense of sound. The perception of another I is independent. The science of the senses will not rest on solid foundations until this has been understood.

So now the question arises: What is the organ for perceiving another I? What is our organ for perceiving an I, as the eyes perceive colours and the ears perceive tones? What organ perceives the I of another? There is indeed an organ for perceiving an I, just as there are organs for perceiving colours and tones. But the organ for perceiving an I only originates in the head; from there it spreads out into the entire body, in so far as the body is appended to the head, making of the entire body an organ of perception. So the whole perceptible, physical form of a human being really does function as an organ of perception, the organ for perceiving the I of another. In a certain sense you could also say that the head, in so far as the rest of the body is appended to it and in so far as it sends its ability to perceive another I through the whole human being, is the organ for perceiving another's I. The entire, immobile human being is the organ for perceiving an I—the whole of the human form at rest, with the head as a kind of central point. The organ for perceiving another I is thus the largest of our organs of perception; we ourselves, as physical human beings, constitute the largest of our organs of perception.

Now we come to the sense of thought. What is the organ for perceiving the thoughts of others? Everything that we are, in so far as we are aware of the stirrings of life within us, is our organ for perceiving others' thoughts. Think of yourself, not with regard to your form, but with regard to the life you bear within you. Your whole organism is permeated with life. This life is a unity. In so far as the life of our entire organism is expressed physically, it is the organ for perceiving thoughts that come toward us from without. We would not be able to perceive the I of another if we were not shaped the way we are; we would not be able to perceive the thoughts of another if we did not bear life in the way that we do. Here I am not talking about the sense of life. What is in question here is not the inner perception of our general vital state of being—and that is what the sense of life gives us—rather is it the extent to which we are bearers of life. And it is the life we bear within us, the physical organism that bears the life within us, that is the organ by which we perceive the thoughts that others share with us.

Furthermore, we are able to initiate movement from within ourselves. We have the power to express all the movements of our inner nature through movement—through hand movements, for example, or by the way we turn our head or move it up and down. Now, the basis for our ability to bring our bodies into movement is provided by the physical organism. This is not the physical organism of life, but the physical organism that provides us with the ability to move. And it is also the organ for perceiving speech, for perceiving the words which others address to us. We would not be able to understand a single word if we did not possess the physical apparatus of movement. It is really true: in sending out nerves for apprehending the whole process of movement, our central nervous system also provides us with the sensory apparatus for perceiving the words that are spoken to us. The sense organs are specialised in this fashion. The whole man: sense organ for the I; the physical basis of life: sense organ for thought; man, in so far as he is capable of movement: sense organ for the word.

The sense of tone is even more specialised. Even though the apparatus for hearing includes more than physiology usually includes, it is nevertheless more specialised. It is not necessary for me to discuss the sense of tone. You only need to lay your hands on a normal textbook on the physiology of the senses to find a description of the organ on which the sense of tone is based. But today it is still difficult to find a description of the organ for the sense of warmth because, as I mentioned, it is still confused with the sense of touch. But the sense of warmth is actually a very specialised sense. Whereas the sense of touch is really spread over the whole organism, the sense of warmth only appears to be spread over the whole organism. Naturally, the entire organism is sensitive to the influence of warmth, but the sense for perceiving warmth is very much concentrated in the breast portion of the human body. As for the specialised organs of sight, taste and smell, these are, of course, generally known to normal observation, and can be found in what ordinary science has to say.

Now it is possible to make a real distinction between the middle part, the upper part, and the lower part of our sense life, and today I would like to include some special observations with regard to this distinction. Let us begin by observing the sense of speech. I said that our organism of movement is what enables us to perceive words. It provides the basis for our sense of speech. But not only are we able to perceive and understand the words of others; it is also possible for us to speak: we are able to speak, too. And it is interesting and important to understand the connection between our ability to speak and our ability to understand the speech of others. Please note that I am not speaking about our ability to hear the tones, but about our ability to understand speech. The senses of tone and speech must be clearly distinguished from one another. Not only can we hear the words another speaks, we ourselves can speak. How, then, is one of these related to the other? How is speaking related to understanding speech?

If we use spiritual-scientific means to investigate the human being, we discover that the things on which the capacity to speak and the capacity for understanding speech are based are very closely related to one other. If we want to look at what furnishes the basis of speech, we can start by tracing it back to where every reasonable person will agree its beginnings must undeniably be, namely, to experiences of the human soul. Speaking originates in the realm of the soul; the will kindles speech in the soul. Naturally, no words would ever be spoken if our will were not active, if we did not develop will impulses. Observing a person spiritually-scientifically, we can see that what happens in him when he speaks is similar to what happens when he understands something that is being spoken. But what happens when a person himself speaks involves a much smaller portion of the organism, much less of the organism of movement. Remember that the entire organism of movement must be taken into account in the case of the sense of speech, the sense of word—the entire organism of movement is also the organ for apprehending speech. A part of it, a part of the movement organism, is isolated and brought into motion when we speak. The larynx is the principal organ of this isolated portion of the organism of movement, and speaking occurs when will impulses rouse the larynx into motion. When we ourselves speak, what happens in our larynx happens because impulses of will originating in our soul bring the part of our movement organism that is concentrated in the larynx into motion. The entire movement organism, however, is the sense organ for understanding speech; but we keep it still while we are perceiving words. And it is precisely for this reason, precisely because we keep the movement organism still, that we are able to perceive words and understand them. In a certain respect everyone knows this instinctively, for every now and then everyone does something that shows he unconsciously understands what I have just been discussing. I will speak in very broad outlines. Suppose I make a movement like this (a hand raised in a gesture of holding off). Now, even the smallest of movements is not just localised in one part of the movement organism, but comes from the entire movement organism. And when you consider this motion as coming from the entire movement organism, it has a very particular effect. When another person expresses something in words, I am doing what I need to do to understand it by not making this gesture. Because I do not make this gesture, but repress it instead, I am able to understand what someone else is saying; my movement organism wakes up right to the tips of my fingers, but I hold back the motion, delay it, block it. By blocking this motion, I am enabled to understand what is being said. When one does not wish to hear something, one will often make such a gesture to show that one wants to repress one's hearing. This shows that there is an instinctive understanding for what it means to hold back such a motion.

Now, according to the original plan of the human constitution, it is the whole of the organism of movement—which is at the same time the organism of the sense of word—that belongs in the rightful course of human evolution. At one time, in the Lemurian period, when we were being released from our connection with the whole of the cosmos, we were given a constitution that enabled us to understand words. But that constitution did not enable us to speak words. You will find it strange that we should be constituted so that we could understand words, but not be able to speak words. But it only seems strange, for our organism of movement is not so exactly constituted for hearing the words of others, for understanding other men's words—rather is it adapted to understanding various other things. Originally, we had a much greater gift for understanding the elemental language of nature and for perceiving how certain elemental beings rule over the external world. That ability has been lost; in exchange for it we have received our own capacity to speak. This happened because, during the Atlantean period, the ahrimanic powers set about altering the organism of movement that had originally been given to us. We have the ahrimanic powers to thank for the fact that we can speak; they gave us the gift of speech. So we have to say that the way in which a human being perceives speech now is different from the way we were originally intended to understand it. Such a long time has passed since the Atlantean period that we have grown accustomed to what has happened, and we find it extraordinary to think that our gift of understanding speech was originally for perceiving more or less the whole of the other human being: it gave us the ability to perceive the silent expression in the gestures and bearing of other men, and, without using a physically perceptible speech, to communicate by imitating it, using our own apparatus of movement. Our original way of communicating was much more spiritual. But Ahriman took hold of this original, more spiritual way of communicating. He specialised a part of our organism, creating the larynx, which is designed to produce sounding words. And he designed the part of the larynx that is not used to produce words, so that it would enable us to understand words; that is also a gift of Ahriman.

We are able to perceive the thoughts of others in so far as our organism is alive. Once again, our present ability to understand others' thoughts is much less spiritual than the gift we originally possessed. Our original gift enabled us to feel another's thoughts inwardly, to resonate with their life, simply by being in their presence. The way in which we perceive each other's thoughts today is a coarse physical reflection of the way it once was, and only through the detour of speech is it possible at all. At most, we can experience an echo of the kind of perception that was originally intended for us by training ourselves to attend to others' gestures, to the play of their features, and to their physiognomy. We were once able to perceive the whole direction of another's thinking and to live in it, simply by being in his presence, and the particular thoughts were expressed in his particular gestures and in the play of his features. And it is once again thanks to Ahriman that this more spiritual manner of perceiving another's thoughts has, in the course of human evolution, become more and more concentrated in external speech.

We do not have to look very far back in the development of humanity to find a period when there was still a very highly developed understanding for the way the life of thought was expressed through the physiognomy, through the gestures, even through the posture—through the whole manner in which one human being presents himself to another. There is no need to speak of Old India: we only have to go back to the period before the Greco-Roman period, to the Egypto-Chaldean period. There we still find a highly-developed understanding of the life of thought. Humanity has lost this understanding. Less and less of it has been retained, until now there are very few who understand how the art and manner in which a person meets us can enable us to listen in on the inner secrets of his thinking. What a man says to us through the words we hear is almost the only thing we listen to any more—what these tell us about his thoughts, about their content and their purpose. But, because this has happened, we have been able to retain the ability to use our organism of life and the apparatus of life as an instrument for thinking. If there had been no ahrimanic intervention, if the things I have been describing had never happened, we would not possess the gift of thought. So you can see that, in a certain sense, our present ability to speak is related to the sense of speech, to the sense of the word. But it is related because of an ahrimanic deviation. And again because of an ahrimanic deviation, our present ability to think is related to the sense of thought.

We were constituted, furthermore, so as to be able to be conscious of another's I in a more subtle manner—so that we would not merely experience it, but would perceive it inwardly—for our entire human form is the organ of the sense of the ego. Ahriman is still hard at work today, specialising the ego sense just as he has specialised and remodelled the senses of speech and thought. In fact, that is happening now, as is revealed by an extraordinary, related tendency that is coming towards humanity. In order to talk about what I am referring to, one is forced to say something quite paradoxical. As yet, only the early stages of it are showing themselves, mainly in a philosophical way. Today there are already philosophers who entirely deny the inner capacity to perceive the I: Mach,³¹ for example, as well as others. I have spoken about them in a recent lecture concerned with philosophy. These men really have to be described as holding the view that man is not able to perceive the I inwardly, and that the awareness of the I is based on the perception of other things. There is a tendency to think along the following lines—I will give you a grotesque example of it. People are getting to the point where they say to themselves, in the way I described earlier, ‘I encounter others who walk about on two limb-like appendages and from this I conclude that there is an I within them. And, since I look just like them, I apply this conclusion to myself and decide that I must also possess an I.’ According to this, one derives the existence of one's own I from the existence of the I of others. This is implied by many of the assertions of those about whom I am speaking, when they come to describe how the ego is supposed to develop as the result of our evolution during the interval between the birth and death of a single incarnation. If you read our current psychologists, you will already find descriptions of how our sense of our own I is derived from other persons. We do not have it to begin with, as children, but we are supposed to have watched others and applied what we see them doing to ourselves. In any event, our capacity to come to conclusions about ourselves on the basis of other people seems to be growing ever greater! Just as the capacity to think gradually developed out of the sense of thought, and the capacity to speak out of the sense of speech, so the capacity to experience oneself as belonging to the whole of the world is increasingly developing alongside the ability to perceive another's I. We are talking about fine distinctions, but they must be grasped. To this end, Ahriman is very busy working alongside humanity—he is very much involved.

Let us look at the human being from the other side. There we find the sense of touch. As I have said, the sense of touch is an internal sense. When you touch something like a table, it exerts pressure on you, but what you actually perceive is an inner experience. If you bump into it, it is what happens within you that is the content of the perceptual experience. In such an event, what you experience through your sense of touch is entirely contained within you. Thus, fundamentally the sense of touch can only reach as far as the outermost periphery of the skin: we experience touching something because the external world pushes against the periphery formed by the skin, because inner experiences arise when the external world pushes against us or otherwise comes into contact with us. So the sense of touch is fundamentally an internal sense, even though it is the most peripheral of these. The apparatus for touching is found mainly at the periphery. From there it sends only delicate branches inward, and our external scientific physiology has not been able to isolate these systematically because it has not systematically distinguished the sense of touch from the sense of warmth.

Our organ of touch is spread like a network over the whole outer surface of our body; it sends delicate branches inward. What is this network, really? (If I may use this word, for ‘network’ is inexact.) What was its original purpose? Our attention is immediately caught by the fact that the sense of touch makes us aware of inner experiences, even though it is now used to perceive how we come into contact with the external world. This fact is as undeniable as it is noteworthy and exceptional. And, as spiritual science shows us, it is connected with the fact that the sense of touch was not originally destined for perception of the external world. The sense of touch has undergone a metamorphosis—it was not originally intended to be used, as it is today, to perceive the external world. The sense of touch was really intended for an entirely spiritual perception, for perceiving how our I, the fourth member of our organism, spiritually permeates our entire body. What the organs of touch really gave us, originally, was an inner feeling for our own I, an inner feeling of the I.

So now we have come to the inner perception of the I. Here you must make a clear distinction. The I that is within us and extends to the surface of the sense of touch, really exists in its own right; it is a substantial, spiritual being. And when the I extends itself and comes into contact with the surface created by the sense of touch, this produces a perception of the I. If the sense of touch had remained in its original form, the nature of which I have just indicated, it would not provide us with the kind of perceptions it now provides. Certainly, we would still bump into the things of the external world, but this would be a matter of total indifference to us. We would not experience the collisions through touch; nor, for that matter, would the sense of touch be involved when we run our fingertips over things, as we are fond of doing. We would experience our I through such contacts with the external world; we would experience our I, but would not speak of perceiving the external world. In order for the organ which generated an inner perception of the I to become an organ of touch, capable of perceiving the external world through touch, it has been necessary for our organism to undergo a series of alterations. These began in the Lemurian period and are to be attributed to luciferic influences. They are deeds of Lucifer. Through them, our sense of I was specialised so that we could experience the external world through touch, but our inner experience of the I, of course, was thereby clouded. If, as we go about the world, it were not necessary for us to pay constant heed to the things that bump into us and press against us, to what is rough and what is smooth, and so on, we would have an entirely different experience of the I.

