The Rudolf Steiner Archive

After Parzival stood before Titurel and had the experiences of which we spoke, an intimate and deep feeling of shame arose in him. This feeling of shame permeated him completely. He had gone through catharsis and had thought that he was now so good and pure that he could become one of the followers of the Master of all masters, the Christ. In this feeling of shame he was reminded of Christ's words: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” He now knew how very imperfect he was still and how much he still had to take into his striving for the good, how much he was still lacking in order to be good.

And a second feeling, a feeling of fear overcame him. He thought that he had gotten rid of that a long time ago. But it was a different kind of fear from the ones he'd known previously. It was a feeling of his own smallness and weakness as a man compared with the sublime Godly being when he let a second word of Christ live in his soul: “Become perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” These two words should live in the soul of every esoteric.

An esoteric should kindle full devotion for divine beings in his soul. Thereby the consciousness develops that what one does isn't so good, but that one should always try to become more perfect. We should look at what's developing in one's soul. God lives in developing things. If we get to the point where we're acting in a good and noble way, then it's God in us who's good. The God who lets us act in a good and noble way is our archetype itself, that created us. We must become a complete copy of this archetype.

Be it ever so hidden, there's a selfish motive in everything we do. We must realize that we can't be selfless. It's a world karma that lets us act egoistically. But world karma is God. Everything that God is and does in the way of good is better than we could do it. An esoteric should tell himself: Let me do something that I have made it my duty to do, let me do it as hard as I can and in such a way that I tell myself that the divine element that's at work in me is doing this and I'm only the instrument of this godly element—then the higher self in its striving towards perfection is revealed to him.

There are three revelations of the higher self: Through a dream, an inkling, and through meditation. If an esoteric has lived in his meditations, if he has tried to repeatedly live in his thoughts, words and deeds in accordance with the perfection principle, if he has repeatedly tried to be good—then at some point he'll realize: If I would place all the joy and suffering that I previously thought was in me outside me, then it would be as if it surrounded me like a soul-spiritual thing; I no longer live in what I have placed outside, I'm no longer touched by the waves of pain and joy. Then a pupil must learn to stand fast in the center of his existence by living entirely in the power of the mantra: Ex Deo nascimur. Thereby the pupil inserts the higher self into his humanness; this second I isn't in us and can't be found by brooding into oneself but only by growing out beyond oneself.

Through the exercises we stimulate a force in us that otherwise works more as a memory force in us and reawakens the ideas, feelings and sensations that were aroused by past things and happenings in the outer world. The pupil gets to know this as a force only; he learns how to organize it up into the brain, so that it eventually grows toward the higher self that floats above us. The pupil now lives in this newly acquired force. All outer pains and joys now seem to be outside of his center. He stands there firmly enclosed in himself against all outer influences; he feels free in himself and free of all external things.

And the pupil feels something else. Previously he had learned the teachings about karma. Now he knows that he stands under the necessity of the effects of karma. He experiences the higher self that places him into existence through birth in this newly attained force, and he sees how what develops in his destiny in the outer world must be brought about through the active necessity of karmic force. This gives him a certain joy with respect to pain and suffering. He confronts everything with equanimity.

If a pupil has progressed this far, he then gets to contemplation and thereby to consomatio of the higher self. And now spiritual eyes and ears are organized into him and begin to function when he devotes himself to the exercises with patience, persistence and concentration. He learns to see the light world of spiritual beings and the spiritual will being who resounds towards him, audible to his opened spiritual ears. And he knows that he can't have these spiritual experiences by means of his physical organism. In his experience of the pentagram (8–27) he feels that he's placed into the whole etheric and spiritual world This drawing and occult script has a soul-awakening and a spirit-liberating effect. The pupil should repeatedly place it before his soul and he'll experience that every new forces grow in his soul thereby. We saw that Parzival who stood before Titurel in solitude had the experiences that come to expression in this occult script. The whole Christian wisdom and mystery that winds around the Grail is expressed in it. The mystery wisdom is like a greenhouse plant that was only revealed to a few mature people; what the rest of mankind received was the faith content of the various religions. The Christian wisdom of the Grail is a mystery that was revealed to all as knowledge but to no one as a content to be taken on faith. All pupils of western esotericism are Parzivals.

Lohengrin is a son of Parzival. He's a personality that doesn't come fully to expression in a body. The swan is the expression of the higher individuality that radiates above him. Lohengrin unites himself with Elsa, the human soul. She doesn't ask him where he comes from, she doesn't ponder about his nature—she takes him the way he is with thanks and humility for his gifts. But when someone maliciously suggests that he's not of noble birth, she asks him about this. Thereupon, Lohengrin has to withdraw from her. He disappears up into the spiritual world. A pupil should mainly have a feeling of thankfulness for what is given to him from higher worlds in this incarnation. He should not investigate and search or interpret these talents with his ordinary intellect. For this induces the higher self to withdraw from his soul. There's a big warning for us in Elsa's fate. We shouldn't let any outer thoughts, no feelings and sensations from the outer world into the sanctuary of our mediation and concentration, otherwise that source of strength through which we attain the growing out and up of our human forces to the higher self isn't stimulated, we can't find the higher self, it repeatedly retreats before us. We should observe the projection of the spiritual world's effects into us in contemplation, closed off from all outer impressions, alone in the deepest quiet and immersion; resting in the deepest solitude we should let them work in us quietly and chastely in order to eventually become knowers of truth, to become an instrument for the work of spiritual beings.

The time has now come to make known in wider circles that which has been spoken of throughout the history of the evolution of mankind under the name of the Mysteries or Mysticism, the so-called Esoteric Wisdom.

For in the soul of man, behind what comes to the light of day lies a deeper wisdom which has hitherto remained unknown to mankind in general.

Let us be quite clear what it is men have always understood by the term “Mysteries” or the “esoteric.” All that has been brought about in the world through civilisation goes back ultimately to a few great personalities, a few leading individuals. For example, a construction like the Simplon tunnel can be traced back to the mental work of great individuals, who were not themselves directly concerned with the building of the tunnel but who made it possible, by their Intellectual discoveries, for others to build it.

The “practical” man would perhaps be of the opinion that such things are accomplished by an activity that is purely external. It would be the very greatest mistake to accede to such an opinion. Neither the engineers who conceived the plan, nor the workmen who carried it out, are the spiritual originators. If it were not for what is called Higher Mathematics as elaborated by Leibnitz, Newton and others, such works could never be there at all. These thinkers were necessary in order to bring into being what is called “technics.” If we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that such works could never have been achieved, nor any goods have been manufactured, without the soul of the Thinker.

If this is so with regard to the outer materialistic culture, it is true in still greater measure of the spiritual currents that flow through human history.

All the Religion and all the Art that has ever been brought to mankind, all the Justice that has ever borne rule in states, all the order and Morality that has lived among men leads back to great Initiates, leads back to hidden sources of Wisdom. This is what we find when we set out to look for the deeper origin of things.

Consider the works of Art which have succeeded each other through the centuries, and you will find that they can all be traced back to deeper sources. Whether we take a poet like Dante, or a mind and spirit like Goethe's, or a painter such as Raphael, or again some great religious event in history—all moral and religious streams, all art and all science, lead back into the hidden places, where was cultivated in secret that which is known as Mysticism or Esotericism.

And as with all other religions so with Christianity too we find its foundations in the esoteric. It is only an evidence of shortsightedness when the objection is raised, that Christianity is for simple hearts and should speak to the feelings and be comprehensible for all. That is a very shortsighted view. All religions, it is true, ultimately clothe their truths in sentences so full of power and impulse that no soul is too simple to receive them. What emerges finally, however, in this simple form, has its origin in the heights, with the so-called Initiates.

Throughout history there have always been Initiates. In ancient India it was the Rishis who taught a primeval Wisdom. In Persia Zarathustra was the teacher of Wisdom. We look to Greece, to Egypt, to Rome, everywhere we find to begin with, a religion of the people, but standing in the midst of the people are always those who may be called spiritual “Giants,” unknown to mankind by name. These are they who formed themselves into occult brotherhoods. Whosoever wished to be accepted into such a brotherhood had to undergo a strict and severe probation. The probation had no immediate relation to the intellectual life. It was far more a question of a man's wrestling his way through to an inner freedom of character, where feelings and passions had no power with him. Then he had to learn not to misuse his knowledge. Men who had passed through severe trials and tests of this nature became missionaries to the rest of mankind. They were not allowed to have any other feeling or purpose in their heart, save only this—to serve and help mankind. They had to be men who would make real the words—“He who would be first among you, let him be the servant of all”—And in intellectual striving also they must never lag behind but always press on to find the Higher Truths.

Today it is frequently said to one who believes in the possibility of knowing the Spiritual Worlds: But we human beings have boundaries to our knowledge. But inside the Mystery circles it was said: Thou has capabilities which slumber in thee; if thou develop them, then canst thou strive through to a Higher Knowledge.