In other words, by re-shaping the sense of touch, luciferic influences were introduced into the experience of the I. In this case, what is most inward has been adulterated by something external, just as, in the sense of speech, what is external has been adulterated by something internal. The sense of speech was designed for the perception of words—a sense perception, but not one that depended on anything being expressed in sounds. Then the inner activity of speaking was intermixed with this. So, in this case, the original perception was internal, and external perception has been added to it.

The sense of life: Luciferic influence has accomplished a similar alteration in the organs of the sense of life. For these organs, organs which enable us to experience our inner structure and inner condition, were originally meant only for the perception of our astral body as it works within our living organism. Now, however, the ability to experience the internal condition of the body in feelings of well-being or feelings of being ill has been intermixed with it. A luciferic impulse has been mixed in with it. Here the astral body has been linked to the feelings of well-being or illness that show the condition of our body, just as the I has been linked to the sense of touch.

And, again, our organism of movement was originally designed so that we would only experience the interactions between our etheric body and our organism of movement. The capacity to perceive and experience our inner mobility, which is the sense of movement, properly speaking, has been added to this. Once more, a luciferic impulse. Thus, alterations in the fundamental nature of the human being are due to influences from two sides, the luciferic side and the ahrimanic side. The sense of the I, the sense of thought, and the sense of speech have been altered by ahrimanic influences from the form which was actually intended for the physical plane. Only through these changes and through the changes wrought by luciferic influences on the senses of touch, life and movement, have we become what, on the physical plane, we now are. And there remains to us, free from these influences, only an intermediate area. This, then, is a more exact, more detailed presentation of our human organism.

It would be a good idea to consider what has been said thus far, so I will wait until tomorrow before pursuing these matters any further. Tomorrow we will see how fruitful these considerations are. We will see how they expand that great and significant truth that is the key to so many things: the truth about the relation of our head to the body of our previous incarnation, the relation of the body of our present incarnation to the head of our next incarnation, and what follows from this regarding our relationship to the cosmos.

We can already see how necessary it is to pay attention to that state of balance which needs to be established between the luciferic and the ahrimanic forces in the world. This is the most essential and significant thing. Just consider how the human I is involved in the extremes of both sides: here, the I without and, in the sense of touch, the I within. (See the orange arrows in the drawing.) Similarly, the astral body is involved both in thinking, and also, from within, in the life organism. (Red arrows.) The etheric body is involved here, as long as speech does not occur, but is also involved from within in the sense of movement. (Blue arrows.) And, holding the middle, like the unmoving hypomochlion at the centre of a pair of scales, we have a sphere that is not so involved in the ‘I touch—I think—I live—I speak—I move.’ The more closely one approaches this centre, the more immobile the arm of the scales becomes. To either side, it is deflected. Thus there is a kind of state of balance at the middle.

Here we see how the being of man is subject to significant influences from two sides. In order to understand present-day human activity, and the structure of the human being, it is necessary to have the correct view of Lucifer and Ahriman.

• 30. The twelve senses: Compare with this lecture the lecture given by Rudolf Steiner on 8 August 1920 in Dornach, ‘Man's Twelve Senses in their relation to Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition’. Available in English in typescript. (See Spiritual Science as a foundation for Social Forma—lecture 3)
• 31. Ernst Mach (1838 – 1916): philosopher.

The considerations we are currently undertaking concern matters that are treated as mysteries by many people who know something about them in one form or another. And for certain reasons, knowledge of these things is kept away from the world from many sides, because it is believed that the things in question are parts of a comprehensive knowledge of supersensible matters that should not yet be communicated to mankind. I do not consider this view to be correct with regard to certain things that are being discussed here. On the contrary, it seems to me necessary for humanity to make the courageous decision to enter into a real consideration of the supersensible worlds. And one cannot do that otherwise than by directly grasping what is specifically considered in relation to the question in question.

Today, I would like to deal with a preliminary question first. Yesterday we spoke about the stages a person goes through between death and a new birth. A very common objection to discussing these things, not on the part of the initiated, but on the part of the uninitiated, is that one simply says: Yes, why is it necessary to know something about these things? One could indeed wait until one passes through the gate of death, and then one will see what it is actually like in the spiritual world. It is something that is said very often. Now, the thing is that we can never answer such questions from a so-called absolute point of view when we talk about reality, but that we, from a spiritual-scientific point of view, must always answer them from the point of view of the time in which we live. We live in the fifth post-Atlantic period, which began in the 15th century of our calendar. It concluded the fourth post-Atlantic period, which, as we know, began in the 8th century BC and came to an end in the 15th century AD. There are seven such cultural periods. From this, however, it can be seen that we have passed the midpoint of the cultural development of the earth, which was in the fourth post-Atlantic period, and that we are simply entering – we are, after all, also in the fifth great earth period – the time when the earth is in a descending development.

The considerations we have been making in these days can already draw your attention to the fact that it is important to look at the descending development, at that which is, so to speak, not in evolution but in devolution, which is in retrogression. Our whole evolution on earth is in retrogression. Certain abilities and powers that were present in the previous period of ascending development cease to exist, and others have to take the place of these ceasing powers and abilities. This is particularly the case with certain inner psychic abilities of the human being. It can be said that until the fourth post-Atlantic period, until around the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, people still had the ability to have a certain connection with the supersensible world. We know that these abilities have disappeared in the most diverse ways. They no longer exist as elementary abilities; they have, so to speak, dwindled away. Not only has the life of man on earth changed between birth and death with regard to such abilities, but actually, and even more radically, has the life of man changed between death and a new birth. And it must be said that for this period of time, from death to a new birth, in the present cycle of mankind, which thus already belongs to the descending ones, it is so that men, when they go through the gate of death , they must have certain memories of what they have acquired here in the physical body if they want to find the right attitude and the right relationship to the events to which they are exposed between death and a new birth. It is one of the necessary prerequisites for a right life after death that people here before death acquire more and more certain ideas about life after death, because only when they remember these ideas, which they have acquired here, can they orient themselves in the time between death and a new birth. It is factually incorrect to claim that one can wait until death to have such ideas about the life between death and a new birth. If people continued to live in these prejudices, if they persistently refused to want to gain insights here already about life between death and a new birth, then this life, this life free of the body, would become a dark one for them, one in which they would be disoriented; they would not be able to penetrate their spiritual surroundings in the right way through everything that I described to you yesterday. Until almost the Mystery of Golgotha, it was the case that people brought abilities into their physical life here that originated in the spiritual world. That is why they had atavistic clairvoyance. This atavistic clairvoyance came from the fact that certain spiritual abilities extended from the pre-birth state into this life. That stopped. People no longer have abilities here in physical life that extend from the prenatal life. You know that. But the other thing must be done instead: people must acquire more and more ideas here on earth about the post-mortem life, the life after death, so that they can remember after death, so that they can carry something through the gates of death.

That is what I want to comment on in particular regarding this preliminary question. So the comfortable notion that one can wait until death to form such ideas does not apply if one considers in concrete terms at what point in time of the development of the earth we actually are. And this must always be borne in mind. For views that are absolutely valid, that apply at all times, do not exist; there are only views that can guide people for a certain period of time. This is what one must acquire in such an eminent sense through spiritual science.

And now I would like to discuss a few things that can bring our considerations to a preliminary conclusion. We started from the assumption that the present human being feels a gulf between what he calls ideals, be they moral or other ideals, which he also calls ideas, and what he feels to be his views on the purely natural order of the world. The concepts and views that man forms about the natural order of the world do not enable him to assume that what he carries in his heart as ideals has real power and can actually be realized like a natural force.

The essential thing to consider in this question is now the following: We now know how it is with the structure of the human being here on the physical earth. We also know how it is with the structure of the human being in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Some time ago I raised a question which actually already comes before the human soul as a concrete question when the human being looks at life, but which is precisely a question to which one cannot say anything when one is faced with the gap just characterized between idealism and realism between idealism and realism, that is the question: How is it that in our world order some people die very young, as children or young people or in middle age, while others only die when they have grown old? What is the connection with the order of the world? Neither idealism on the one hand nor realism on the other, which cannot regard ideals as real powers, can shed any light on such questions, which are, however, questions of life. These questions can only be approached if one has something very definite in mind. And that is to realize that the present human being, as he will one day stand before us as an earthly human being, can cope relatively easily with space, but he does not cope in the same way with time. In this respect, the sum of all existing philosophical views does not really offer any significant insight, and the question of the nature of time has so far only been treated in the narrowest human circles. It is not that easy to speak about time and its essence in a way that is accessible to the general public, but perhaps I can succeed in giving you an idea of what I mean by bringing time into discussion in analogy to space. I will have to tax your patience a little, because the brief consideration I want to give to this subject seems to have a somewhat abstract character.

If you simply overlook a piece of the room, you know that what you overlook reveals itself to you in a perspective character. You have to take into account the perspective of the room when you overlook a piece of it. If you now bring the piece of room that you overlook and to which you instinctively ascribe a perspective character onto a surface, then you take the perspective into account. If you look down an avenue, you see the distant trees of the avenue as smaller and closer together. You can express this in perspective, and you can, in a sense, express in perspective on a surface what you see in space.

Now it is clear that what you see in space is juxtaposed in a flat surface. In space, it is not juxtaposed; there are two trees in front (see drawing on p. 164), and two trees are far away. But by bringing the visible space into the flat surface, you place what is behind one another next to one another. You have the instinctive ability to transpose what you have painted or drawn on a surface into three dimensions. That you have this ability is due to the fact that man, as he is now as an earthly man, has become relatively detached from space as such.

Man has not detached himself from time in the same way. And that is something tremendously important and significant, but something that unfortunately is hardly noticed, hardly noticed by science. Man believes that when he develops in time, he has time. But in reality he does not have real time. He does not have real time at all, but what you experience as time is actually, in relation to real time, something that can be called an image. Just as this image (see drawing) in the plane relates to space, so what the ordinary person calls time relates to real time. The ordinary person does not experience real time, but rather experiences an image of time. And that is very difficult to imagine.

For example, it is extremely difficult for you to imagine that something that is effective today does not need to be present at the present moment in time, but is real at a much earlier point in time and is not real at the present moment in time. You can, so to speak, project that which is present in a very early period of time into your own time.

What I have just said has a very significant consequence. It has the consequence that everything we call nature has a completely different character than everything we have to regard as a certain part of the human being itself. For example, Ahriman also works in nature outside, or rather the Ahrimanic powers work; but the Ahrimanic powers never work in nature outside at the present time. If you look at nature as a whole, Ahriman is at work in nature, but he is working from a distant time. Ahriman works from the past. And whether you look at the mineral, the vegetable or the animal kingdom, you must never say that there is something in what is currently unfolding before your eyes in which Ahriman is active. And yet Ahriman is active in it; but from the past. If I were to describe the matter, I would have to say: Here is the line of development from the past into the future, and here you survey nature.

Yes, now you have to imagine looking into it. What you see before you in the present contains no ahrimanic powers, but Ahriman works through nature from the past, from a particular past.

And to you, Ahriman appears in nature, when you become aware of him there, in perspective. If you were to say: Ahriman is at work in the present — then you would be making the same mistake in relation to nature as if you were to say: When I survey a room, the distant trees stand beside the near trees (see drawing on page 164) because they can be placed in perspective within the space.

A fundamental requirement for a real view into the spiritual world is this: that one learns to see in perspective in time, that one learns to place every being at its correct point in time.

If I said yesterday that after death the I is, as it were, transferred from a fluid state into a kind of solid state, that is not all there is to it. Suppose you lived here on earth with your I from 1850 to 1920, and in 1920 you became aware of your I. I mean: you will become aware of it earlier, but now you look back, with the spirit self through the hierarchies you look back at your ego; there you see your ego always as it was from 1850 to 1920. The ego stays there, stays put. This means that your experiences do not go with you soon after your death, but you look back on them. You now look back from a temporally distant perspective and you see into the length of time, just as you see into the length of space here in the physical world. I can also express it this way: when you die, say, in 1920, you live with all that I described to you yesterday as the members of your being, but then you look back on the stretch of time in which you lived here on earth with your ego. And that stretch of time remains there, and you always see it as you continue to live in perspective, at the point in time where it was. And so you have to imagine that Ahriman is active outside in nature, but from an earlier point in time.

This is very important. It is something that is given very little consideration. If one wants to understand the world, if one wants to speak spiritually of time, then one must absolutely imagine time in a spatial way and must consider this connection of the spiritual substance with time. This is very important.

Now, what I said to you about the Ahrimanic powers, that they work from the past, is true for nature. But with human beings it is different. For the human being, while he lives here between birth and death, it is different precisely because everything that comes to an end in time becomes maya, deception, for him. While he lives here, the human being lives within the course of time itself, and by living through a certain number of years, he lives through the course of time. As time passes, he himself passes with time. That is not the case with space. When you walk down an avenue, the trees remain behind and you move forward, and you do not take the trees, which are left behind, and your impressions with you in such a way that you would have the impression that the tree image is moving with you when you take a step. You do that with the image of time. Here in the physical body you actually do this – because you yourself continue to develop in time – by allowing yourself to be deceived about time in relation to its perspective. You do not notice the perspective of time. And in particular, the subconscious mind does not notice it. The subconscious mind does not notice this living with time at all, and gives itself over to a complete deception with regard to the perspective of time. But this has a very definite consequence. It has the consequence that Ahrimanic powers can now work as present powers in what happens in man. Ahrimanic powers work in the life of the human soul as present powers. So that man stands in relation to nature in this way: when he looks out into nature, there is nothing Ahrimanic in the present. The Ahrimanic works in him as a presence, precisely as Maja, as deception. But the human being is given over to this deception about the things that I have explained to you, so that through the human being the Ahrimanic powers gain the possibility of creeping into the present, of walking into the present. We can say that the Ahrimanic forces – and the same applies to the Luciferic forces, albeit from a somewhat different point of view, which we will discuss in a moment – work in nature in such a way that they actually have nothing to do with the present, but extend their effects from prehistoric times. These Ahrimanic forces are currently at work in the human being.

What are the consequences? The consequence is that, in his deepest soul, man cannot feel related to nature in relation to the point just discussed. He looks at his being, or rather feels himself in his being, senses the nature-based being. Because ahrimanic powers are countervailing powers in him, and ahrimanic powers are past powers in nature, everything that is natural appears to him differently from that which develops within himself. Man does not unravel the difference he perceives between himself and nature in the right way. If he unraveled it in the right way, it would be as I have just explained. He would say: Outside in nature, Ahriman works from the past; in me, Ahriman works as a present power. But because of this, even if he does not know the difference, he behaves in the sense of this difference and perceives nature as spiritless. He does perceive that in the present the Ahrimanic powers are not directly active in nature, but he perceives nature as spiritless because he does not say to himself: Ahriman works from the past – instead, he only looks at present-day nature. Ahriman does not work in it.

But Ahriman, however strange it may sound, is the power that the general creation of the world uses to bring forth nature. When one speaks of the spirit of nature, when one speaks of the pure spirit of nature, one should actually speak of the ahrimanic spirit. There it is fully justified, the ahrimanic spirit. The beings of the normal hierarchies make use of the ahrimanic spirit to bring forth what extends around us as nature. The fact that we do not perceive nature in a spiritualized way is precisely because in the present life of nature the spirit is not contained, but works from the past. And that is the secret, I would say, of the world-creative powers, that they make use of a spirit that they have left at an earlier stage to work at a later stage, but let it work from the past.

When we speak of nature, we should not speak of matter, nor of forces; we should speak of ahrimanic entities. But then we would have to place these ahrimanic entities in the past. The result is a strange one: suppose some natural philosopher ponders, ponders what is behind the phenomena of nature. Well, he comes up with all sorts of theories and hypotheses about atomic connections and the like. But that is not the case. Behind what is spread out around us in a way that appeals to the senses, there is not actually what the natural philosophers usually assume, but behind all of this there is the sum of the Ahrimanic powers, but not as a presence. So if the natural philosopher is compelled to assume, let us say, that there are some atomic structures behind the chemical elements, then that is wrong; behind the chemical elements there are Ahrimanic powers. But if you could detach what you see from the chemical elements and look beyond, you would see nothing behind them in the present: it would be hollow where you look for atoms, and what is at work there comes from the past and works in this hollow space. That is how it is in reality. Hence the many unsuccessful theories about what the “thing in itself” is; for this “thing in itself” is not there at all in the present. Rather, where the “thing in itself” is sought, there is nothing; but the effect is there from the past. So that one could say that if Kart had sought his “thing in itself,” he would have had to say: Where I want to approach the 'thing in itself', there I cannot approach. — That is what he said. But he did not realize that in the beginning he would have found nothing there at all, and that if he had gone behind the veil of things, he would have had to go far back; then he would have found Ahrimanic powers.

In man himself it is different. It is precisely because man is vividly placed in time that it has been possible for the Ahrimanic powers to enter our world through the gateway of humanity and to work within man as such. And the consequence of the Ahrimanic powers working in man is that man detaches what he sees in the present from the spiritual, that man detaches his present existence from the spiritual. This is the consequence of our carrying the Ahrimanic powers within the Maja in us. So that one can say: Just as we view the world materially, detached from the spirit, as a mere natural order that believes it has reached its peak in the law of the conservation of energy and matter — which is an illusion — what we see as a natural order is merely brought about by the fact that we carry the Ahrimanic powers within us, and that they are not present as powers in nature outside us. Therefore, what we think about nature, in that we think of it merely materially, does not correspond to nature, but only to present nature. But this present nature is precisely an abstraction, because the past Ahriman always works in it.

Now, not only the Ahrimanic but also the Luciferic is at work in people. This Luciferic, however, has, so to speak, a different tendency in the universe than the Ahrimanic. Let us visualize the tendency of the Ahrimanic as we have now expressed it. The tendency of the Ahrimanic in us is to present the world in materialistic terms. That we conceive the world materialistically, that we think of a mere natural order, is the consequence of the fact that we carry Ahrimanic in us. That we carry ideals within us, which detach themselves from the general nature, according to which we want to orient ourselves in our mutual behavior, but which must appear to us only like dreams within the present world view, which are dreamed out when, according to the natural order, the earth has arrived at its final state , that is the consequence of the fact that the luciferic powers, which, like the ahrimanic ones, live in us, are constantly striving to tear the part of us that is accessible to them completely out of the natural order and to spiritualize it completely. The main tendency of the luciferic powers, insofar as they live in us, is to make us as spiritual as possible, to tear us away from all material life if possible. That is why they present us with ideals that are not natural powers, but that are powerless in the present natural order. And if, in the course of the future period of the earth, man were to fall entirely prey to the influence of Lucifer, so that he would believe that ideals are just imagined things towards which the mind can be directed, then this man would follow the luciferic powers. The material earth, to which we belong, would decay, scatter in the universe, would not fulfill its purpose, and the luciferic powers would lead man into another spiritual world to which he does not belong. To do this, they need the trick of making us believe in ideals that are actually mere dreams. Just as Ahriman, on the one hand, presents us with a world that is a mere natural order, so Lucifer, on the other hand, presents us with a world that consists purely of imagined ideals.

This is something very significant. And at present, I would say, a balance is only being struck in those areas that still lie in the human unconscious. But people must become more and more aware of this, otherwise they will not get out of this dilemma, they will not be able to build a bridge between idealism and realism, but this bridge is necessary.

What currently still creates a kind of balance is the following. When very young people die, for example children, these children – and the same applies to young people – have just looked into the world; they have not fully lived out their existence here on the physical plane. With a life unlived on the physical plane, they pass over into the other world, which is lived between death and a new birth, as I described yesterday. Because they have only lived part of their earthly life, they bring something of earthly life with them into the spiritual world that cannot be brought across when one has grown old. You arrive differently in the spiritual world if you have grown old than if you die young. If you die young, you have lived your life in such a way that you still have a lot of strength in you from your prenatal life. As a child and as a young person, you have lived your physical life in such a way that you still have a lot of the strength in you that you had in the spiritual world before you were born. In this way, a close connection has been created between the spiritual part that one has brought with one and the physical part that one has experienced here. And through this close connection, one can take something that one acquires on earth with one into the spiritual world. Children or people who have died young take something from earthly life with them into the spiritual world that cannot be taken at all if one dies as an older person. That which is taken along is then over there in the spiritual world, and what is carried over by children and young people gives the spiritual world a certain heaviness that it would not otherwise have, the spiritual world in which people then live together, gives a certain heaviness to the spiritual world and prevents the luciferic powers from completely separating the spiritual world from the physical one.

So you see, we are looking at an enormous secret! When children and young people die, they take something with them from here, which the luciferic powers use to prevent us from completely detaching ourselves from earthly life. It is extremely important to realize this.

If you get older here on earth, you cannot thwart the luciferic powers in the way described, because after a certain age you no longer have that intimate connection between what you brought with you at birth and physical life on earth. When one has grown old, this inner connection is dissolved and just the opposite occurs. From a certain age onwards we instill our own nature in a certain way into the spiritual substance within the physical earth. We make the physical earth more spiritual than it would otherwise be. So from a certain age onwards we spiritualize the physical earth in a certain way, which cannot be perceived by the outer senses. We carry spiritual into the physical earth, as we carry physical up into the spiritual world when we die young; we squeeze out, so to speak, spiritual when we grow old, I cannot say it any other way. Growing old consists in the spiritual sense from a certain aspect of squeezing out spiritual here on earth. This in turn prevents the reckoning of Ahriman. As a result, Ahriman cannot, in the long run, have such an intense effect on people that the opinion that ideals do have a certain meaning could completely die out. But in today's time frame, we are already very, very close to people falling into the most terrible errors precisely with regard to what has been said. Even well-meaning people easily fall into such errors with regard to what has been said. And these errors will become ever greater and greater and, with increasing earth development, can become enormous.

To give you an example: a very ingenious philosopher, Robert Zimmermann, wrote an “Anthroposophy” in 1882. I have already mentioned this in a context. This “Anthroposophy” is not what we now call Anthroposophy, it is more or less a concept jungle. But that is because Robert Zimmermann was not able to see into the spiritual world, he was only a Herbartian philosopher. Now he has written this “Anthroposophy”. But it is precisely in this “Anthroposophy” that Robert Zimmermann deals with the question that I have placed at the top of our considerations these days from his point of view. On the one hand, he sees ideas: logical ideas, aesthetic ideas, ethical ideas; on the other hand, he sees the order of nature. And he cannot somehow find a bridge between the logical, the aesthetic, the ethical ideas and the order of nature, but he does stop at it: on the one hand, there is the order of nature, and on the other hand, there are the ideas. And the conclusion he comes to is extremely interesting, because it is actually typical of a person in the present day. He comes to the conclusion that it is forbidden to man once and for all to populate nature with ideas and to ascribe to ideas the power of nature. The two worlds can actually only be connected in the mind of man. So he says. And so he means at one point, where he summarizes almost everything he says and thinks: “The realization of ideas is neither a fact of the past nor a fact of the present, but a task whose fulfillment lies in the future and in the hands of man. The dream of a “golden age”, of which a sober rationalist like Kant as of that of “eternal peace, as an extreme positivist like Comte as the ‘état positif’, raved about, will be fulfilled when the entire world of ideas has become real and the entire reality is permeated by the ideas, that is to say, when that which Schiller called “the secret of the master's art,” the “consumption” of matter by form, becomes manifest, or, as Schleiermacher put it, “when ethics become physics and physics become ethics.”

Yes, but that can never be! It can only be that people realize ideas in their social order. But when the earth has reached its end, the whole dream of ideas will have been dreamt. Nothing else is possible according to such a philosophy. Therefore such a philosophy always remains abstract and must finally confess: “A philosophy which, like the one above, neither takes the theocentric point of view, inaccessible to human knowledge, as in theosophy, and regards the ‘dream of reason’ as a reality that has long since been created, nor, like anthropology, takes the anthropocentric but uncritical standpoint of common experience, in order to view from there a reality filled with ideas as a 'dream of reason', which thus simultaneously wants to be anthropocentric, that is, starting from human experience, and yet philosophical, that is, going beyond it, at the hand of logical thinking, is Arihroposophie.” “Anthroposophy” is therefore here the admission that one can never cross this chasm between unreal ideas and idea-less reality.

But in man himself there is a natural being, which thus belongs to the natural order, connected with a spiritual being that can absorb the spiritual. This is not denied by an anthroposophist like Robert Zimmermann. But man cannot be regarded by contemporary science either in such a way that the riddle would be solved through man, through this microcosm.

Let us now look back at something we have already mentioned during this stay. We have said that we actually have to divide the human being into three parts, not as conveniently as the skeleton, of course, as I have already explained. But I have also spoken about this in the final notes to my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' (Mysteries of the Soul). We can divide the human being into three parts: the head, the trunk and the extremities, with everything that belongs to the extremities belonging to the extremities, including everything sexual. If we divide the human being in this way and now apply what we already know: that the formation of the head, the shape of the head points to forces of the previous incarnation, the limb man points to the future incarnation and actually only the trunk belongs to the present. So, after what I have explained today, you will no longer find it very incomprehensible when I tell you: insofar as the human being carries his head, this head points back to the earlier incarnation, into the past. The forces of the past, Ahrimanic forces, are at work in the head, and what applies to Ahrimanic forces in general applies to the human head in particular. Everything that is actually formed in the human head does not actually belong to the present, but the forces of the previous incarnation have an effect on the head; and the creative powers make use of the ahrimanic powers to shape our head, to give our head its actual form. If the creative powers did not make use of the ahrimanic spirits to shape our heads, then we would all – forgive me, but it is so – wear a much softer head, but we would all have an animal head: one who is bullish in character would have a bull's head, another who is lamb-like in character would have a lamb's head, and so on. It is due to the influence of the Ahrimanic powers, which the creative forces use to shape us, that this animal head, which we would otherwise wear, does not really sit on us, as the Egyptians drew it on some of their figures; that we do not go around like these Egyptian figures, who have good reasons for this, because in the Egyptian mysteries, too, though from an atavistic point of view, things were taught that can be taught again now. We also do not go around like that, as in the Rosicrucian pictures, where every woman is painted with a lion's head and every man with an ox's head. That is the Rosicrucian painting of man. The Rosicrucians chose a more average animal and therefore gave the women the head of the animal that most resembles them, the lion, and the man the head of the animal that most resembles him, the ox, the bull. That is why in Rosicrucian figures you see man and woman placed side by side: the woman with the most beautiful lion's head, the man with a bull's head. But this is absolutely correct. That metamorphosis – to use a Goethean term – can take place, that our head, which tends towards the animalistic in its form, can be shaped so that it is a human head, comes from the influence of the Ahrimanic powers. If the deities did not make use of Ahriman to shape our bony heads, then we would walk around with animal heads.

But the divine powers also make use of the luciferic spirits. If they did not make use of these luciferic spirits, our limbless man would not be able to transform from the present to the next incarnation. The luciferic beings are necessary for this. And it is to the luciferic entities that we again owe the fact that, by dying, the form that the man of the extremities still has now is gradually transformed into the broader form that he is to have in the next incarnation. Then, in the middle of the path between death and a new birth, Ahriman must intervene to take on the other task: to reshape the head in the appropriate way. Just as we would go around with animal heads if we did not owe it to Ahriman that we get a human head, so our nature of the extremities would not metamorphose into the human until the next incarnation, but would pass over into the demonic. We lose our head, as we now have it, under all circumstances through death, not only as matter that unites with the earth, but also as form; in the next incarnation we carry over what will become the head from the extremity of man. But this would become a demonic being if we did not have the luciferic powers, who are connected with us, to thank for the fact that the transformation can take place from a demon, which is merely a spiritual soul, into the human form of the next incarnation.