The development a man was enabled to undergo by the training of his inner talents and capacities was called in the Mystery Centres a Second Birth. It was said that such a one experienced on a higher plane what a man born blind experiences here in the world of the senses when he has undergone an operation and can see. This “operation” on the soul, the re-birth in the Spirit, was performed for the Mystics in the Mysteries.

That which was called in the Mysteries the Kingdom of Heaven, into which the Mystic was led, was not in some other place. The Kingdom of the Spiritual World is here where man is. As many worlds are around us as we have ability to realize and grasp. It was no dry and abstract Wisdom that was received in the Mysteries, but a Wisdom which was at the same time Religion and Art.

In the Mysteries of Greece the spiritual eye of the Mystic was opened. It was shown to him how once in primeval times man had been half animal and how the soul had striven upwards to that stage of humanity upon which he now beheld himself. Three stages were shown to him. He saw first forms as they lived in a very distant evolution of mankind, then forms half animal and half man, and finally perfect human forms. These three types of the evolution of mankind stood before him in the Greek Mysteries and they found their expression in Greek sculpture. There was (1) the Zeus type, with the straight nose and with the eyes rounded out upwards; (2) the type of the God Mercury with woolly hair and snub nose; and (3) the type of the Satyr, with quite different eyes, different nose and different corners to the mouth. These three types stand before us in Greek art as an image of the stages of the evolution of mankind. At another time it was shown to the Mystic how the God himself descended into nature, how he evolved upwards through the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom and animal kingdom to the human kingdom and was then born anew out of the human heart. That was called the descent of the God, his Resurrection and his Ascension. The whole process was represented in the Greek drama. All that was represented in the drama came originally from the Mysteries.

Just as the trunk of the tree divides itself into different branches, so did religion, science and art become divided in the Mysteries. The ancient Mysteries which were celebrated in Greece—the Eleusinian—and the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priest-wisdom were called Mysteries of the Spirit. Those who stood high in these Mysteries as teachers and leaders had attained to the spiritual worlds; they associated with Spirits, they had intercourse with Spiritual Beings. Iamblichus shows us how the Gods descended in the Mysteries. Only after moral purification, and only when the intellect had been made clear and lucid, could one obtain admission into these places of wisdom.

This is how it was in the ancient heathen times, in the times of the Mysteries of the Spirit. Never without the most wonderful enthusiasm and the most inward devotion did the Mystics speak of that which could be experienced in the Mystery-schools. Aristides speaks thus: “I thought I touched the God and felt him near, I myself being at the time in a condition between waking and sleeping. My spirit was light, so as none can describe or realise who has not himself been initiated.” And in another passage he says: “It was as if the Spiritual World flowed and poured around me.” Plutarch says, “He who had received initiation in these Mysteries greeted the Godhead with the greeting of eternity.” Whoever had had this experience was called “re-born.”

We must now say a little about what formed the last act in every such Initiation into the Mysteries of the Spirit.

There had first to be the moral purification and the clarifying of the intellect. Then the pupil must learn to see with the eyes of the Spirit. Behind the consciousness which accompanies us through the waking condition, there is another consciousness. This consciousness does not sink into complete darkness when man falls asleep. Man remains conscious at night, he is there present. But the consciousness which accompanies him from morning until evening, that does not remain. There is however a way of overcoming the unconsciousness man has in sleep; there are methods whereby this end can be attained. By a culture of the soul which brings about certain intimate processes in the innermost being of the soul, man can win through to the possibility of finding new revelations in his dream life; he can experience things which he recognises in another way than with the eyes and ears of the senses. It is immaterial whether a man recognizes the truth in sleep or by day when awake; in either case he must learn to carry over into reality the world which he there experiences. When in this way he has come into the position of being able to see the Spiritual in the whole world, then he has attained the first stage of initiation.

At the second stage he has an experience which is like living in a flowing ocean of colour. At this stage there is a higher initiation; a consciousness is developed wherein is revealed to him a still higher Spiritual world. Today in ordinary life man is not capable of awakening the consciousness which lies behind the physical world.

In the last act of the Mysteries of the Spirit the pupil was put into a kind of sleep. Care had been taken in the preparation that when the day consciousness sank down, consciousness did not cease. For three days and three nights the man lay in another state of consciousness in the Mystery temple, citizen and participator in another world. Then he was awakened by the Priest. He received a new name. He was an Initiate, he had been “born again.” One could say of the Mysteries of the Spirit: “Blessed are they who have experienced them, blessed are they who now behold in the Mysteries of the Spirit.”

At the time of Christ Jesus, to the Mysteries of the Spirit were added the Mysteries of the Son, and these have been ever since the time of Christ. The Mysteries of the Father—the Mysteries of the Future—are only cultivated in a very small circle. The Mysteries of the Son are cultivated in the Rosicrucian Mystery which is also Christian, for those who require a Christianity that is armed to meet all Wisdom.

Today we will concern ourselves with the Mysteries of the Son, and see how they differ from the ancient heathen Mysteries. If we would grasp what a mighty step forward has been taken by the coming of Christianity, we must learn to understand two important utterances. The one is: “Blessed are they who believe, even when they do not see,” and the other: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” If we comprehend these utterances in all their depth, then we understand the very foundation of Christianity.

Whilst to the world at large Paul spoke in powerful kindling words, he also gave teachings to his intimate pupils which were transmitted first by word of mouth and then in writing, teachings that are connected with the name of Dionysius, who was known as Dionysius “The Areopagite.” We have here to do with something founded by Saint Paul himself, wherein was proclaimed the deepest wisdom. These teachings of Saint Paul were written down for the first time in the sixth century, in the writings of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius. It is not so much the historical fact, but the content of these documents which is of interest for us.

An esoteric Christianity does exist. This is not admitted in certain circles, with the result that a peculiar place has been assigned to the Saint John Gospel. The Saint John Gospel is looked upon by theologians as a book which emanated out of poetic genius. They have however no understanding for what the Saint John Gospel means.

Whereas the three other evangelists relate the exoteric. Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds. The writer of the Saint John Gospel wrote from the point of view of an initiate. Whoever looks upon it as a book that one should read and understand in the same way as one reads and understands any other book knows nothing of the Saint John Gospel. He alone has knowledge of it who can experience it. Most translators do not render the Spirit of it at all.

The first words of this Gospel, rightly translated, sound as follows:

1. In the primeval beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and with God was the Word.

2. The same was in the primeval beginning with God.

3. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

4. In Him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men.

5. And the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

6. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

7. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all might believe on it.

8. He was not the Light, but a witness of the Light.

9. For the true Light which lighteth every man, was to come into the world.

10. It was in the world, and the world was made by It, but the world knew It not.

11. It came into each individual man (even into the ‘I’ man It came) but the individual man (the ‘I’ man) did not receive It.

12. Those who did receive It, through It they could reveal themselves as Children of God.

13. They who trusted in His Name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God.

14. And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard His Teaching, the Teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with Grace and Truth.

These words with their mighty content—one should not take them and speculate over them, but rather allow them to work upon one in the same manner as countless human beings have done through the centuries. Early in the morning when the soul was still virginal, they have let these words resound in their soul, up to the passage: “And the Word become Flesh and lived among us ...” as above.

When a man does this day by day, then something shows itself in the soul which gives him new life, he is reborn, he is spiritually transformed. He sees around him a spiritual world of which he had previously no idea.

Everyone who takes the first verses of the Saint John Gospel and lets them work upon him for the education and training of his soul, experiences the Saint John Gospel itself in mighty pictures.

There before his spiritual sight stands John the Baptist, as he baptises the Christ; there he sees the picture of Nicodemus, as he has his conversation with the Christ. He sees how Christ cleanses the Temple, he has before him all the following scenes of the Saint John Gospel, he experiences the “stations” from the thirteenth chapter onwards.

In order for the pupil to receive aright the influence of these words and find the ‘word’ which is proclaimed by the Saint John Gospel, the teacher spoke as follows: “Thou must fill thy soul for weeks at a time with this one feeling. Think of the plant. It is rooted in the dead stone. If it had consciousness, it would have to bow down to the dead stone and say to it: ‘Without thee I could not live; out of thee I drew nourishment and strength: I owe to thee my being, I thank thee.’ The animal would have to speak in similar words to the plant: ‘Without thee I could not live, I incline myself towards thee in thankfulness, because out of thee I draw that which I require for my existence.’ And it is the same with all the kingdom. Man, who has attained to a higher stage of evolution, must also bow down, as the plant to the stone, to those who work for him, and thank them.” He who would become a Christian Initiate must develop this feeling during a period of many weeks—the feeling that he owes gratitude to him who stands beneath him. Then he experiences in the spirit the thirteenth chapter of the Saint John Gospel where this feeling is given sublime and eternal expression by Christ in the Washing of the Feet. Christ means to say: “Without you I could not be, I incline myself to you as the plant to the stone.” As an outer symbol the Initiate experienced at this stage a feeling as if water were flowing around his feet. It continued for a long time.