Thus, Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers must participate in our becoming human, and the human cannot be understood without calling upon the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic for help. Humanity cannot be spared the task of truly understanding the activity of Ahriman and Lucifer in the future. The Bible quite rightly says that the Deity of whom it speaks at the beginning breathed the living spirit into man. But the living spirit works in the trunk of the human being. Insofar as we are dealing with the normally functioning divine entities, we are dealing only with the trunk of the human being. Insofar as we are dealing with the head man, we are dealing with an opponent of the powers of Yahweh, and thus also with an opponent of the Christ. And insofar as we are dealing with the man of the extremities, we are dealing with the Luciferic opponent.

Therefore, one will only understand the human being if one presents him under these three aspects. In our central group for our building, we therefore have this trinity: the representative of humanity, who is trained in such a way that the forces of breathing, of the trunk, of heart activity and so on are primarily active in him – this is the middle figure; then the figure in which everything main, head-related is active: Ahriman; and the figure in which everything extremity-related is active: Lucifer.

We must dissect the human being in this way if we want to understand the human being, because in the human being, the human being as such is united with Ahriman and Lucifer. At the same time, this is an indication that everything that is more or less connected with human thinking, which, after all, is bound to the head in relation to

its physical connection to the head — human thinking flows on the basis of perceptions as something external and obvious — that all this has an Ahrimanic character. Through the senses of the head we perceive nature primarily, and we build up an image of nature with the ahrimanic character just described, because we ourselves carry the ahrimanic in the formation, in the shaping of our head.

Ideals, on the other hand, have a great deal to do with love, with everything that belongs to the man of the extremities, inwardly, psychologically. I shall come back to this in the near future. That is why the Luciferic power has special access to ideals. Ahriman takes hold of us through our head, Lucifer through our extremities. Through our head Ahriman tempts us to conceive of nature without spirit; through our extremity man Lucifer tempts us to conceive of ideals without the power of nature.

But it is the task of the present human being, by surveying such things, to arrive at a correct overview. For you see, there is a certain boundary within us, precisely in our chest-humanity, in our trunk-humanity, whereby the forces of the head, which are Ahrimanic forces, are separated from the luciferic forces that belong to the extremity-humanity. If we were able to see ourselves completely by looking mystically into ourselves, then we would indeed comprehend the natural order through the head, but we would also see into ourselves through the natural order. And if the luciferic powers were to decide in us, then the luciferic powers would also enlighten us about the ahrimanic powers, and in this way we would come to a connection between the natural order and the spiritual order. But for a certain reason we cannot do this, and that is because we have a memory. What we absorb from nature in the way of ideas and concepts, of impressions, we store in our memory. And if here (see diagram on page 179) we have only schematically drawn the head human being, the trunk and torso human being, and the extremities human being, then in the trunk human being there is the septum, which leads to that which we take in through the head, in the natural order, coming back to us as memory material. As a result, we do not see down to the Luciferic, and thus we do not notice the Ahrimanic, as we do not see what is behind a mirror, but rather what is reflected. Here the natural order is reflected in what at the same time separates our Ahrimanic from our Luciferic, and what is the basis for the forming memory, for the forming power of recollection. If we could not remember the things we have experienced, if this partition were not there, if, looking into ourselves, we could see through ourselves, we would look down into ourselves as far as the Luciferic. Then we would also perceive the Ahrimanic.

But now consider: what appears to us in this mirror is what we live through in the course of our lives, what we look back on after death, what becomes a solid ego from a fluid ego. This is what we look back on. That is what we live with. And Ahriman and Lucifer work with us, working with us in such a way that Ahriman brings us to wearing a human head, and Lucifer brings us to not becoming a demon, but to having the possibility of coming to a next incarnation.

I have perhaps tried your patience a little with things that are perhaps a little more difficult to understand, but I wanted to at least evoke a feeling for what actually creates the gap between idealism and realism. It arises from the fact that the Luciferic in us arouses idealism, which is powerless in nature, that the Ahrimanic in us evokes the mere natural order, which appears spiritless to us. Thus idealists, abstract idealists, are actually under the influence of Lucifer, while materialists are under the influence of Ahriman. It is necessary to engage with these things, not just to engage in so-called theosophy in a schematic way, but to engage with these more precise things. For it is necessary that man should become conscious of the fact that he must do something to remain united with the spirit for the rest of his development on earth. It is an uncomfortable truth, one might say, even a hated truth, truly a hated truth, for it contradicts so much that is pleasant to man, that is pleasant to him out of laziness. Nothing is more difficult for people today than when they are told: If you want to maintain your connection with the spirit in the future, you have to do something about it. Most people would like the Mystery of Golgotha to have dissolved into the ground, so that they have nothing to do with their own affairs, so that they can be redeemed from their sins through Christ and go to heaven without having to do anything. And that is why most theologians get so angry about anthroposophy, because the anthroposophical side can never admit that man has nothing to do to maintain his connection with the spirit, that this can also happen in the future of the development of the earth without any action on his part. The connection between the physical and the spiritual, between what the members of man are between birth and death, and what the members of man are between death and new birth, this connection is called into question by the future development of the earth, and it will only not come into disorder if men will really occupy themselves with the spiritual towards the future. Spiritual scientific evidence for this already exists today. This spiritual scientific evidence is highly, highly inconvenient truth, but it sheds light on important and significant matters.

I would like to say that the connection between the soul-spiritual and the physical-etheric in the human being of the counterweight has already become very loose, and it is necessary for the human being to be more and more alert to himself, so that nothing happens in the connection between his physical-etheric and soul-spiritual that could, so to speak, suck him dry, that could suck him dry soul-spiritually. For when such prejudices become more and more active, when one does not need to know anything about what happens after death in life, or when the gulf between so-called idealism and pure natural order becomes ever greater, then people are in danger of losing their soul more and more. Today, I might say, this loss is still held in check by the fact that when young people die, a certain heaviness is given to the spiritual world and Lucifer is thwarted, and when old people die, so much spirituality is poured into the physical world that Ahriman is thwarted. But one must not forget that as a result of people turning away from the spiritual realm, the Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers become more and more powerful, and that little by little, as the devolution of the earth goes on and on, this dam could no longer be fully effective.

That is what I would like to see emerging from our deliberations as a kind of bottom line, a feeling – and feelings are always the most important thing that can arise from spiritual scientific life – of the necessity of dealing with the spiritual from the present earth cycle onwards. I have emphasized this from the most diverse points of view, that it is necessary from the present point of view that people occupy themselves with the spiritual. And there will be no other way of dealing with spiritual matters in the future than by acquiring understanding and not resisting the process of really absorbing even the more difficult considerations such as we have been discussing in recent days and particularly today. People must come to understand the perspectivity of time. When this understanding of the perspectivity of time comes among people, then they will no longer say: Here is idealism, but it is only a mere dream that has no force of nature, and on the other side lies the natural order. Instead, people will come to recognize that what lives in us as ideals is the germ for the future, and that what is the natural order is the fruit of the past.

This sentence is a golden rule: every ideal is the germ of a future natural event; every natural event is the fruit of a past spiritual event. Only by this rule can one find the bridge between idealism and realism. But for this one thing is necessary: any ideal could never become the germ of a future natural event if this future natural event were prevented by the present natural event. We can put any hypothesis before our eyes. Let us assume the possibility that applies today, that through the so-called law of entropy, the evolution of the earth will one day pass into a kind of general warming, and that all other natural forces will cease, then within this final state, of course, all ideals would have died out. This final state follows quite well if one assumes that, according to pure causality, the present physical states will simply continue. If one thinks as present-day physics does, that such a final state will one day exist according to the law of conservation of energy and matter, then there is no room in this final state for an ideal to arise in it as a future natural event, because the future will simply be the consequence of the present natural event. But that is not how it is, that is not how it presents itself to the present study of nature, but it presents itself differently. All the substances and forces that exist today will no longer be there in the future. The law of conservation of matter and energy does not exist. Where we look for substance, we find nothing but the influence of something Ahrimanic that has passed away. And what surrounds us in the world of the senses will no longer be there in the future. And then, when nothing of what is physical now remains, when all this has been completely dissolved, the time will have come when the present ideals will join the natural process of what is now perishing.

This is how it is in the great universe. And for the individual human being, it is the case that he will be incarnated again in the next world incarnation when everything that he has grown into with the present incarnation has been partially overcome, when, that is, an environment can be created for him that is different from the present environment, when everything that is keeping him here on earth can be removed from the present environment. If all this has changed so that he can experience new things, then he will be incarnated again. The present ideals that can form in man will be nature, when all that is now nature will no longer be there, but something new will have emerged. But the new that arises is nothing other than the spiritual that has become nature.

Behind appearances and ideals we must seek that which forms the bridge over the abyss. But one must discover it. Today one can only discover it if one is not afraid to develop the concepts so powerfully that they themselves can penetrate reality. Therefore, the present time really has the necessity to engage very much in everything that can be experienced spiritually. But — let me add this as a postscript — it will be necessary for people to be able to develop ever greater and greater impartiality towards spiritual considerations. The day before yesterday, I ended by pointing out, as it might seem unnecessary to do for some people, but I do not like to do it, it is never unnecessary, a number of things that stand in the way of fruitful spiritual scientific work, including on the part of the Anthroposophical Society. Above all, what is needed here is real impartiality. Time and again, we see that the dissolving power that actually brought about materialism and destroyed the old spirituality is penetrating into human thinking, especially into the spiritual, into the willed spiritual. I have pointed out how materialistic some theosophical views are. Of course, it is not easy to find the right words when discussing spiritual-scientific matters, because our language today is no longer suitable for the spiritual, because we first have to search again for such a connection between language and the subject that is suitable for the spiritual. But it is necessary that the spiritual-scientific movement is not always corrupted by what is most harmful. One must characterize impartially what takes place in the spirit. Again and again I experience that I am asked: There is someone, there is someone who has spiritual experiences. — The meaning of the questions, which are often asked in this way, is that the actual question is: Is it now possible to surrender to what this or that person sees with blind faith in the truth? And if the answer is in the affirmative, then blind devotion arises; if it is in the negative, then the person in question is immediately denounced as a heretic and it is said: Well, that is atavistic clairvoyance, you don't give anything to that. — Yes, this either-or must be taken quite differently in this field. We must really face up to the statements about the spiritual with all our healthy reason. But if we want to become dogmatists, we cannot become spiritual scientists. If we want to either idolize or condemn, we cannot become spiritual scientists. There will also be infinitely valuable contributions to the characterization of the spiritual world from sides that one does not necessarily want to swear by.

On the other hand, there are times when people swear by some esoteric personality. Then it can be shown that this seer personality has at some point – well, maybe even once – retouched a little, or retouched a lot; then that personality is finished. Before, the same people swore by them, and now they have been undone.

Yes, you don't get ahead within humanity in this way. You don't get ahead within humanity with the either/or of deification or demonization, but only by facing things with your common sense. For example, it may also be the case that someone, of whom one even knows: Well, he does not disdain to tell a tall tale now and then – something quite true, important, essential comes out of the spiritual world.

We would not have the either/or that I am talking about if we wanted to introduce dogmatics, but if we wanted to place ourselves with common sense, precisely within this anthroposophical movement. That is one thing. The other is this: it is extremely difficult, because of the way things are often handled within our circle, to place the Anthroposophical Society in the cultural movement of the present day. This requires discernment on the part of those who are already members of this society. Once you are a member, you have a certain obligation to exercise this discernment. For we will go completely wrong with this Anthroposophical Society if we do not seek to connect with the general spiritual culture of the present, if we repeatedly and repeatedly fall back into the error of being sectarian. That will be the death of our movement if we become sectarian. Just consider that things like the ones we have discussed these days will not seem particularly strange to someone who is currently involved in science and cultural life, if he or she only acquires the necessary lack of prejudice. But in order to achieve something in this way, it is necessary to have the will to distinguish. With us it can easily happen that a question is asked in a stereotyped way when it is a matter of: should someone listen to anthroposophical lectures or should he be given a cycle? So the question is asked in a stereotyped way, without taking into account the level of education, the whole world position of the person concerned. But the stereotyped way is what is absolutely harmful to us. It is the schematic that makes it possible for a person like the one in Holland, around whom a whole bunch of nonsense has crystallized, to swim into the Anthroposophical Society and find protectors there, while people who are capable of judgment are often repelled by it.

To mention a specific example: some time ago, Mr. von Bernus appeared within the Anthroposophical Society with the clear aim — which one may find a little better, a little worse, as common sense may speak — of building a bridge between the general cultural life, the literary and scientific life of the present, and our anthroposophical life. Now, Mr. von Bernus, in his own way, has poetically reworked and brought out into the world a number of things, some of which are in my books and some of which are in cycles. He showed me himself: he has received a pile of letters, letters of criticism, because a truly contemporary attempt has been made here! One would not be surprised if someone who perhaps has a lot at stake could be repelled by such behavior as was perpetrated against him by the Anthroposophical Society in the past. Nevertheless, the journal he founded will be of tremendous service to the Anthroposophical Movement. He had, after all, managed to get the Anthroposophical Society represented in Munich in his art gallery. But everywhere one could see certain resistances to something that was as justified as possible! And if one looks at Bernus' experiences, they give a good picture of how the Anthroposophical Society should learn to be a real society.

In so far as the Dornach structure came into being, it is a society. But much else, in particular, is left undone, clearly showing that the Anthroposophical Society does not see itself as a society at all, but as a sum of individual sectarian little circles. But we must get beyond this stage of sectarianism. And we will not get beyond it unless some thought is given to the matter.