When he had gone through this, the Christian Mystic could experience the next stage of initiation. For this he must cultivate the power to endure all the storms and stresses of life. Then he experienced a second picture. He saw himself scourged, and could feel in his own body something like pain at certain points. This went on for many weeks. He experienced the scourging.

Now he could rise to the third stage. The teacher said to him: “Thou must cultivate a feeling which can endure that all thou holdest highest should be treated with scorn and derision.” The scorn and derision must be for him nothing, in comparison with his own inner strength and certainty. Then the pupil experienced two symptoms of Christian initiation. He experienced the crowning with thorns; spiritually he saw himself with the crown of thorns and experienced a kind of pain in the head which is the sign of this stage of initiation. Afterwards, as a fourth experience he had to develop the feeling that his body was no more for him than any other object in the world. He carried the body with him only as an instrument. In many Mystery-schools one learned to accustom oneself to speak in the following way: “My body goes through the door,” and so on. In this way the mystic experienced in himself the Crucifixion. He saw himself crucified. The outer symbol was that during the meditation stigmata appeared at the places of the wounds of Christ—in the hands, in the feet and in the right side. This is the blood-trial of the Mystic, the fourth stage of initiation.

After this the pupil rose to the fifth station which is called the mystic death, a sublime experience of a spiritual nature, of which no more than an indication can be given. There are moments for a pupil when the whole of the physical world surrounds him as with a black veil. In these moments he learns to know the origins of evil. This was called the descent into hell. Then came a strange and wonderful feeling as if the whole curtain were torn asunder. The mystic death—followed by the mystic awakening!

The sixth stage is the so-called Laying in the Grave. All that the earth bears must become as precious to man as his own body. The physical body of man could not exist separated from the earth. If it were removed even a few miles from the earth it would wither, as the hand would wither when separated from the body. What my body is for my finger, that the earth is for men. The independence man attributes to himself is an illusion. And just as man is dependent physically on the earth, so is he dependent spiritually on the Spiritual World. When man comes to feel his unity with the whole planet—then is he “laid in the earth,” then does he undergo the “burial.”

Hereon follows the seventh stage, the “Resurrection” and the “Ascension.” Man experiences here the Eternal. This stage does not admit of description. The Egyptian Priests (who were also their Wise Men) did not make use of the symbols of writing to describe such things. The Mysteries must find a way to tell what cannot be expressed in words. Through the power and might, through the magical power of the Saint John Gospel itself, these things can be experienced.

Such an initiation is the initiation of the Son. It has only been possible since Christ came to earth. The outward Christ who walked in Palestine is related to the inward Christ whom the mystic experiences, as the sun is related to the eye. If there were no eye, then could the sun not be perceived. But the sun produced the eye. Where there is no light, the organ for the light is also lost. The eye was gradually created by the Sun. The eye was created for the light by the light, says Goethe. Whosoever allows the Saint John Gospel to work upon him, develops the inner eye. But, as without the sun the eye would never have come into being, so would spiritual seership never have been there if Christ, the Spiritual Sun, had not walked the earth in person. No Christianity without the personal Christ Jesus: that is the essential and all-important fact.

All other founders of religion could say of themselves: “I am the way and the truth.” All were teachers. Christianity has brought no new teaching. But that is not important. The important thing is that Christians feel themselves bound together with the personal Christ Jesus, as in a family. That is what matters—that He was there, and has lived and has said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Oriental teachers of religion have exoteric teaching and esoteric, in the same way as Christianity has. Christianity differs from them in that exoteric Christianity is more simple and popular, it speaks to the heart, to the feelings; while esoteric Christianity is essentially deeper than all oriental esoteric. The truth is, the Christian esotericism is the most profound which has ever been brought to mankind.

Christian esotericism was brought to the earth by that very Being Himself with whom one must be united. It is a question of belief in the divinity of Christ. In the ancient Mysteries one had to behold personally during the three days of initiation. What formerly was only present in the Mysteries—that is, in the Mysteries of the Spirit—has in Christianity become an historical fact. The events in Palestine are historical fact and at the same time symbol. Christianity is of such a nature that the simplest heart can grasp it; and yet the wisest man will never outgrow it. For the deepest teachings of Wisdom lie therein.

If we understand the Saint John Gospel as a Book of Life, so that we wish to live with it, and let it come to life within us, then we shall come to know esoteric Christianity. Such esoteric Christianity has always existed, it has always been active wherever Christianity has been able to manifest in a worthy and noble way, wherever Christianity has brought the blessings of culture and civilisation to mankind.

Into all those who had experienced union and fellowship with Christ Jesus there streamed such strength as enabled them to know that life will always gain the victory over death, and that death is never a reality.

Goethe said that the great World Powers invented death in order to have “much life” in the world. Christianity is a proof that there can arise in the soul a consciousness of the fact that Life is continually and always the Victor in the world.

In the various recent reflections that have been presented here, I have tried less to convey individual concepts and ideas to you than to characterize a certain way of relating to the world. For it must be borne in mind over and over again that the most important thing in relation to the acquisitions to be made through spiritual science is not the conceptual, the imaginative, but the whole soul disposition, the whole soul mood, which the human being of the future will be able to acquire for our development on earth through spiritual science.

Today, almost all those who engage with spiritual science still have some remnants of old attitudes and old soul moods. And this is especially the case to an even greater extent because a certain soul mood in the modern soul has only been evoked for a relatively short time, for three, four to five centuries, in the search for the unraveling of natural phenomena. This soul mood, which I would like to describe as emanating from the so-called scientific world view, is regarded in the broadest circles today as the only valid one. We know that the permeation of scientific concepts and ideas as the basis of a world view has only taken hold among a small part of the world's population today; after all, modern school education basically ensures that it is not so much science as this scientific attitude that is spreading rapidly. And since this scientific frame of mind has only taken hold for a short time, it is naturally difficult for the spiritual-scientific world-view to become established in that which has only taken hold for a short time and which must first develop in the majority of people as a transitional stage in evolution. This scientific world-view mood necessarily leads gradually to a kind of materialism, because it cannot be otherwise than one-sided. It has been acquired in a one-sided way through what may be called man's head experiences, and it also strives to exclude from the mentioned world-view conceptions everything that does not correspond to this head mood of man, that is not thought up, invented, won through experiment or observation with the help of thinking and inventing. One could say that this world-view sentiment has also really retained its one-sidedness with regard to the view of the human being, and in view of the many impulses that have entered the human soul, we can feel how difficult it will be to unfold through spiritual science the more comprehensive soul mood of the world, which emanates from the whole human being again.

If someone today who is thoroughly steeped in the scientific world view gets hold of a book such as, for example, “The Secret Science in the Outline”, he naturally regards the content of this book as a kind of crazy nonsense, because he cannot derive any special meaning from this book due to his one-sided brain and head mood. Now, something of a radical contrast between the spiritual-scientific world-view mood and the natural-scientific world-view mood is evident from one phenomenon in particular – from many phenomena, of course, but most strikingly from one phenomenon. I would like to emphasize this point first.

When we study the human being from a spiritual scientific perspective, we see that the further we go back into the distant past, as we say, into the lunar evolution of our planetary existence, the more we realize that what appears to be so significant for the human being's development on earth was not actually present in the old lunar evolution. In this ancient lunar development, what was present in today's human being was essentially – I say essentially – that which is more or less connected with the present-day development of the human brain. And what the human being has besides his head, besides what mainly belongs to the skull, to the head, his remaining physicality, that is essentially an earthly product, a product of earthly organization.

Essentially, I say again. One could also say: if one traces man back to the ancient development of the moon, then one gradually sees, the further one goes back, his outer limbs, through which he is an earthly human being today, shrink, and what remains is his head, which has of course been transformed by the development of the earth, but which essentially remains when one goes back to the development of the moon. The other has become inorganic, attached. I once explained this in more detail in the lectures on 'Occult Physiology', which I hope will be published soon, in the Prague cycle that I gave in 1911. So, essentially, we come to the conclusion that the human being has emerged from what is now compressed and concentrated in his skull organization; the other has become attached. We must therefore say that, schematically drawn, we would have man in his lunar development like this, and in his earthly development we would have him like this, with the rest of the organization attached to it.

Take what I have just said and compare it with what the one-sided natural scientific world view has achieved to date. In a one-sided way - of course there is something justified at the basis of all these things - it assumes that man has gradually developed from the lower animal stages to his present perfection. What do we see in the lower animal kingdom? We see in them precisely that which has been added to the development of the brain and head in the course of human evolution; and we see the atrophy in the animals of precisely that which is contained in the human head. In animals we see the limbs, the appendages, particularly developed, and what had already developed particularly in the head in man during the ancient lunar evolution, and what then concentrated, we see in animals still shrivelled up and stunted. But only this is seen by the scientific world view. We can say that the scientific world view actually puts the cart before the horse, because it takes what has only been added in humans as its starting point, and what was present in humans before they even had organs like those that present-day animals have, as something that is supposed to have developed from these forms themselves.

From a logical point of view, this means nothing less than concluding: First you look at a child and then at the father and find that the father is taller than the child. Since you now assume, as a result of a logical conclusion, that the larger, developing thing could only have emerged from the smaller, the father would have to have developed from the child, and not the other way around. That is how one actually concludes. The one-sidedness of the modern scientific way of thinking will one day seem as grotesque as the newer awareness of humanity. It will be known that the one-sidedly conceived Darwinian theory is logically nothing more than the assertion that the child has born its father.

Now you can imagine the efforts that will be necessary before humanity relearns about such things, as they have now been hinted at, and what is needed to truly relearn. They have happily managed to establish a world view that turns the world upside down, and now humanity will be confronted with the necessity of turning the world right side up again. But it has taken hardly three to four centuries to get used to the idea that the “upside down” position is the right one.

It is truly one of our tasks not just to acquire theoretical ideas about this or that in the world, but to acquire feelings and perceptions for the tasks that lie before us within the spiritual-scientific movement. We must be clear about how much what must follow for us from the spiritual-scientific view of the world must really differ from what surrounds us everywhere outside today. Otherwise we shall fall again and again into the error of not noticing the radical differences and of wanting to make compromises thoughtlessly, whereas we must be aware that we cannot but develop something from the earlier world-views by grafting it on, but must develop out of a new original cell of world-view life that which can more and more come to our mind as the right thing out of spiritual science. Only with this consciousness will we succeed in putting our soul into our task, and we must get used to the fact that many questions that arise outside the circle of spiritual science can only be tackled, as I showed with reference to a question yesterday, if we open ourselves to what spiritual science can trigger in our soul.

Let us consider something else that may be close to us in relation to the place where we are now standing, the place where we have built our structure. I have emphasized it often in the past, how art, science and religion are three branches of human spiritual life that spring from one root. If we go back, as I have often said, to the time of the primeval mysteries, we do not find the practices of the primeval mysteries in such a way that we could say they were art or religion or science, but they are all that together. In the primeval mysteries, science, religion and art are one unit, organically connected with each other.

What people today try to visualize with the impotent concepts and ideas I spoke of yesterday, man saw in living representation, in living contemplation in the primeval mysteries. He perceived what he can only think today. We will not approach a work of art in the future as we look at a work of art today. In the future, we will not approach the work of art by looking at it and then believing that we understand it only with our thoughts, but we will understand it by directly looking at it and experiencing it in our soul. Thus, by directly experiencing what he was looking at, the person who was initiated into the mysteries understood what he was meant to consciously grasp. What he was to grasp so consciously, what he was to understand by looking and to look at by understanding, was at the same time something beautiful, appearing in outer forms and colors, speaking in sounds and words: it was art at the same time. They were one, science and art.

Today only art, which has separated itself from what science is supposed to give us, gives us an idea of how one can be united with the object inwardly at the same time as being united with it outwardly in direct contact; and only those who want to introduce the barbarism of symbolism, of symbolizing, into art sin against this direct experiencing understanding of the work of art. For the moment one begins to interpret a work of art, one leaves behind that which one might call the experiential understanding of the work of art. It is, in fact, a real barbarism, let us say, to proceed in this way with “Hamlet”, so that the individual persons are interpreted as the principles of the theosophical view or the like. I would not like to live to see the individual forms of our structure interpreted symbolically in this way, because it is the direct, understanding experience that is at stake here!

Thus, in the primeval mysteries, the scientific experience of the world was at the same time the artistic experience of the world, and at the same time this scientific and artistic experience of the world was the religious feeling of the world. For what was experienced in this way in direct living contemplation, in experiencing understanding and in understanding experience, was at the same time that which could be venerated, to which one could lift one's whole soul with religious fervor. Religion, art and science were one; and it was because of human weakness through original sin that there had to be a separation into science, art and religion. What was originally one had to split, so that a religious current, an artistic current and a scientific current arose. What originally took hold of the whole human soul as an organism, woven from scientific, religious and artistic content, had to be distributed among the individual powers of the soul. For the intellect, for thinking, science was given to man, so that when he experiences the world in thought through science, his will and feeling can sleep, can rest.

Man became weak. One-sidedly, in thinking, he sought to experience the world scientifically, and again one-sidedly he sought to experience it artistically so that the other powers could sleep. Again one-sidedly, he sought to experience the world religiously for the same reason. Man would not be able to shape in such perfection that which he can work out intellectually, as is happening today, if a one-sided scientific trend had not developed; he would not have been able to achieve what has been accomplished artistically if art had not separated itself; and religious fervor would not have reached the heights it was destined to reach if it had not separated itself from the other powers of the soul that are devoted to science and art.

But with regard to this separation, we have indeed reached a crisis, and this crisis is clearly expressed; it is expressed very, very clearly. In what? I would say that especially in the last few centuries, humanity has had to experience more and more how this crisis expresses itself. Science, art and religion have become so divorced that they no longer understand each other, that they can no longer have any relationship with each other. Slowly we see how the “diplomatic relations” between religion, science and art are broken off. We see how such relationships still existed, say, in the heyday of the Italian Renaissance, where an intimate bond was woven between religion and art in the creations of Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. But the more we delve into more recent times, the more we find that a mutual lack of understanding has gradually developed between science, art and religion. We see – and unfortunately have to admit – how, in many cases in recent centuries, religion has even become hostile to art; we see how it has thrown out art, how there are religious movements that seek to achieve the height of religious feeling by throwing out sculptures and making churches as sober and artless as possible. We also see how another religious current has come to have sculptures, but mostly those that are no longer works of art, because what we still find in churches in the form of sculptures from past centuries is not intended to awaken the sense of art, the aesthetic sense, but to thoroughly eradicate it. And on the other hand, we see how art has increasingly lost sight of its connection with the conception of the divine-spiritual being, how everything has passed over into naturalism, how more and more people only want to depict what has a model in external nature.

Of course, art must then break off its, if I may say so, “diplomatic relations” with religion if it only wants to be naturalistic art, because that which religion must venerate cannot have a model in external nature. That is quite obvious. And how little science has maintained its relations can be seen from the slow approach of this breaking off of relations. Yes, we can see that it is approaching slowly.

We have an excellent artist in the 16th century who was also active as an anatomist and technician in the most diverse fields: Leonardo da Vinci. Anyone who studies his scientific works can still feel everywhere how these scientific works are imbued with artistic meaning. But one can see how this sense has increasingly evaporated in more recent times, how unartistic it has become, and how today it seems to be believed that the greatness of science consists precisely in being unartistic. It has almost become a dogma for a certain direction of modern times that Goethe is such a visionary physicist because the artistic sense did not allow him to become a proper physicist.

In short, misunderstanding has arisen between the three currents. But this marks the crisis. For when that which comes from one root separates in its mutual relationships in such a way that the life juices no longer come from the common root, the crisis must occur, the one-sided development must lead these currents to wither away. In recent times, we have reached a crisis in our failure to understand what a common organism, a coherent organism in human nature, is and how it separates in the outer evolution. We are in the crises. Such crises can be described in such a way that we can say that human nature demands organic unification of what has had to go separate ways in the outer world for some time. In many areas of life, the person who does not go through the evolution of the world indifferently can perceive such crisis, and such a person will observe much of what cannot remain as it is in today's development in these crises, and he will gain insight into what has to happen in order to overcome the crises.

We have already hinted at one crisis in the fact that science, art and religion no longer understand each other. Another crisis is going through the world, which is noticed only by a few, but which is terrible in its effect, a crisis that stems from the lack of understanding between two currents. The one current is that which was once breathed through the world in the infinitely deep sayings engraved in the human heart: “My kingdom is not of this world” and “You are from below, but I am from above”. Man's root is in the spiritual world.

The second current, which must develop more and more into a crisis-ridden confrontation with what is expressed in the words: “My kingdom is not of this world” and “I am from above, but you are from below,” is the word: “L'état c'est moi! The state is me!” My kingdom, the kingdom of my ego, is completely bound to this world. The right way lies in the synthesis of the two sentences. It lies in a universally conceived Christianity, expressed in the words “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.” In correctly understood Christianity there is no false turning away from the world. But there is also not that one-sidedness in it, which can only be lived out in the attachment to the material institutions of world existence.

In speaking of this, we are touching on the very deepest tasks of anthroposophy. For anthroposophy, in the true sense of the word, must not arise one-sidedly from the mood of the head, but from the whole soul of man. And only then will this soul find the transition into anthroposophical life when it is completely seized by spiritual science, not only in its life of ideas, but when it is completely seized by it.