It is so difficult, and it is true that one does not like to say such things, but after all, many things are necessarily said to me because I am personally so closely involved with this anthroposophical movement. If the Anthroposophical Society should gradually develop more and more into a society with an expressed tendency to keep me completely quiet — which is what it is actually developing into and what it has always had as a tendency — then it is not a matter of personal vanity when I emphasize this. It makes me very uncomfortable that I have to emphasize it, but in the Anthroposophical Society there is a tendency to keep quiet about me, and there the personal is linked to the factual. Because of this – because everything that a society otherwise does is not being done – only the venomous words that the apostate members have created bubble to the surface.

Yes, these are things that I sometimes have to point out and that must not remain unspoken. I have raised them in the places where I have been able to speak recently, because I really believe that in these catastrophic times it is very important that anthroposophy is represented in the world in the right way. But it is so difficult to get people to reflect more deeply on how one should actually proceed in the anthroposophical field in order to make this Anthroposophical Society a real society. — Individuals have indeed made a start, but as a rule everything gets stuck in the starting blocks. Now, I think that perhaps, by drawing attention to the matter a second time, it will be given a little thought. I am not saying this for personal reasons, but because of certain necessities of the time, as you will indeed gather from what I have just said, from which you will be able to discern many seeds that can serve to help you understand our catastrophic times.

[Blackboard writing] September 2, 1918

Every ideal is a germ for a future natural event.

Every natural event is the fruit of past spiritual events.

Ladies and Gentlemen,¹

A few weeks ago, in my lecture on Soul Health and Spiritual Investigation,² I put before you some of the answers that have been given to the question, "Why do people misunderstand Spiritual Investigation?" To-day, I should like to examine other points of view, which will give a more general answer to the question under discussion. There can, of course, be no question of my examining individual attacks which may have been made from one quarter or another on what we call Spiritual Investigation. Such a procedure would be quite out of key with the tone that you, ladies and gentlemen, have learnt to expect from these lectures. If, on occasions,³ frustrated ambition or some such motive has caused opposition to be raised in those very circles which formerly reckoned themselves perfectly good followers of Spiritual Research, this only serves to show how unimportant are these attacks in comparison to the great tasks which Spiritual Investigation has to fulfil. It will, therefore, be necessary to deal with individual points only occasionally, and on external grounds. That, moreover, is not my aim. My aim is this. To show how contemporary education and all that the mind may have assimilated of the habits of thought, the philosophic feeling, and the intellectual systems that characterise our present times—how all this may make it hard for the modern mind to bring the right spirit to the understanding of Spiritual Investigation. What, then, I wish to explain fundamentally are not the illegitimate attacks that have been made on Spiritual Investigation, but those that are, up to a point—one had almost said completely—legitimate; at any rate understandable to the modern Soul.

For Spiritual Science has to deal not only with the attacks that are made upon other spiritual tendencies of our time; it has, in the special sense mentioned just now, every intellectual movement of the time against it. If the mechanistic, materialistic—or to use the more scholarly expression now in vogue—the monistic view of the universe is put forward, it will be found to have opponents who base themselves upon a certain spiritual idealism. The reasons which such spiritually-minded idealists adduce in defence of their views against materialism are, as a rule, extremely weighty and important. They are objections which can in every respect be shared by the Spiritual Investigator, reasons which he can grasp and understand in the same way as anyone who merely takes his stand upon a certain spiritual idealism. But the Spiritual Investigation speaks of the spiritual world, not merely as do, for example, idealists of the stamp of Ulrici, Wirth, Immanuel Hermann Fichte,⁴ though the last, as we saw yesterday,⁵ went more deeply into things than the others. The Spiritual Investigator does not merely speak in abstract concepts which point to a spiritual world beyond the world of the senses. On the contrary, he cannot leave this spiritual world undefined, cannot grasp it in mere concepts; he must go on to a real description of it. He is not content, as are the idealists, to accept a purely intellectual indication of a spiritual world, which, though it must exist, still remains unknown. No—the spiritual world which he has to show forth must be concrete and manifested in various individual types of being which have, not a physical, but a purely spiritual existence. In a word, he has to speak of a spiritual world which shall be as varied and as full of meaning as the physical, far fuller indeed, if it were but truly described. If, then, the Spiritual Investigator speaks of the spiritual world, not as of something which exists in general and can be proved intellectually, but quite definitely as of something to be believed in, as of something which can be perceived as the world of sense is perceived, he will find among his opponents not only the materialists, but also those who speak of the spiritual world only in abstract concepts from the standpoint of a certain spiritual and intellectual idealism. Finally, he will have as opponents those who believe that religious feeling of any kind will be threatened by Spiritual Investigation, that religion—their religion—will be endangered by the existence of a science of the spiritual world. And one could name many other movements which the Spiritual Investigator would find working against him—all fundamentally in the same way as has been described, and to-day more powerfully than ever. Weighty objections, objections which from a certain point of view and to a certain extent are justified. It is of these, therefore, that I wish to speak.

And again and again it is the scientific view of the world which presents, especially in our day, the most considerable opposition to the aspiration of Spiritual Science, the view, namely, which seeks to erect a picture in the world on the foundations of those recent advances in science which may rightly be regarded as the greatest triumph of humanity. And again and again we must repeat that it is no easy task to realise that the true Spiritual Investigator does not really dispute anything in the world picture that can be legitimately deduced from the data of modern science, that on the contrary he does in the fullest sense of the word take his stand upon the ground of modern science, in so far as the latter supplies an adequate foundation for a cosmic or world-conception. Let us examine this recent scientific tendency from a particular contemporary point of view. For we can but pick out individual points of view for examination. Here, then, we stand before those men who quite legitimately raise difficulties against Spiritual Science by saying, "Does not modern science show us through the wonderful structure of the human nervous system and the human brain how dependent is that which man experiences mentally upon this structure and upon the action of this nervous system? "And one might easily expect the Spiritual Investigator to deny what the ordinary scientist is bound to maintain from his point of view. But this is just where so much mischief is done by the dilettante Spiritual Investigator, and by those who want to be Spiritual Investigators without being worthy to lay claim to so much as the name of dilettante. For ever and again true Spiritual Science is confused with charlatanism and dilettantism. It is no easy task to believe that just on this very subject of the meaning of the physical structure of the brain and nervous system, the Spiritual Investigator actually stands more firmly on scientific ground than the scientist himself.

Let us take an example. I purposely choose one that is not very recent, although with the rapid advance of modern science things alter very quickly and the older discoveries are easily superseded by new ones. I purposely did not choose a very recent example, though it would have been easy enough to do so. I have selected the famous brain specialist and psychiatrist, Meynert,⁶ because I wish to take as my starting-point what, as a result of his researches on the brain, he had to say about the relation between the brain and the life of the soul. Meynert had a profound knowledge of the brain and of the nervous system, both in their normal and in their pathological conditions. His writings, which towards the end of the nineteenth century, were standard works on the subject, will inspire anyone who reads them with the feeling that it is supremely important to consider not only the pronouncements of purely positive research on the question under discussion, but also those of a man of this quality. The following point, however, must be borne in mind. When people who, for one reason or another, have lightly taken upon themselves a would-be Spiritual Scientific attitude, people who have never looked through a microscope or a telescope, ignoramuses who have never done anything that could give them the remotest conception of—say—the wonderful structure of the human brain—when such people talk about the baseness of materialism, then it is easy enough to understand that the conscientious thoroughness which informs the methods of modern scientific research should prevent its votaries from accepting the objections that have been put to them by those who parade as the champions of Spiritual Science.

But when a man like Meynert, however, embarks upon the study of the brain, the first thing he finds is that the brain in its outer frame is a complicated agglomeration of cells (according to him about a milliard in number),⁷ which combine among themselves in the most intricate ways, which multiply and are distributed to the most various parts of the body, into the organs of sense where they become the nerves of the special senses, into the organs of movement, etc., etc. And to a scientist like Meynert it is revealed how connecting fibres lead from one set of nervous paths to another and he is thus led to the view that the brain takes in that which man experiences as the world of presentations, that which is broken up and bound together again in concepts and images when the external world impinges upon his senses. The brain takes all this in, works upon and transforms it, and according to the nature of the transformation, produces what we call the phenomena of the soul.

Yes, say the philosophers, but these phenomena, these visions of the soul, these mental processes are something quite different from the movements of the brain, different from anything that goes on inside the brain. The answer to them is this. That the brain should produce what we call mental processes is for a scientist like Meynert no more wonderful than that, say, a watch should, in accordance with the nature of its internal mechanism, produce signs which tell us the time of day; no more wonderful than that a magnet should, in virtue of its purely physical properties, attract a body outside itself, should, as it were, work with invisible threads. The magnetic field reveals itself as active around the physical object. Why should not the life of the soul be something produced similarly, but in an infinitely more complicated manner, by the brain? The view, in short, is one that cannot be easily dismissed, nor can its claims be rejected without very careful examination. You may laugh at the idea that the brain should, by the mere unrolling of its processes, bring into being some highly complex psychic life. Yet there are plenty of examples in nature of processes where we would not at first glance be disposed to speak of the presence of soul life. Not by taking our stand upon preconceived opinions, but by realising how justified are many of the difficulties which many people feel to be standing in the path of Spiritual Investigation—thus, and thus alone, can we bring order and harmony into the bewildered conceptions of the world.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing to disprove the possibility of that which in the ordinary sense of the word we call soul life having been produced by a purely mechanical process, in so far as it takes place in the brain and in the nervous system. The brain and the nervous system may be ordered in so complicated a manner that through the unrolling of their processes, the life of the soul can arise in man. No one, therefore, will reject the materialistic picture of the world given by Natural Science on the ground of considerations such as these, which merely rest upon the observations of nature. Indeed, Spiritual Science is hard put to it to-day to oppose Natural Science, just because the latter has been brought to such a pitch of perfection, and has achieved so legitimate an ideal in its own sphere. For the Spiritual Investigator must be able and willing to recognise to the full where the other side is in the right. That is why, once again, we can never hope to build up a spiritual view of the world by merely stressing those things which run counter to the claims of external observation, even when the latter extends to the sphere of our own human lives. If we want to reach the life of the soul, then we must experience it in ourselves, and our soul life must not flow from outer events. Then we shall not say that the brain cannot produce the processes of the soul, but we must experience these psychic processes ourselves.

Now there is one sphere in which everyone has experience of his own soul, independently of brain processes, and that is the sphere of ethics, the sphere of the moral life. It is at once obvious that what shines before a man as a moral impulse cannot occur as the result of the unrolling of any mere brain processes. It must be clearly understood that I am speaking of the moral impulse in so far as the will and the feelings enter into it, in so far as the experience is really ethical. Thus, in the sphere where the soul becomes immediately aware of itself, everyone can assert that the soul has a life of its own, independently of the body and of anything corporeal. But not everyone is able to add to this inner realisation and growth in the moral life the idea that Goethe added to it in the essay which I mentioned yesterday⁸ on "Anschauende Urteilskraft," and in many other passages. Not everyone can say, like Goethe, from the depth of his own experience: If even in the world of sense man can rise to impulses which act independently of the corporeal, why should not this soul of his be able, in relation to other spiritual activities, to embark boldly upon the "adventure of reason."⁹ (This was the name given by Kant to anything that went beyond the moral standpoint.) This is where Goethe speaks in opposition to Kant. And it means that we must rise, not only to a spiritual soul life which springs, as do the moral impulses, from the depth of the soul, so that it cannot be ascribed to the life of the brain—no, we must also have other spiritual experiences, which will go to show that the soul perceives spiritually with spiritual organs just as we perceive physically with physical organs. But for this to happen there must be added to the ordinary everyday life, which we go through passively, a life of inner activity and doing. And this it is which escapes so many people to-day, who have become accustomed to the idea that if anything is true, then it must be dictated to them from some quarter or another. For men would rather take their stand upon any external manifestation than upon the firm ground of inner experience. What is experienced within the soul strikes them as something arbitrary, something unsure. Truth, so it seems to them, should be firmly rooted in external reality, in something to whose existence we have not ourselves contributed.

Now this way of thinking is easy enough, at any rate in the sphere of scientific research. To add all manner of fantastic material to the testimony of the outer senses and to what experiment and method can make of this testimony, is to burden Natural Science unnecessarily. But we shall see in a moment that the same does not hold of Spiritual Investigation. And even if we admit that the standpoint of Natural Science is justified, we can see how it loses in strength for lack of the habit of inner energising, how enfeebled it shows itself when that activity is demanded of it which is simply indispensable for anyone wishing to make the smallest progress in Spiritual Science. In order to make progress in spiritual knowledge it is not necessary to go in for all sorts of hazy activities, nor to train oneself so as to have what are usually called clairvoyant experiences by means of hallucination, visions, etc. This comes neither at the beginning nor, as I pointed out in the lecture on Soul Health and Spiritual Science,¹⁰ does it come at the end of our quest. What is needful, however, in order to reach a deeper understanding of Spiritual Research (mind, I do not say in order to become a legitimate follower of its teaching), what is needful for a legitimate understanding is hard thinking. And hard thinking has suffered considerably from the fact that people have grown accustomed to do no more than observe how phenomena occur as to their form. They place implicit faith in the pronouncements of nature, whether in the outer world of sense, in external observation, or in experiment. They take their stand upon what the experiment says. They do not venture—and they are right so far as this particular field is concerned—they do not venture to establish as a comprehensive general law anything that has not been dictated from outside. But this attitude hinders the inner activity of the soul. Man gets into the way of being passive, of trusting only what is shown to him from outside. And his soul completely loses the faculty for seeking truth by an inner energising, an inner activity. Now, in approaching Spiritual Science, it is above all necessary that one's thinking should be thorough, so thorough that nothing will escape it, and that certain lightly-veiled objections which could be raised should spring up in one's mind. It is necessary, too, that one should anticipate such objections and face up to them oneself, so as to reach a higher standpoint from which, on looking back on these former objections, one shall find the truth. And at this point I would like to direct your attention to an example—one of many hundreds and thousands which could be found in Meynert. I do this, ladies and gentlemen, because I regard Meynert as a first-class scientist. When it comes to refuting criticisms I do not choose protagonists I despise, but critics for whom I have the highest regard.