It is a fact that what has become the human head during the moon-life is on the way to becoming the whole human being during the earth-life. During the old moon-evolution there was a being, the ancestor of the present human being. What was then an outer organism has today become the head. The limbs have been added. When the coming Jupiter evolution is complete, this whole organism of today's human being will have become the head. What you are today as a whole human being will become the brain, the head, of the Jupiter human, just as the whole moon human has become the head of the earth human.

The task of true spiritual development consists in truly anticipating the future. Therefore, we must become aware that there is a head culture around us and that it is our responsibility to create a human culture. Our head could not think, could not reflect any ideas or concepts if it behaved like the rest of our organism; it could never truly fulfill its task. Our head reflects the world, which then becomes our world of perception, only because it can forget itself in its perception, can truly forget itself. In its feeling, the human being is - thank God - always headless. If you try to feel your way through and ask yourself: What do I feel least in my organism? - it is really the head that forgets itself most in normal life. And when it does not forget itself, then it hurts, and then it also prefers not to perceive anything, but to be left in peace and without perception. That is where it asserts its egoism. Otherwise, however, it extinguishes itself, and because it extinguishes itself, we can perceive the whole surrounding world. It is organized to extinguish itself.

If you were to forget even the slightest part of the outer periphery of the head, but instead focus on it, then you would no longer be able to perceive the external environment. Imagine that instead of perceiving the external world, you would see your eye; for example, if you were to take a step back with your perception, then you would see the cranial cavity, but with the perception of the external world it would be nothing. To the same extent and at the same moment that a person succeeds in completely switching off their organism – which, as is well known, is achieved through meditation and in initiation – to that same extent and in that same moment, this organism becomes a real mirror of the world, only that we then see not the organism but the cosmos. Just as the head does not see itself either, but what is around it, so the whole human being, when it becomes an organ of perception, sees the cosmos. This is the ideal that we must have in mind: forgetting the organism as it appears to us on the physical plane, and being able to use it instead as a mirroring apparatus for the secrets of the cosmos.

In this way we gradually expand our head-centered view to a whole-humane view of the world, and we must learn to sense, to feel, to perceive something of how truly anthroposophy human being, overcoming this head-centeredness – so I may call it in contrast to the anthroposophical centeredness – the one-sided head-centeredness that comes from modern science and so only takes hold of the head.

If you take something of what I said yesterday, when I described how man can become aware that he is a lamp for the cherubim, a heating apparatus for the seraphim, how he enters into the world of cherubim and seraphim in thinking and willing, how he means something for this world, how his self is not only there for itself, but stands in a living relationship to the weaving and life of the spiritual hierarchies - if you make that an attitude, then you will feel something of how the whole person can truly become brain, how he as a whole person can thus come into communication with his surroundings, as otherwise only the head can. Then you will feel what is actually meant by this: to perceive the world as a whole human being.

But if you perceive the world as a whole human being, then you cannot think, feel and will one-sidedly, but you become immersed in the whole of earthly existence. You immerse yourself in the whole experience of the world, and it arises by itself, I would say, the inner sense of dependence on it, not only in thoughts but also in forms, not only in the formless thoughts but in the beautiful, expressive forms. The urge arises, the need to express things in artistic forms that you understand intellectually.

And again: when a person delves into the entire spiritual life of the world, his life basically becomes prayer, and he no longer has such an urgent need to single out little minutes in which to pray. Rather, he knows: when I think, I am a lampstand for the cherubim; when I act, when I act with will, I am a heating apparatus for the seraphim. Man knows that he lives in the whole spiritual world structure. Thinking becomes a religious conviction for him, and acting becomes a moral prayer.

We see how these three areas, art, religion and science, which had to go their separate ways in the world for a while, are seeking each other out of the whole human being again. At the beginning of the development of the earth, man brought so much with him from extra-terrestrial development that he still had the living, unified feeling, the unified striving, as it expressed itself in the old days in the union of art, religion and science. One could say that in man at that time there still strove his angel, his Angelos. But man would never have become free if it had continued like this. Man had to be emancipated from this old inheritance. But he must find again in the ascending evolution what he has lost in the descending evolution.

Goethe's beautiful words about architecture have been mentioned several times. He called architecture frozen music. Let us dwell on this saying. It is truly possible to call architecture, in its previous development, a kind of frozen music. The forms of architecture are like frozen melodies, like solidified harmonies and rhythms. But we have the task, since we are in the midst of the crisis mentioned, of bringing the frozen back into motion, into liveliness, of making the frozen forms musically alive again, so to speak. When you see our building, you will see our efforts to set the old, rigid forms of construction in motion, to transform them into life, to make them musical again. This is the reason why we do not have a round building, but a single axis of symmetry, along which the motifs move.

Thus we see how the spiritual-scientific worldview, including its artistic aims, is intimately connected with all the tasks and necessary impulses of our time, which we recognize in the crises of our time. Understanding and seeing this is our task, it is of utmost importance for our task. We must gradually bring together all the details of our task from this point of view.

Today, people quickly forget how to use their entire organism like a kind of brain. He has the potential, but as soon as he has developed from a crawling child into an upright human being in the first years of life, he quickly forgets how to relate to his entire organism, just as he will then relate to his brain throughout his entire life; for this straightening up, this bringing-himself-into-the-vertical is in fact a working of the spirit on the whole human being. This is the last remnant of what we bring with us from our spiritual, prenatal life, because in our earthly life we quickly unlearn it. And then we drag the whole organism, which eats and drinks and digests, through life like a burden; we drag it through life and no longer bring it into a respectful relationship with the spiritual world, but far away from the spiritual world.

The child still has the great wisdom to know that man's task lies in the heights far from the world and has the direction towards heights far from the world in its organism. When that is over, the organism becomes a digestive and gastric sac and is separated from the relationship with the outside world.

Not even the relationship to the outside world, of which I spoke yesterday, is maintained. When we, for example, rest our head in our hand in order to express something weighty in the external organism, we hardly notice it. And if someone in their unconsciousness still retains the habit of using the whole organism and not just thinking with the brain, but also placing the hand or the index finger on the forehead or the nose, thus indicating that they are really distinguishing and judging - we do not notice that this is an instinctive effort to use the whole organism like a brain. It does not have to happen in this external way. Of course, spiritual science does not intend to turn human beings into fidgets who think with their whole bodies. But spiritually, of course, the consciousness must expand to include the whole human being in the cosmos, to know that the cosmos can be mirrored by the whole body, just as the cosmos is now only mirrored by the brain.

When consciousness is broadened in this way, when the human being really goes beyond merely dragging his organism through life, so to speak, and learns to use and handle it, then the foundation is laid for what must be laid in our time: a human, a totally human world view, as opposed to a mere cerebral view, must become what anthroposophy has to strive for.

If we try to do this, and if we try to elevate our attitudes in this way, which otherwise remain only ideas, then we will achieve what is intended with this spiritual scientific movement of ours. For we will gradually find our way as human beings, ascending in development, to the real figure of Christ, when we have become more and more familiarized with the all-human conception of the world. That this Christ-figure cannot be found is only the fault of the brain-view. The moment this is overcome, the moment spiritual science has become so strong that man's consciousness is so completely reorganized in the way described, then what has often been said about the Christ-view will really come to pass. But then our human world will be able to achieve what it can only achieve from within and which will lead it beyond many things that have now led to a crisis among the earth's human race, not only inwardly, in terms of world views, but also outwardly, in terms of people and nations.

One would like people to gradually realize, at least a small part of people, that real help is needed. Then one will also realize that the help that humanity needs can only be provided by the souls, only from within, and that everything else cannot even be a surrogate, because surrogates can no longer help against the great crises of our time, only the real and the true. And the genuine and true must be conquered by humanity in the spirit. Christmas celebration

Let us once again call to mind the real significance. of the fact that the knowledge and truths expressed in the Mysteries of Hibernia had been, in a manner of speaking, dimmed; that means that they could not develop any further activity in their journey towards central Europe and the East; and in the place of a spiritual approach even in matters of religion, physical perception, or at least a tradition based on this appeared.

Let us again call to mind that Image which appeared at the end of our last consideration. We pointed to the Being of Christ in the Mysteries of Hibernia. We indicated also that epoch in which the Mystery of Golgotha took place. There, in Hibernia, were the Initiates with their pupils; and there, without any means for the physical perception of the Mystery of Golgotha, without any possibility of information concerning this Mystery coming across to them, we find that at the same time in Ireland the Initiates established a universal ceremony, because they were quite clear from their insight that the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place simultaneously in an external way.

Now for these Initiates and their pupils in the Mysteries of Hibernia, they had of necessity to experience a physical reality, a sensible event, but only in a spiritual way. It was not necessary, for their way of thinking, and the manner of knowledge then customary in Hibernia to have more than the Spiritual in the physical world.