Thus one of the points of interest in Meynert is his account of how the conceptions of time and space arise in man. His view is as follows. Let us suppose (the example is particularly apposite at the moment) that I am listening to a public speaker. I shall get the impression that his words are spoken one after the other, i.e., that they are spoken in Time. And, Meynert asks, how do we get this impression that the words are spoken successively in Time? (Thus, ladies and gentlemen, you can all imagine that Meynert is speaking of you as you are taking in my words in such a way that they appear to you one after the other in Time.) And he answers: Time comes into being through the conception of the brain; it is as the brain receives it that one word can be thought of as coming after another. The words come to us through the sense organs and from these sense organs a further process sends them on to the brain. The brain has certain inner organs with which it works upon the sense impressions, and thus the conception of Time arises within through the activity of certain organs. And it is in this way that all conceptions are created out of the brain. That Meynert does not mean a subordinate activity by this can be seen from a certain remark which he makes in his lecture on the "Mechanics of the Brain Structure,"¹¹ in which he gives his opinion of how the external world is related to man. The ordinary man in the street, says Meynert, assumes that the external world is there exactly as he creates it in his brain. The hypothesis, he continues, which Realism dares to make is that the world which appears to the brain is there before and after any brains existed. But the world as constructed in this way by a brain capable of consciousness gives the lie to the realistic hypothesis. That is to say, the brain builds up the world as man pictures it, as it is presented to him by his senses, as he has created it outwards from within through the processes of his brain. And in this way man creates, not only images, but also Time, Space, and Infinity. Certain mechanisms exist in the brain, says Meynert, which enable him to do this. Unfortunately in lectures of this sort, which must of necessity be short, one cannot enter into every detail of these ideas, which may, therefore, in many respects seem obscure. But we shall see in a moment that it is possible, nevertheless, to pick out the main line of thought in this matter. What seems clear is that as soon as one has taken a step along the path which leads to the view that the brain is the creator of the life of the Soul as it occurs in man, then what Meynert says will seem completely justifiable. It is what that path leads to; we are bound to end there. And the only way of avoiding such a conclusion is to have thought things out so thoroughly that the very simple objections to this view will immediately occur to one. For imagine what would be the consequences if Meynert's exposition were correct. You are all sitting there. You are listening to what I say. Through the structure of your brains what I am saying becomes ordered in Time. It is not merely that your auditory nerve transforms it into an auditory image, but it arranges for you in Time the words that I am speaking. Thus you all have, as it were, a dream picture of what is being said and also, naturally, of him who is standing before you. Behind this dream picture, says Meynert, Naive Realism assumes that there is a human being like yourselves, who is saying all this. But this is not necessarily so, for you have produced this man and his words in your brain, and there may be something quite different behind him. And yet I, too, am ordering my images in Time, so that Time is present not only in you but also in the fact that I am placing one word after another. Now this perfectly simple idea will not occur to anyone who digs himself into a certain line of thought. And yet it is easy to see in the case I have just described that Time has an objective existence, that it lives outside ourselves. But the man who has embarked upon a certain definite line of thought will see neither to right nor to left of him, but will go on and on in this same direction and reach the most extraordinarily subtle and highly remarkable results. But this is not the point. All the most subtle results which this line of thought will yield admit of vigorous proof. Each proof is linked to the other. You will never detect an error if you follow the stream of Meynert's thought. The point, however, is this, that you must have thought things out sufficiently to hit upon the instances that will not fit; the thinking finds out of itself that which will force the stream out of its bed. And it is just this act of making thought mobile and active which, among those in the other camp, interferes with that perfectly legitimate concentration upon the external world which is demanded of them by Natural Science. Thus the problem of Time gives rise here not to a subjective, but to a genuinely objective difficulty. And the same will be found to be the case in all kinds of departments of thought.

For more than a hundred years philosophers have been chewing the old saying of Kant's with which he tried to rescue the conception of God from the dilemma in which he found it. If we merely think of a hundred coins,¹² they are not a coin less than a hundred real coins. A hundred imagined, possible coins are supposed to be exactly the same as a hundred real coins! Upon this idea that conceptually a hundred possible coins contain everything that a hundred coins contain, upon this idea Kant bases the whole of his refutation of the so-called Ontological proof of the existence of God. Now, if our thinking is mobile, we shall immediately hit upon the objection: a hundred imaginary coins are for one with a mobile mind exactly a hundred coins less than a hundred real ones. Exactly a hundred coins less. The point is not merely to ask for a logical proof of what we are thinking, but to pay attention to how we are thinking. The web of Kant's ideas is, of course, so closely woven that it needs the utmost acumen to point to any logical error it may contain. The point is not only to bear in mind what arises within certain accustomed streams of thought, but to be so well drilled in thought that one remains firmly planted in the objective world. We must stand, not only with our thinking within ourselves, not only inside our own world of thought, but in the objective world outside us, so as to capture on the wing the instances that will refute the idea before us. The mind must be thoroughly trained, must have thought things out thoroughly before the instances will stream towards it. And only in this way will man attain to a certain kinship with the great Thought that animates the objective world.

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that we must think of the soul in its activity. If we want to grasp what the soul is, it is not enough to draw conclusions from the premise that it is impossible to develop the life of the soul from the brain and its processes. No, we must have immediate experience of the life of the soul independently of the life of the brain; then only can we speak of the life of the soul. This inner activity is what people nowadays regard as merely the work of fantasy. But the genuine Seeker knows exactly where fantasy ends and where in the development of his soul something else begins which he does not spin from fantasy but which binds him with the spiritual world, so that he can draw from this spiritual world that which he then coins into words or concepts, ideas or images. Only in this way will the soul attain to some knowledge of itself.

I now propose to develop what may seem to be a very paradoxical view. But it is a view which must be expressed, because it can throw so much light upon the essential nature of Spiritual Investigation. You will have noticed that the Spiritual Investigator is and can be in no way inimical to the assumption that the brain can of itself produce certain images, so that what arises as soul life devoid of any inner co-operation can be regarded as merely a product of the brain. And a certain mental habit, due mainly to modern methods of education, causes men and women to behave in the following manner. They are unwilling—for the reasons given above—to seek for anything that they hold to be true by means of inner activity. This they condemn as fantasy or dreaming. And they not only apply this opinion theoretically, but also give it practical effect in that they seek to eliminate what the soul has formed within itself, in that they do their utmost to suppress this element in the attempt they are making to give a picture of the world. Once the soul life has been thus cut off the materialistic world view becomes the ideal sought for. For what happens exactly when man rejects his inner life? Why, much the same as if one were to cut off one's own bodily life from the life of the soul. Just as the watch into which the watchmaker has worked his ideas, once it is finished and left to itself, will produce the same manifestations that were at first introduced into it by the watchmaker's ideas—so the life of the soul can continue in the brain, without the soul being there at all. And the education of to-day forms this habit in people. They grew accustomed not only to deny the soul, but to eliminate it altogether, that is to say, instead of seeking after it with inner activity, they sink back, as on to a pillow, into the purely cerebral life. And the paradox I want to utter is that the materialistic view of the world is literally a brain product, it has actually been automatically produced by the self-moving brain. The external world mirrors itself in the brain, sets it in passive motion, and this gives rise to the world picture of the materialist. The curious thing is, that if and when he has eliminated the life of the soul, the materialist is, on his own ground, perfectly right. Having gone to sleep on the pillow of purely cerebral life, all he can see is this purely cerebral life which has produced the life of the soul; then, in Karl Vogt's¹³ coarse simile, the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.¹⁴ These ideas, which arise in the field of materialism, do not, however, admit of being thought out. The simile is coarse, but they have literally come out of the brain as bile comes out of the liver. Hence the errors to which they give rise. For errors do not come about simply through people saying something false, but when they say something that is true, that holds good within a limited field, namely in the one and only field they will allow, the field of materialism.

From this tendency to make no mental effort, this inability to intensify our thinking as was shown in the last lecture,¹⁵ this failure to achieve any liveliness in the soul—from this general inclination merely to trust to what the body can do comes the materialistic view of the world. The materialistic conception does not arise from a logical error, it comes from the mental tendency to shun all inner activity and to give oneself up to the dictates of the corporeal. And herein lies the secret of the difficulty of refuting materialism. For a man who refuses to bestir his soul cannot answer the objections that are raised against him except by undertaking this very inner activity; and if he shuts it out from the first and prefers the far more convenient alternative of producing simply what his brain produces, well, it is hardly to be wondered at if he remains firmly stuck in the closed circle of materialism. One thing he will never see, and that is that this brain of his (he may thank Heaven that he has one; he could not for all his materialistic philosophy have provided himself with one!)—that this brain of his has itself been created by the Wisdom of the World and that it can, therefore, go on working like a watch, that it is entirely material and can go on reproducing itself. This Wisdom is a sort of phosphorescence; a phosphorescence that is present in the brain itself brings out what is already placed there spiritually. But the materialist need have nothing to do with all this; he simply gives himself up to that which, from being spiritual, has, as it were, condensed into matter, and which now, like the watch, simply grinds out spiritual products. As you see, ladies and gentlemen, the Spiritual Investigator stands so firmly on the foundations of legitimate Natural Science that he is obliged to assert what to many will seem as paradoxical as what I have just been saying. But this will show you that if we want to pass judgment on Spiritual Science, we must reach down to the central nerve of the matter. And since what can be repeated is so well established, it is easy to see why so very many objections and misunderstandings have arisen. Genuine Spiritual Investigation, that takes itself seriously, is all too easily identified with all the dilettante activities that bear a superficial resemblance to the real thing. I have often been reproached with the fact that the books I have written and the lectures I have delivered on Spiritual Science were not sufficiently on popular lines—as the common phrase goes. Now, I do not write my books nor do I deliver my lectures in order to please people and give them the heart-to-heart talks that they enjoy. I write my books and deliver my lectures in the manner best fitted to present Spiritual Science to the world at large. Spiritual Science existed in the past, as I have often had occasion to point out,¹⁶ although it arose from sources that differ from those of the Spiritual Science of to-day, which has inevitably been altered by human progress. In the olden days only those were admitted to the places where Spiritual Science was taught who were considered sufficiently ripe. Such a procedure would be quite meaningless to-day. Nowadays our life is public and it goes without saying that all subjects of investigation must be brought out into the open and that it would be folly to practise any sort of secrecy. The only secrecy which can be admitted is that which is already customary in public life. Namely, that to those who have already begun to study the opportunity be given of hearing more in lectures addressed to smaller audiences. But this is done in Universities; it is what is practised in ordinary life. And it is as unwarrantable to speak of secrecy in this respect as it would be in connection with University lectures. But the books are written and the lectures are delivered in such a way that a certain effort is needed on the part of those to whom they are addressed, and a certain amount of thought is required of them in their approach to Spiritual Science. Otherwise, anyone who shirked the trouble of going into the matter seriously could understand, or rather imagine he understood it, from reading those popular works that are so palatable to him. I am well aware that much of what I say must seem bristling with scientific terms to those who do not want that sort of thing. But this has to be in order that Spiritual Science may take its place in the mental and spiritual culture of the day. And if here and there Spiritual Science is being cultivated by large or small groups of men and women who, having no conception of the advances of modern science, yet claim to speak with a certain authority, it is little wonder if Spiritual Science incurs the contempt and misunderstanding and calumny of men of science. Something special, something significant must, therefore, be felt even in the manner in which the subject is imparted. And it must be felt in the fact that inner activity and doing of the soul is necessary in order to grasp how the essential part of the soul really lives as something which can use the body as an instrument but is not one and the same as the body.

If, then, we see things aright, how are we to account for the misunderstandings that have arisen? Well, when the soul begins to grow, when its dormant powers begin to awake, then the first of these powers which has to be developed is Thought, and it must be developed in the way we have often indicated and to-day again repeated. And for this a certain inner force, a certain inner strength is required. The soul must strive within itself. And this inner effort is just what, under the influence of the times, people do not want. Unless it be the artists. But in the realm of art, things have reached the point that people prefer simply to copy nature and have no inkling of the fact that, in order to add anything exceptional and new to nature pure and simple, the soul must be strengthened from within, must work upon itself a little. The power of Thought is, therefore, the first thing that has to be fortified. And then Feeling and Will, as was shown in the lectures of the last week.¹⁷ And this process of fortifying is only described by people saying that in Spiritual Science everything happens inwardly. People shrink from this, and from the idea of anything being strengthened inwardly, and they fail to grasp the obvious distinction which is required here between the conception of external nature and that of the spiritual world.

Let us try to grasp this distinction more vividly. What exactly is it? With regard to external nature, our organs are already given. Our eyes have been given us. Goethe has said very beautifully, "Were not the eye sunlike, how could we behold the light?"¹⁸ Just as it is a fact that you would not hear me when I speak unless you met me half-way by listening in order to understand me so, in Goethe's view, it is a fact that the eye has been created out of the light of the sun by a devious path of hereditary and other complicated processes. And by this is meant, not merely that the eye creates light in Schopenhauer's sense, but that it is itself created by light. This must be firmly borne in mind. And those who are inclined to be materialists may, we suggest, thank God! They no longer need to create their eyes, for these eyes are created from the Spiritual. They already have them, and in taking in the world around them they are using these ready made eyes. They direct these eyes towards the outer impressions and the outer impressions mirror themselves, completely mirror themselves in the sense organs. Let us imagine that man could, with his present degree of consciousness, experience the coming into being of his eyes. Let us imagine him entering nature as a child with only a predisposition for eyes. His eyes would first reveal themselves to him through the action of the sunlight. What would happen in man's growth? What would happen would be that by means of the sun-rays, invisible as yet, the eyes would be called forth out of the organism. And when a man feels "I have eyes," he feels the light inside his eye; when he knows his eyes to be his own, he feels them as part of his own organisation, he feels his eyes living inside the light. And, fundamentally, sense-perception is as follows: Man experiences himself by experiencing light, by experiencing with his eyes what has been developed in sense-perception, where we already have eyes for which possession we, as was said above, may thank God!