It must be clearly understood, however, that in Hibernia the Spiritual was paramount. In all kinds of secret streams of spiritual life that which had originated in Hibernia was brought over to central Europe, through the British Isles, through Brittany, through what is now Holland and Belgium, and even through the Alsace of today. Even though not present in the general civilization, yet, in the first centuries of Christian development, we find here and there in all the regions mentioned single individualities able to understand what had come over from the Mysteries of Hibernia, but, as we have said, this was not to be found in the general civilization of Europe. One must approach these things with an inner longing for knowledge, in order to find in the first Christian centuries those fairly numerous personalities. In the later centuries, from the 8th and 9th to the 15th and 16th centuries such personalities became rarer and rarer; personalities able to gather around them a small number of pupils through whom, in the silent places far removed from the world and its civilization, that which had been initiated in western Europe, in Hibernia, could be carried further.

In general, there spread over Europe that for which spiritual perception is not required, that which could be linked on to the mere historical tradition, which simply related the physical events which had taken place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. From this stream there proceeded that element which gradually developed more and more, which reckoned only with that which transpired in physical life. Less and less did humanity in general divine what a colossal contradiction lies in the fact that the mystery of Golgotha, which is really only comprehensible by means of the deepest spiritual life, is now based simply on an external figure, perceptible physically; this became for a time the necessary course of development of civilization in Europe.

Fundamentally, all this had been gradually prepared over a long time, but it could only come about because a very great deal of the old Mystery-knowledge, even such as still existed in Greece, had been forgotten.

These Mysteries of Greece were divided into two classes; one of these busied itself with guiding man's mind towards the spiritual world, towards the actual guidance and direction of the world in spirit, while the other investigated the mysteries of nature and that which rules in nature, especially the forces and beings connected with the powers of the earth. A great number of candidates were initiated into both kinds of mysteries. Of these it was said that they had knowledge and had been initiated into the Mysteries of the Father, the Mysteries of Zeus, and also that they had been admitted into the Mysteries of the Mother, the Mysteries of Demeter. When we look back into those times we find a far-reaching spiritual perception, though still somewhat abstract, into the highest regions, and side by side with this, a conception of nature which was capable of descending into the depths. Above all, we find in Greece that which is of special significance—the union of both Mysteries.

Concerning this union of both Mysteries we see that which today is but little noticed; the fact that man carries certain external substances of nature in his being while certain other substances of nature he does not carry in his being; this was observed and studied in the very deepest sense, in the Chthonic Mysteries in Ancient Greece. You know that man has iron in his being, as part of his organization. He also carries other metals within him, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and so on; but there are other metals which he does not carry within him. If we were to try and find these metals within by means of ordinary scientific methods, if one analysed the substances in man, then by means of this external investigation, we should find no lead, no copper, no quicksilver, no tin, no silver and no gold within him.

That was the great riddle which occupied those undergoing initiation into the Greek Mysteries, and the apex of this riddle was reached in the question: How does it come about that man carries iron in himself, that he carries sodium magnesium, and other substances which we can also find in outer nature, but does not, for instance carry lead or tin in his being? They were deeply convinced that man is a small world, a microcosm; yet it would appear that man did not carry in his being these other metals, lead, tin, quicksilver, silver, gold and so on.

We may truly say that the older candidates for initiation in Greece were of the opinion that this was only apparently the case; for they were deeply permeated by the knowledge that man is a real microcosm; that means that everything which is to be found in the cosmos he also carries in his own being.

Let us look for a moment into the mind of a man about to be initiated in Greece. He would be instructed somewhat as follows: (and here of course I must compose into a few sentences that which extended over long periods in the course of this instruction) he was instructed by being told the following: Observe how the earth today conceals iron everywhere in itself; iron is also in man. Once upon a time, when the earth had not yet become earth, when it existed in a previous planetary condition, the earth which was then Old Moon, or perhaps even Old Sun also concealed in itself lead, tin and so on: and all the beings which had shared in the previous construction of the earth also had a part in these metals and their forces, just as man today shares in the forces of iron. But with those transformations which the ancient shape of the earth underwent iron alone remained in such a degree of strength and density that man could permeate his being with it. The other metals which we have just named are also contained in the earth, but they are no longer of such a consistency that man can directly permeate himself with them; they are to be found in an infinitely rarefied condition in the whole cosmic space which surrounds man.

If I examine a small piece of lead I see before me the well-known grayish-white metal, which has a definite density. One can grasp it. But this same lead which appears in the lead-ores of the earth exists in an infinitely fine ramification in the whole cosmic space surrounding man, and there it has its significance. It has this significance there, that it radiates its forces everywhere, even where there is apparently no lead and man comes into contact with these forces of the lead, not through his physical body, but through his etheric body; because outside the lead-ores of the earth lead exists in such a rarefied fine condition that it can work only on the etheric body of man. On man's etheric body the lead works in this condition of infinite ramification extended over the whole of cosmic space.

The pupil of those ancient Greek Chthonic Mysteries learnt that, just as is the case today with the earth, which is infinitely rich in iron, and I a planet concerning which the inhabitant of another planet could say: “That planet is rich in iron,” (the only other planet rich in iron being Mars); just as the earth is rich in iron, so Saturn is rich in lead. What iron is for the earth, lead is for Saturn; and one has to assume—this the student of the Chthonic Mysteries in Greece learned—that once upon a time, when the separation of Saturn from the common planetary body of the earth took place as described in my Outline of Occult Science—when Saturn separated from this cosmic body, this fine division with reference to lead took place. One can say that Saturn took the lead out with him, as it were and held it through his own planetary life-force, through his own planetary warmth in such a condition that he can permeate the whole planetary system to which our earth belongs with this infinitely finely distributed lead.

You must therefore imagine the earth, and in the distances Saturn filling the whole planetary system with its finely distributed lead, and this fine lead substance works on man. You can still find traces that this was taught to those about to be initiated in ancient Greece, and that they learnt to understand how this lead worked. They knew that our sense organs, especially the organ of the eye would take the whole of man's being into its own sphere, and not allow man to come to self-reliance. Man would only be able to see, he would not be able to think about what he had seen. He would be unable to detach himself from what he saw and say: “I see.” He would be over-powered by sight, as it were, unless this effect of lead existed in the Cosmos. It is this activity of lead which makes it possible for man to be independent in himself, which places him as an ego as regards receptivity to the outer world, which lives in him. These lead-forces first enter the etheric body of man, and from the etheric body they also impregnate the physical body, in a certain sense. Thereby man receives the capacity of memory; the power of memory.

It was always a great moment when a pupil, such as the Greek pupil of the Chthonic Mysteries, after having learnt all this, was led on to what then followed. He was shown with all possible ceremonial the substance of lead, and then his mind was directed towards Saturn. The relationship of Saturn with earthly lead was brought before his soul, and then he was told: “The lead which thou seest is concealed in the earth, for in its present state the earth is not in a condition to give the lead a form in which it can work in man; but Saturn with its very different condition of warmth, with its inner life-forces scatters lead in planetary space. Thereby thou art an independent being, possessing the power of memory. Just think, thou art a human being only through the fact that today thou dost know still what thou knewest ten or twenty years ago. Just think how the human part of thee would suffer if thou didst not carry within thee what thou didst experience ten or twenty years ago. Thy ego-forces would be shattered unless this power of memory were present in full measure. This is due to what streams to thee from that distant Saturn. It is the force which has come to rest in lead in the earth, and which can now no longer work upon man in its quiescent state. Thus it is the Saturn lead-forces which enable thee to consolidate thy thoughts, so that they can arise later out of the depths of the soul, and thou canst thus live a continuous life in the external world, and not merely in a transient way. Thou owest it to the Saturn lead-forces that thou dost not merely look around thee today and then forget the objects thou beholdest, but canst retain the memory of them in thy soul. Thou canst retain in thy soul what thou didst experience twenty years ago, and canst cause this to live again; thou canst so form thy inner life as to reproduce what thou didst experience in thy surroundings at any particular time of thy life.”

It was a powerful impression that the pupil received, when with the greatest ceremony this knowledge was brought before him seriously and without sentimentality. He then learnt to understand: If it were only these lead-forces which were active in giving man the power of his ego, the power of memory, he would be completely separated from the Cosmos. If the Saturn-forces alone existed in man he would indeed be able to retain in his memory what he saw with his physical eyes, and preserve this throughout his earthly life; but he would be divorced from the Cosmos. He would become, as it were, a hermit in his earth-life in spite of being inspired by Saturn with the power of memory. The pupil then learnt that against the Saturn forces another force had to be set up, the force of the moon. Let us suppose that these two forces confront one another in such a way that the force of Saturn and the force of the moon, approaching from opposite sides, but flowing into each other, descend to the earth and to man on the earth. Now Saturn takes from man what he receives from the moon, and what man receives from Saturn is taken by the moon. So, just as the earth has in iron a force which man can transmute within himself, a force which Saturn has in lead, that same force is possessed by the moon in silver.

Now even the silver, as it exists in the earth, has already attained a condition in which it cannot enter directly into man; but the whole sphere which includes the moon is actually permeated by finely divided silver, and the moon, especially when its light comes from the constellation of Leo, works in such a way that man, through these silver-forces of the moon receives the opposing activity of the lead-forces of Saturn; he is therefore not divorced or cut off from the Cosmos, in spite of the fact that he is beneficently inspired with the forces of memory by the Cosmos. It was a moment of special ceremony when the Greek pupil was led to see this opposition of Saturn and the moon., In the sanctity of the night it was made clear to the pupil: “Look up to Saturn surrounded by his rings; to him thou owest the fact that thou art an independent being. Now look towards the other side, to the silver-radiating moon. To her thou owest the fact that thou art able to bear the Saturn forces without being cut off from the rest of the Cosmos.”

In this way, based directly upon the union of man with the cosmos, that teaching was given in Greece which later on we find as a caricature in what is called astrology. At that time it was a true wisdom, for then man saw in a star not merely the speck or point of light above him; he saw in the star the spiritual living being, and the human being of the earth was seen in union with this spiritual living being. Men then had a natural science which reached up into the heavens, and extended right out into cosmic spaces. When the pupil had received such insight, and such illumination had entered deeply into his soul, he was lead into the real Mysteries of Eleusis. You have heard what took place in these Mysteries, in my description of other Mysteries; for instance, the Mysteries of Hibernia. The pupil was led before two statues. One of these statues represented to him a fatherly divinity, that fatherly divinity which was surrounded by the signs of the planets and the sun, represented to him shining Saturn, but so radiant that the pupil was reminded of the fact: That is the radiance of lead from the cosmos—just as the moon reminded him of the silver radiance. And this same thing happened with each single planet. Thus, in that statue which represented the father principle there appeared all those mysteries which ray down to earth from the planetary environment, all that which was related to the single metals of the earth, which, however, had now become unusable within the earth as regards man's inner being.

Then the pupil was told the following: Here stands the Father of the world before Thee. The Father of the world carries the lead in Saturn, in Jupiter he bears tin, in Mars the iron, which is so closely related with the earth-being but in quite another condition, in the sun, the radiating gold, in Venus, the radiating streaming copper, in Mercury the radiating quicksilver, and in the moon the radiating silver. Thou dost only bear within thee that part of the metals which thou wast able to assimilate from the planetary conditions which the earth had once upon a time gone through. In its present condition thou canst only assimilate the iron. As an earthly human being thou art not complete. In that which the Father, standing before thee shows thee in the metals which cannot today exist within thee in thy earthly existence, but which thou must take up from the cosmos, in that thou hast another part of thy being; when thou dost look upon thyself as a human being who has gone through the planetary transformations of the earth, then art thou really a complete human being. Here on the earth thou art only a part human being; the other part the Father carries round his head and in his arms before thee. It is only that which stands before thee, combined with that which he bears which makes thee man. Thou standest on the earth, but that earth was not always as it is today. If the earth had been always as it is today thou couldst not dwell upon it as a human being. For the earth carries today in itself, even in a lifeless condition, the lead of Saturn, the tin of Jupiter, the iron of Mars (though in that other state) the gold of the sun, the silver of the moon, the copper of Venus, and the quicksilver of Mercury. It carries these things within it. But these metals which the earth carries in its body today are no more than a memory of their former existence, of the way in which, once upon a time silver lived during the Moon-existence of the earth, in which gold lived during the Sun-existence, only a reminder of the way in which lead lived during the Saturn-existence of the earth. That which thou hast today in the dense metallic ores of lead, tin, iron, gold, copper, quicksilver, silver, with the exception of the iron which thou really knowest, and which is not the iron within the earth, for that belongs to the Mars nature, that which thou now seest in these dense compact metals—these metals poured themselves out on to the earth in a quite different condition. These metals as thou knowest them today on the earth are the corpses of the erstwhile metal-beings. The corpse has remained of that metal-being which during the Saturn time and later in a different stage, during the Moon time of the earth played a part in their ancient form. Tin played a part in a combination with gold during the Sun time of the earth in a very different condition. And if thou dost see these things in the Spirit, then will this statue become for thee in all that it brings before thee the true Father statue.

And in the Spirit, as in a real vision the statue of the true Mysteries of Eleusis became living and handed to the female statue which stood beside it that which the metals at that time were. In the vision seen by the pupil, the female statue received that which was the metals in their former shape, and surrounded it with what the earth in becoming earth could give out of its own being.

The pupil saw this wonderful process, this wonderful happening. There radiated forth out of the hand of the Father-statue the metallic mass, as the pupil now saw in a symbolic way; and that which the earth then was, with its chalk and stone-formation encountered that which streamed in and surrounded this in-streaming metal-element with earthly substance.

The way in which the hand stretching out in love from the Mother-statue received the metal-forces which were offered by the Father-statue made a great and mighty impression on the pupil, for he then saw how the Cosmos worked together with the earth in the course of aeons of time, and he learnt to feel in the right way what the earth was offering.

Look around at the metallic nature in the earth today. It is crystallized and surrounded with a kind of crust which comes from the earth. The metal-nature streamed in from the cosmos, and that which comes from the earth received lovingly that which streamed in from the cosmos. You see this everywhere if you go to metal-mines and take an interest in them. That which received the metal was called the Mother. The most important of these earthly substances which, as it were, came forward to meet the heavenly metal-element in order to take it up were called “the Mothers.”

That is only one aspect of “The Mothers” to whom Faust descends. He descends at the same time into those pre-earthly periods of the earth, in order to see there how the Mother-earth takes into herself what is given by the Father-element in the cosmos.

Through all this there was stirred up in the pupil of the Eleusinian Mysteries, in his inner being, a feeling of being one with the Cosmos. It was an inner recognition in his heart of that which is in reality the nature-processes of the earth.

If the man of today observes these processes, these products of nature, he finds everything dead, there is nothing but a corpse; and if we occupy ourselves with physics or chemistry, are we doing with nature really anything else in our science than what the anatomist does when he dissects the corpse in the anatomical theatre when he has only the dead aspect of that which was intended for life? Thus in our science and physics we cut into living nature.

To the Greek pupil was given a different natural science, a natural science of the living, which showed him our present lead as the corpse of lead. He had to go back to the times when lead lived, and in that way the mysterious relation of man with the cosmos, the mysterious connection of man with all that existed around him on the earth was made clear.

When the pupil had undergone all these things, when the Father-statue and the Mother-statue had sunk deeply into his soul, bringing before his soul the two opposing forces of the Cosmos and of the earth, he was led in Ancient Greece into the very holiest of all. There he had before him the picture of a female figure suckling at her breast a Child, and he was finally led to the understanding of the Word: “That is the God Jacchos [originally translated as Jakos], Who is to come in the future.”

In this way the Greek disciple learned to understand the Mystery of Christ in a pre-Christian period; again it was in a spiritual way that the Christ was placed before those to be initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. In that time, however, he had to learn of the Christ only as a future Appearance, as One Who was still a Child, a cosmic Child, Who must first grow up in the Cosmos. Those about to be initiated, who were taught to look towards the end, towards the goal of earth-evolution were called Tellists.

Now there came a very important turning-point, which is expressed very dearly and even historically in the transition from Plato to Aristotle. It is remarkable that, in the evolution of this Greek civilisation, as the fourth century began, this first transition towards the abstract appeared. This fact is exemplified in the following scene which took place between Plato and Aristotle, at a time when Plato was very old, and really at the end of his earthly career. I must of course clothe in words what naturally occurred in a much more complicated way. Plato said to Aristotle somewhat as follows: “Many things I have told you and my other pupils may not have seemed correct to you, but what I have told you is really an extract of the most ancient holy Mystery-Wisdom. Human beings will, however, in the course of their evolution acquire such a form and such an inner Organisation, which will gradually lead them to something certainly higher than we now possess but this will at the same time make it impossible for them to accept natural science in the way it is presented to the Greeks.” Plato made this clear to Aristotle. “Therefore, I will withdraw myself for a time” said Plato, “and will leave you to yourself. In the world of thought, for which you are so especially endowed, and which will become the thought-world of humanity for many centuries, try to build up in thoughts what you have learnt here in my school.” So Plato and Aristotle separated, and Plato therewith fulfilled, as commanded, a high spiritual mission through Aristotle.

I am obliged to describe this scene in this way; but if you look in the history books, you will also find this scene described, and I will now tell you how it is there described: “Aristotle was always a headstrong pupil of Plato; so that Plato once said that though Aristotle was a gifted pupil yet he was like a horse that was trained by someone and then kicked its trainer with its hoof. That which took place between Aristotle and Plato led as time went on to Plato becoming annoyed and withdrawing from Aristotle. He returned no more into the Academy to teach therein.” That is the account given in the history books.