And so it must also be with Spiritual Science. There, too, the organic must be called forth from the as yet unformed soul. Spiritual hearing, spiritual vision must be called forth, to use Goethe's expressions¹⁹ once again: the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear must be called into being from within. Through the development of the soul we actually feel our way into the spiritual world, and as we do this, the new organs will come into being. And with these organs we shall experience the spiritual world in exactly the same way as we experience the physical world of sense with the organs of the physical body. Thus we must first create something analogous to that which man already possesses, for the purpose of sense perception. We must have the strength to begin by creating new organs of perception in order to experience the spiritual world with them.

The obstacle to this—and there is no other—is what may be called the inner weakness of man, resulting from modern education. It is weakness that prevents man from so taking hold of his inner life (the expression is clumsy, but it will serve) that it becomes as active as it would if man had to create his own hands in order to touch the table before him. He creates his inner powers in order to touch that which is spiritual; with spirit he touches spirit. Thus it is weakness that holds man back from pressing forward in the pursuit of true Spiritual Investigation. And it is weakness that calls forth the misunderstanding which Spiritual Investigation is faced with, fundamental weakness of soul, the inability to see that we are still caught in the Faustian doom, powerlessness to transform the reality within into organs which will lay hold upon the spiritual world. That is the first point.²⁰

And there is a second point, which will also be understood by those who wish to understand it. Man, in the face of the unknown, always experiences a peculiar feeling, primarily a feeling of fear. People are afraid of the unknown. But their fear is of a peculiar sort: it is a fear that does not become conscious. For what is the source of the materialistic, mechanistic world-view, or, as the more scholarly would have us say, what is the source of the monistic world conception? (Though even under this name it is still materialistic.) It arises from the fact that the soul is afraid of breaking through sense-perception, afraid that if it breaks through the sensuous into the spiritual, it will come into the unknown, into "Nothing," as Mephistopheles says to Faust. But, "In the Nothing," answers Faust, "I hope to find the All."²¹ It is fear of that which can only be guessed at as Nothing. But it is a masked fear. For we must become familiar with the fact that there is a luxuriant growth of hidden or unconscious processes in the depths of the soul. It is remarkable how people deceive themselves over this. A frequent example of such self-deception is that of people who, while animated by the grossest selfishness, refuse to admit it and invent all sorts of subterfuges to show how selfless, how loving they are in what they do. Thus do they put on a mask to cover their selfishness. This is very frequently the case with societies that are formed with the object of exercising love in the right way. One often has occasion to make a study of this masking of selfishness. I knew a man who was always explaining that what he did, he did against his own aims and inclination; he did it only because he deemed it necessary for the welfare of humanity. Again and again I had to say, "Don't deceive yourself! Pursue your activities from selfish motives and because you like doing it." It is far better to face the truth. One stands on a foundation of truth if one simply owns to oneself that one likes the things one wishes to undertake and if one ceases to hold a mask before one's face. It is fear which leads nowadays to the rejection of Spiritual Knowledge. But people will not own to this fear. It is in their souls, but they will not let it come into their consciousness, and they invent proofs and arguments against Spiritual Knowledge. They try to prove, for instance, that to leave the firm ground of sense-perception is inevitably to indulge in fantasy, etc. They invent the most complicated proofs. They invent whole philosophical systems which may be logically incontestable but which for anyone who has any insight in such matters go to show no more than that every one of these inventions misses the mark when it comes to Reality—and this, whether it calls itself Transcendental Realism, Empirical Realism, more or less Speculative Realism, Metaphysical Realism, or any other kind of "ism." People invent these "isms," and a lot of hard thinking goes to their making. But at bottom they are nothing but the soul's fear of embarking upon that which I have often characterised as "Feeling the Unknown in its Concreteness." These, then, are the two chief reasons for the misunderstandings which arise in relation to Spiritual Knowledge—weakness of soul and fear of what is presumed to be the unknown. And whoever possesses some knowledge of the human soul can analyse the modern world conceptions in the following way: on the one hand, they arise from men's inability so to strengthen their thought that all the relevant examples will at once occur to them; on the other hand, there is the fear of the unknown. And it often happens that because people are afraid of venturing into the so-called Unknown, they prefer to leave it as such. We grant, they will say, that behind the world of sense there is another, spiritual world. But man cannot enter into it. We can prove this, prove it up to the hilt. And most of them, when they wish to adduce these proofs, begin by saying, "Kant said," on the assumption, of course, that the person whom they are addressing understands nothing about Kant. Thus people invent proofs to show that the human spirit cannot enter into the world that lies beyond what is given in sensation. But these are simply subterfuges—clever though they be, they are attempts to escape from fear. It is assumed that something exists behind the world of sensation. But they call it the Unknown and prefer to lay down a form of Agnosticism of the Spencerian,²² or any other type, rather than find the courage really to lead the soul into the spiritual world.

A curious philosophy has arisen of late—the so-called "World-Conception of the As-If." It has found root in Germany. Hans Vaihinger²³ has written a large volume on the subject. According to the "World-Conception of the As-If," we cannot speak as though conceptions like "the unity of consciousness" actually corresponded to anything real, but must regard the appearances of the world "as if" there existed something which could be thought of as one undivided soul. Or again, the As-If philosophers cannot deny the fact that none of them has ever seen an atom or that an atom must be conceived precisely as something which cannot be seen. For even light itself is supposed to arise from the vibrations of atoms, and atoms would, therefore, have to be seen without light, since light first happens through the vibration of atoms! Thus the As-If philosophers do at least go the length of accepting atoms as real only in an intellectual sense (not to speak of the fantastic nonsense about atoms that dances about in some quarters). What they say, however, is this: It makes the world of sense easier to understand if we think of it "as if" there were atoms in it.²⁴ Now whoever, ladies and gentlemen, has an active inner life, will notice that it is one thing actively to live and move as an individual soul within a realm of spiritual reality, and another quite different thing to apply outwardly and realistically the idea that human activities can be made to appear "as if" they belonged to an individual soul. At any rate, if we take our stand on the firm ground of practical experience, we shall not find it easy to apply the Philosophy as As-If. To take an example. Fritz Mauthner²⁵ is to-day a highly esteemed philosopher, regarded by many as a great authority because he has out-Kantianised Kant. Whereas Kant still regards concepts as something with which we grasp reality, Mauthner sees in language alone that wherein our conception of the world actually resides. And thus he has been fortunate enough to complete his "Kritik der Sprache," (Critique of Language) to write a fat Philosophisches Wörterbuch²⁶ (Dictionary of Philosophy) from this point of view, and, above all, to collect a following who look upon him as the great man. Now, I do not wish to deal with Fritz Mauthner to-day. All I want to say is that it would be a hard task to apply the As-If philosophy to this gentleman. One might say: Let us leave it an open matter whether the gentleman has or has not intelligence and genius. But let us examine his claim to be intelligent "as if" he had intelligence. And if we set about the task honestly we shall find, ladies and gentlemen, that it cannot be done. The "As-If" cannot be applied where the facts are not there.

In a word, we must, as I have said before, reach the mainspring of Spiritual knowledge, and we must know what this teaching can regard as legitimate in the field in which misunderstandings can arise. For, while these misunderstandings really are misunderstandings, it is equally true that they are justified if the Spiritual Investigator is not fully capable of sharing the thought of the man of science. The Spiritual Investigator must be in a position to think along the same lines as the man of science, he must even be able to test him from time to time, especially if the man of science is one of those who are always insisting upon the necessity of standing firmly rooted in the data of empirical fact. At any rate, if one submits to a purely external test a philosophy that seems to be entirely positivistic and that rejects everything spiritual, the results are very remarkable. As you know, I in no wise underrate Ernst Haeckel.²⁷ I fully recognise his merits. But when he begins to talk about World-Conception, he shows precisely that weakness of soul which renders it impossible for him to follow any current of thought except that upon which he has already embarked. We are here up against that extremely significant fact which is so baffling when one meets it in serious contemporary works. I mean the widespread superficiality of men's thought and the downright lie in their life. We find, for example, that one of the great men to whom Ernst Haeckel refers as one of his authorities is Carl Ernst von Baer.²⁸ The name is always introduced as decisive in support of the purely materialistic World-Conception which Haeckel drew from his own researches. Now, how many people will take the trouble to acquire a real insight into what actually goes on in scientific thought and activity? How many people will pause and reflect when they read in Haeckel that Carl Ernst von Baer is one from whom Haeckel has deduced his own views? So, naturally, people think that Carl Ernst von Baer must have said something which led to Haeckel's views. And now, let me read you a passage from one of von Baer's works. "The terrestrial body is simply the breeding ground on which the spiritual part of man vegetates and grows, and the history of nature is nothing but the history of the continued victory of spirit over matter. This is the basic idea of creation, in virtue of which or rather for the attainment of which, individuals and species are allowed to vanish and the present (future) is built up upon the scaffolding of an immeasurable past."²⁹ The man whom Haeckel is always quoting in support of his theories has a wonderfully spiritual conception of the world! The development of scientific thought should be carefully watched. If those whose business it is to trace this development only kept their eyes open, we should not have such a struggle to wage against that superficiality of thought that produces the innumerable prejudices and errors which as misunderstandings constitute an obstacle to such aspirations as those embodied in Spiritual Knowledge.

Or again, ladies and gentlemen, let us take an honoured figure in the arguments about World-Conception in the nineteenth century, David Friedrich Strauss.³⁰ An honourable man—so are they all, all honourable men! Having started from slightly different views he finally takes his stand quite firmly on the opinion that the soul is merely a product of matter. Man has arisen completely out of what modern materialism calls nature. When we speak of the will, there is no real willing present. All that happens is that the brain molecules spin round in some way or other and will arises as a sort of vapour. "In man," says Strauss, "nature has not only willed upwards, she has willed beyond herself."³¹ Thus, nature wills. We seem to have reached the point where the materialist, in order to be one, no longer takes his own words seriously. Man is denied will because he must be like nature, and then it is said that "Nature has willed." One can, of course, dismiss such things as unimportant, but any earnest seeker after a true World-Conception will see that herein lies the source of innumerable mistakes and errors with which public opinion becomes, as it were, inoculated. And from this inoculation arise the many ways in which true Spiritual Science and Spiritual Investigation are misunderstood.

From another quarter we have those objections which are raised by the followers of this or that religious denomination, from those who think that their religion will be imperilled by the advent of a Spiritual Science. I must point out here once again, that it was people of exactly the same mentality who opposed Galileo and Copernicus on the ground that religion would be in danger if one had to believe that the Earth went round the Sun. And to such people there is always the retort: How timorous you are within the limits of your religion! How little you have grasped your own religion if you are so quickly convinced that it must be endangered by any fresh discovery! And, in this connection, I wish once again to mention the name of Laurenz Müllner,³² a good theologian, and one who, as he pointed out on his death-bed, remained to the end a faithful member of his church. When, in the 'nineties of last century, this theologian, whom I knew as a friend, was appointed Rector of the Vienna University, he said, in the inaugural address on Galileo³³ which he held on this occasion: There were once men and women (within a certain religious body they continued to exist until the year 1822, when permission was granted to believe in the Copernican Cosmology)³⁴—there were once men and women who believed that the religions could be imperilled by such views as those of Galileo or Copernicus. But nowadays—thus spoke this theologian, and priest, who remained within his church till the day of his death—nowadays, we must have reached the point where we find that religion is strengthened and intensified by the fact that men have looked into the glory of the divine handiwork, and learnt to know it better and better.³⁵ These were deeply religious, these were Christian words indeed.

And yet men will always rise up and say: This Spiritual Science says this or that about Christ, and it ought not to say it. We have our own conception of what Christ was like. Now, we would like to say to these people: We grant you everything that you hold about Christ, exactly as you put it; only we see in Him something more. We accept Him not only as a Being, as you do, but also as a cosmic Being, giving sense and meaning to the place of the Earth in the universe. But we must not say this. We must not go a step beyond what certain people regard as true. Spiritual Science gives knowledge. And knowledge of truth will never serve as the foundation for the creation of religion, although there will always be fools who say that Spiritual Science has come to found a new religion. Religions are founded in quite a different manner. Christianity was founded by its Founder, by the fact that Christ Jesus lived on earth. And Spiritual Science can no more found anything which is already there, than it can found the Thirty Years War through knowing facts about it. For religions are founded on facts, on events which have taken place. All that Spiritual Science can claim to do is to understand these facts differently—or rather not so much in a different, as in a higher sense—than can be done without its help. And just as in the case of the Thirty Years War, however lofty the standpoint from which we understand it, we do not found something by tracing it back to the Thirty Years War which was first merely known to us as a fact—so, in the same way, no religion is ever founded through that which is at first known to Spiritual Science as a fact. Here again it is a question of that superficiality which limits itself to sentiment and prevents the mind from really going into the matter in hand. If one really goes into the question of Spiritual Science, one will see that while the materialistic philosophy may very easily lead people away from religious feeling, Spiritual Science establishes in them the foundations of a deeper religious experience, because it lays bare the deeper roots of the soul, and thus leads men in a deeper way to the experience of that which outwardly and historically has manifested itself as religion. But Spiritual Science will not found a new religion. It knows too well that Christianity once gave meaning to the world. It seeks only to give to this Christianity a deeper meaning than can be given it by those who do not stand on the ground of Spiritual Science. Materialism, of course, has led to such discoveries as those, for example, of David Friedrich Strauss, who looked upon the belief in the Resurrection as insane. This belief in the Resurrection, he says, had to be assumed. For Christ Jesus had said many true and noble things. But the speaking of truths makes no particular impression on people. It needs the trimming of a great miracle such as the miracle of the Resurrection.³⁶ There you have what materialism has to bring forward. But this will not be brought forward by Spiritual Science! Spiritual Science will endeavour to unearth and bring to light what is living in the mystery of the Resurrection so as to understand it, and place it in the right way before humanity, which has advanced with the years, and can no longer accept it in the old way.

But this is not the place for religious propaganda. All I want to do is to bring to your notice the meaning of Spiritual Science and the misunderstandings which it has to meet—misunderstandings which come from those who presumably lead a religious life. At present (1916) men have not yet reached the stage when materialism can have an evil social result on a large scale. But this could very soon happen if men and women do not once again, through the help of Spiritual Science, find their way back to the fundamental spontaneity of the soul's inner life. And also the social life of humanity may find through Spiritual Science something which will, on a higher scale, bring about its own rebirth.

We can only speak of these things in a general way. Time does not allow us to describe them in more detail. I have done my best to characterise some of the misunderstandings which are found again and again, whenever Spiritual Science is being judged. I do not really wish to discuss the results of the perfectly natural superficiality of our time—at any rate not in the sense of refuting anything. In many cases it is worth considering, as supplying material for amusement—even for laughter.³⁷ ...As I have said, one cannot discuss this type of superficiality, widespread and, in a sense, influential though it be, for printer's ink on white paper still has so potent a form of magic. But what must be discussed are the cases where the objections raised, even if they are unimportant in themselves, insinuate themselves nevertheless into the public mind. And the misunderstandings which arise from this mental inoculation are what must be combated step by step by those who take anything like Spiritual Science at all seriously. We are always meeting with objections that do not arise from any sort of activity of the soul, but which have been, as it were, injected into the minds of those who make them by the prevailing superficiality of the times. But he who is right inside Spiritual Science knows full well that, as I have so often explained, the same thing must and will happen to this teaching as has happened to any new element that is incorporated into the development of humanity. This reception was up to a point accorded to the philosophy of modern Natural Science, until the latter grew powerful, and could exercise its influence by means of external power-factors, and no longer needed to work through its own strength. And then the time comes when people, without any activity on the part of their own souls, can build philosophies upon these power-factors. Is there, ladies and gentlemen, much difference between these two views? Those who nowadays found elaborate Monistic systems regard themselves as very lofty thinkers, infinitely superior to those whose philosophy, coloured perhaps by theological and religious considerations, they consider to be narrowly dogmatic and hidebound by authority. But in the eyes of one who knows something of how misunderstandings arise, it matters little in the soul's achievement whether men swear by a Church Father such as Gregory, Tertullian, Irenus or Augustine and accept him as authority, or whether they look upon Darwin, Haeckel and Helmholtz as authorities, and in so far as these are really their Church Fathers, give them their allegiance. The point is not whether we have given our allegiance to one or the other of these two, but how far we have got in working out a philosophy of our own. And what was true of a mere abstract idealism is true in a higher, a far higher sense, of Spiritual Science. To begin with, it is misunderstood and mistaken on all sides, and then, later, the very thing that at first appeared to be moonshine and fantasy is taken for granted. This is what happened to Copernicus, it is what happened to Kepler, it is what happens to everything that has to be incorporated into the spiritual development of humanity. First it is regarded as nonsense, then it is taken for granted. And this, too, is what is happening to Spiritual Science.

But this Spiritual Science, as has been shown in previous addresses and re-stated in the present lecture, has a very important message. It points to that living reality which brings man to the fullness of his powers, not by offering itself to his passive contemplation, not by revealing itself to him from outside, but by requiring of him that he should seize hold of it alive so that through co-operation alone he may come to a knowledge of his own existence. He must overcome that weakness which makes him regard as fantasy everything whose existence cannot be felt by a mere passive surrender, but demands an inwardly active co-operation with the World-All. Only when man's knowledge is active will it tell him what he is and where he is going, what he is and what is his destiny. The spirit has strength enough of its own to fight its way through all the misunderstandings of the day, justifiable as they are in a certain sense, and it will fight its way through, especially in so far as these misunderstandings arise from the superficiality of the times. Very beautiful, in this connection, is Goethe's saying, uttered, on his own admission, in unison with the ancient sage:³⁸

Were the eye not sun-like
How could we look upon the light?
Were we not animate with God's own power
How could we be ravished with the divine?

The Spiritual-divine that lives, moves and has its being throughout the world is that from which we originate, that from which we have sprung. Even the material element in us is born of the spiritual. And it is because it is already born and no longer needs to be proved or brought forth that man, if he is a materialist, believes in it alone. The spiritual must be grasped in living activity. The Spiritual divine must first weave itself into man, the spiritual sun must first create its own organs in him. Thus, altering Goethe's words, we may say: If the inner eye does not become spiritually sun-like, it will never look upon the light which is the very essence of man.

To conclude these reflections. If the human soul cannot unite itself with that from which it has sprung from all eternity, with the Spiritual-divine whose being is one with its own, then it will never be able to rise as a gleam into the Spiritual; its spiritual eye will never come into being. The soul will then never be enraptured by the Divine, in the spiritual sense of the word, and human knowledge will find the world empty and desolate. For we can only find in the world that for which we have created organs of reception in ourselves.

Were the outer physical eye not sun-like, how could we look upon the light? And if the inner eye does not become spiritually sun-like, we shall never look upon the spiritual light of quintessential humanity. If man's own inner activity does not itself become really spiritual-divine, then never can there pulsate through the soul of man that which alone brings him for the first time to true manhood, to the fullness of his human stature, to be a true man and to that which fills and animates the world, working and weaving through the All until in him it reaches human—if not divine—consciousness, the future Spirit of the World.

• 1. The lecture is reprinted by kind permission of Frau Marie Steiner. By contrasting outstanding individual examples of one-sided thought with their opposites, the lecture gives an answer to the thesis with reference to the following names: Theodor Meynert, Kant, Hans Vaihinger, Fritz Mauthner, Ernst Haeckel, David Friedrich Strauss on the one hand, and Goethe, Carl Ernst von Baer, Laurenz Müllner on the other.
• 2. Healthy Soul Life and Spiritual Research (Gesundes Seelenleben und Geistesforschung). Lecture given in Berlin on 4th February, 1916.
• 3. As examples of such opponents see, amongst others, Karl Heyer, Dr. Phil. and Jur. Wie man gegen Rudolf Steiner kämpft, Stuttgart, 1932; and also Camille Schneider Eduard Schuré's Begegnungen mit Rudolf Steiner, Basel, 1933.
• 4. Herman Ulrici (1806-1884), German philosopher; John Ulrich Wirth (1810-1859), Protestant theologian and philosopher; Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1797-1879), German philosopher.
• 5. Ein vergessenes Streben nach Geisteswissenschaft innerhalb der deutschen Gedankenentwicklung. Lecture delivered in Berlin, 25th February, 1916. {RSA title: A Forgotten Support for Spiritual Science Within the Development of German Thought}
• 6. Theodor Meynert (1833-1892), born in Dresden, was active in Vienna from 1866 as psychiatrist and cerebral anatomist. Rudolf Steiner's early friend, Alfred Stross, was one of his patients. (See Fritz Lemmermeyer's Erinnerungen, Stuttgart, 1929) A collection of his writings is to be found in August Hirsch's Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragendsten Ärzte, Berlin, 1929. Vol. IV.
• 7. Theodor Meynert, Zur Mechanik des Gehirnbaues, a lecture delivered before the Vienna Anthropological Society, 1872. (See Theodor Meynert, Sammlung von populär-wissenschaftlichen Vorträgen über den Bau und die Leistungen des Gehirns, Vienna and Leipzig, 1892.)
• 8. See footnote 5
• 9. Literally: "Unconsciously and impelled from within I had pressed on untiringly to the discovery of archetypes, I had succeeded in building up an exposition of things that accorded with nature. There was, therefore, nothing to hinder me from embarking boldly upon the 'adventure of reason,' as the Sage of Königsberg has called it." (Goethe, Anschauende Urteilskraft, 1820) Kant, in the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, describes the attempt to explain the relationship in the structure of different animals through actual blood relationship as "daring to make an adventure in reason." "A priori, in the judgment of mere reason, this cannot be disputed. It is simply that experience gives no instance of it." (Ibid.)
• 10. See footnote 2
• 11. See footnote 7
• 12. "Thus the real contains no more than the possible. A hundred real coins contain no more than a hundred possible coins." "By whatever ... predicates I may cogitate a thing I do not in the least augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement, this thing exists. Now, if I cogitate a being as the highest reality, without defect or imperfection, the question still remains—whether this being exists or not." Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
• 13. Karl Vogt (1817-1895), was a German scientist, philosopher and politician, an eager champion of Materialism and Darwinism, the well-known author of Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft, Giessen, 1855.
• 14. Literally, "Every scientist will, if he thinks with a certain amount of consistency, reach the view that all the faculties which we grasp under the name of activities of the soul are only functions of the brain matter; or to put it rather coarsely, that thoughts stand in the same relation to the cerebral substance as does bile to the liver, or urine to the kidneys. To assume a soul that uses the brain like an instrument with which it can work as it pleases, is sheer nonsense." (See Karl Vogt's Physiologische Briefe für Gebildete aller Stände, Stuttgart, 1847) The remark is made in refutation of Gall and C. G. Carns, and is repeated with especial emphasis in the fourth edition.
• 15. See footnote 5
• 16. See Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as a Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity
• 17. Lectures between 19 and 26 February 1916.
• 18. Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre, 1808-1810
• 19. "And with the eyes, not of the body, but of the spirit, I saw myself riding on horseback towards myself." (Dichtung und Wahrheit, Part III, Book XI) "The eye may indeed be called the clearest sense, but the inner sense is still clearer." (Shakespeare und kein Ende, 1813-1816) "We learn to see with the eyes of the spirit, without which we should in the realm of Natural Science, as everywhere else, be groping blindly about." (Zur Zoologie, 1795) "And the new-born day sounds already in our spirit's ear." (Faust II, V)
• 20. See Faust I, V. Cp. Hegel, History of Philosophy, Vol. II. "This is one of the foibles of our time, that we cannot endure the greatness, yea, the immensity of the claims of the human spirit, that we feel oppressed by it and flee from it like weaklings."
• 21. Faust, II, V
• 22. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
• 23. Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933), German philosopher, author of The Philosophy of As-If, a system of the theoretical, practical and religious fictions of humanity, based on idealistic Positivism, with an appendix on Kant and Nietzsche. (English translation published by Kegan Paul.) The philosophy of "As-If" treads the same paths as the so-called Pragmatism whose most influential representatives are William James (1842-1910), born in America, and F. C. S. Schiller (born in England, 1864). Cp. Rudolf Steiner, Die Rätzel der Philosophie, Stuttgart, Dornach, 1924-26, Vol. II.
• 24. "The soul, too, is only a summary fiction without any reality of its own... We speak as if there were a soul. We insert this auxiliary conception (the atom) because it is convenient to us. It is literally a hypostatised non-existent.
• 25. Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), was an Austrian philosopher and author of novels, satires, reviews and journalistic works. He was an exponent of philosophical scepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge and of philosophy of language.
• 26. Fritz Mauthner, Beitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache, Stuttgart, 1901-1902. Second edition, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1906-1913. Wörterbuche der Philosophie Neue Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, Munich, 1910-1911.
• 27. Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), was a German zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species and mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms.
• 28. Carl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876), was a Baltic German scientist and explorer.
• 29. Carl Ernst von Baer, Reden und Kleinere Aufsätze vermischten Inhalts. St. Petersburg, 1864-1875. Vol. I and Vol. II. For Haeckel's reference to Baer, see Haeckel's Anthropogeny.
• 30. David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), was a German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature he denied.
• 31. David Friedrich Strauss, The Old Faith and the New, Section IV. 'What is our rule of life?' English translation by Matthew Blind, 1873
• 32. Laurenz Müllner (1848-1911), professor of Christian philosophy at the University of Vienna.
• 33. Laurenz Müllner, Die Bedeutung Galilei's für die Philosophie. Inaugurationsrede, 1894, in Die feierliche Inauguration des Rektor's der Wiener Universität für das Studienjahr, 1894-5. Vienna, 1894.
• 34. Not till the year 1822 did the Holy Office at Rome declare that books dealing with the movement of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun were no longer forbidden.
• 35. Literally: "Of the days when men regarded their most holy possessions as threatened through the heliocentric view of the world, we say with the Psalmist, Illic trepidaverunt timore, ubi non erat timor. 'They were afraid where no fear was.' There was no contradiction involved in the right understanding of the Christian view, which should see in the newly discovered stellar worlds fresh wonders of divine wisdom and power, through which the wonders of divine love accomplished on earth would only receive a higher meaning." Laurenz Müllner, (see note 33).
• 36. "Thus (through belief in the Resurrection) men were assured of the continuance of all that was new and profound in the religious life as lived by Jesus and imparted to his followers through precept and example. But from now on, the fantastic form of this recovery (the recovery of belief in Jesus which had been shaken by violent death) . . . became the accepted one . . . his whole life was shrouded in a shining cloud which raised it ever higher and higher above the human." Life of Jesus, by David Friedrich Strauss. Part I.
• 37. At this point the lecturer made brief mention of an article by Max Hachdorf which appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt, Feb. 9, 1916, on "Dreyfus, the Prophet Steiner and the deserters," and of two of its variants in other newspapers, all of which were distinguished by the wildest, almost ridiculous misrepresentations and errors.
• 38. "I am at the moment dictating something about the marked passage in the old mystic" (meaning Plotinus, Enneades, I, 6, 8). Goethe used the text of the Latin translation, Neque vero oculus unquam vederet solem, nisi factus solaris esset. Neque rursus animus, nisi factus sit puicher, si modo deurn sit et pulchritudinem inspecturus. Plotini Opera Salingiacum M.O. See Goethe's letter to Zalter, Sep. 1, 1805, and Goethe Jahrbuch, Vol. III, 1882, Zur Farbenlehre, 1808-1810.