This narrative is in the history books; the other which I have just related is the truth and bears within it an impulse toward something very significant. For there were two kinds of writings of Aristotle. The one contained a remarkable natural science, the natural science of Eleusis, which came by way of Plato to Aristotle. The other contained the thoughts, the abstract thoughts which were also given to Aristotle by Plato from out of the Eleusinian Mysteries for the accomplishment of his mission.

That which Aristotle actually had to give also followed a two-fold path. We have his so-called logical writings, those logical writings which drew forth the most weighty thoughts from the ancient Eleusinian Mystery wisdom. These writings containing, less of natural science, Aristotle gave to his pupil Theophrastus, and through him and in other ways they came through Greece and Rome and formed the content of the wisdom taught throughout the Middle Ages to those leading minds in civilisation—the teachers of philosophy in Central Europe.

That which came about in the way I described in the last lecture, because the Mystery-wisdom of Hibernia had to be rejected, and men had simply to link on to what was tradition, tradition recording the events which took place at the beginning of our own era, this united with that which was separated from the wisdom of Plato by Aristotle, the wisdom of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The natural science which still carried within it the spirit of the Chthonic Mysteries and which had flowed into the Eleusinian Mysteries was a natural science which extended to the heavens, and soared out to the wide spaces of the cosmos to seek explanation of the earth from thence. For this natural science the time was past in Greece. As much as could be saved of this natural science was saved by Alexander becoming the pupil of Aristotle, who then undertook his journeys into Asia, and did everything possible to introduce this Aristotelian natural science to the East to extend it eastward. That then passed over into the Jewish and Arabian schools. From thence it came across from Africa to Spain, and there in a filtered form it influenced certain human beings in Central Europe. Theophrastus had given his version of the teachings of Aristotle to the theological teachers of the Middle Ages. Alexander the Great had carried his—the other version of Aristotle—over into Asia. That Eleusinian wisdom which came, but in infinite dilution, through Africa into Spain, shone out here and there in the Middle Ages, and notwithstanding the general standard of culture, was cultivated in certain monasteries and lived on under the surface. For instance, we meet with it in mystical form as brought down to posterity in Basilius Valentinus. On the surface there prevailed that culture of which I spoke to you in the last lecture. In this culture that which it was still possible to teach at the time of Aristotle was not to be found—that Christ must really be recognized and known.

The third picture, the female form who carries at her breast the Child, the Jacchos-Child, must also be understood; but that which should bring the understanding of this third figure was still to come in the evolution of humanity. That must come through certain relationships which I have explained to you. This was made clear to Alexander the Great by Aristotle, not in writing, but through circumstances such as I have just described.

So we see how in the bosom of time there lies the demand to understand in its original reality what has been so beautifully put before the world by the Christian painters; the Mother with the Child at her breast; but which was not fully understood either in the Madonna of Raphael, or in the eastern icons. It still awaits understanding.

Something of what is necessary to acquire such understanding will be discussed in the lectures to be given here; and in the next lecture I will describe the way along which many deeply occult secrets traveled from Arabia towards Europe. This will help to place before your souls a certain historical phenomenon, and in the lectures which are to form the basis of the historical evolution of humanity, and which will be given to the delegates at Christmas I will endeavour to put before you at the proper place the significance of the journeys of Alexander the Great in connection with the teachings of Aristotle.

My dear Friends,

In times past when men had a more intense, but of course still instinctive, feeling of what it is in man that reveals itself in his speaking, they were aware of the process that does actually take place in the forming of speech, a process that consists in the astral body laying hold—quite simply—of the etheric. today we speak and talk, knowing no more of what is going on within us at the time than we do in regard to any other of our actions; for of the complicated inner processes that accompany all human activities we are quite unaware. And it is of course only right that we do not watch our actions too closely while we are doing them, or they would lose their spontaneity. But one who sets out to be an artist in the forming of speech and in the use of mime and gesture must learn to recognise how astral body and ether body have here found their way into an independent co-operation; at any rate, during the time of his training the reality of this should be constantly present to his consciousness. The artist must have felt—I do not say he must have seen, but he must have experienced in feeling what it means when we say that through the working together of astral body and ether body a second man has been begotten within us, has been set free within us, and lives in speech.

The life that now makes its appearance is, however, so richly and delicately formed within that it is in fact difficult for us to perceive how, over and above the content of our speaking, something is detaching itself from us in the whole body of the speech; and that is why it is so important that during his training the student should learn to apprehend what is happening here with his speaking, apprehending it with the insight of an artist. For he can do so; and it will help him more than anything else to make his speaking inwardly strong and mobile. With this end in view, let him practise his exercises as far as possible as though he were a person who cannot speak but wants to. This is a situation that can well occur in life, for it is only in connection with other human beings that we ever learn to speak.

There have been not a few instances in history of persons who have grown up in solitude, living almost the life of a wild animal. Such persons, in spite of possessing good and sound organs both for hearing and for speaking, have yet not learned to speak. If in course of time someone discovered them, he was bound to assume that they could quite well have learned to speak, and had only not done so because they were not together with other human beings.

It has generally been found, however, that human beings left in this way in solitude do make a kind of modest attempt at speaking. They will produce some such sounds as hum, ham, häm, him—that is to say, the sound h swept along into the production of gesture with some rather undefined vowel sound in between. And on investigating this groping attempt at speech, we find that as we boom out this sound-sequence, we can become conscious of how our astral body is here seizing hold of our ether body. Try uttering again and again these sounds: hum, ham, häm and so on, and you will feel as though something were liberating itself from you and living purely in vibrations. If you were to introduce this as an exercise in schools of dramatic art, and have the pupils booming out hm, it would create a most singular impression; you would feel as though a great buzzing were rising up out of you all, like an independent entity on its own. Anyone who has had this experience will readily agree that we have here an excellent first exercise for the forming of speech.

Let your students begin with practising: hm, hum, ham, häm, and it will bring movement into their speaking.

hm, hum, ham, häm.

They must of course then go on to something else; for if they continued with that exercise alone, you would be leaving them in the condition of savages. The point is, that for their start they should go back to the first elements where speech begins to free itself, begins to come forth from the human being.

Let me say here, in parenthesis, that one should not of course use this method with children. It has no pedagogical value. As soon as we begin to study things with the eye of an artist, it becomes necessary to make a clear distinction between the different spheres of life. Anthroposophy never tends to disturb or confuse the different kinds of human activity; on the contrary it assigns to each its proper sphere, and furthers its growth and progress in that sphere.

And now, how shall we continue our instruction? We have in the course of these lectures learned to distinguish among the consonants’ impact’ or ‘thrust’ sounds, and then again ‘breath’ or ‘blown’ sounds. We become either throwers of the spear (in the impact sounds) or trumpeters (in the breath sounds). In between we have the ‘wave’ sound l, and the trembling or ‘vibrating’ sound r in its various forms—the palatal r, the tongue r. These two come in between.

Now it is important to see what lies behind this grouping of the consonants For it is no arbitrary grouping, made to fit into some scheme. It is derived from the speech organism, and a fact of far-reaching significance lies behind it.

When we speak, we ‘form’ the air. This is true of all speaking of whatever kind or quality: we speak by forming the air. And we form it in ever so many different ways. Now you can get a magnificent feeling of this forming of the air, if you repeat over and over again hm, hum, ham. For you have here what I might describe as speech in full swing. Once you have experienced the great swing of speech, you will feel as you go through the impact sounds—d, t, b, p, g, k, m, n—that when you come to say hm, you would really like to achieve at long last the actual push or impact, you would like to take yourself with the hm right into it. And at the same time you can feel that you want to mould the body of the air out there in front of you to an enclosed form or figure. And you are really wanting to do this, not only with m but with all the sounds that I have named in this left-hand column (see page 378). You do not quite succeed; the endeavour shows itself only in nascent condition. Nevertheless, in the case of all these sounds there is the desire on our part to enter with them into the enclosed form that is taking shape out there in the air. As we utter these’ impact’ sounds, we feel we would like to mould the air to a complete and shut-in form. And now we can well imagine we want to go farther and see what these forms are like.

When we form the sound d, we are really wanting to form in the air a figure rather like a kind of runnel which we hold up before us like this, so that it is closed in front. That is the kind of form we want to be making as we say d.

When we say b, it is as though we were wanting to make an enclosed form rather like a little ship.

With k, we have the definite feeling of wanting to form with our speech something like a tower or pyramid

With all these sounds we are conscious of a desire to harden the air. What we would like best of all is that the air would crystallise for us. We have indeed clearly the feeling, as we utter the sounds, that actual bodily forms are there before us spirting up into the air; and we are even surprised that these forms do not begin to fly about. As we come to feel our speaking, we are astonished that when we put forth all our strength, we cannot see b and p, d and t, g and k flying about around us, that we cannot see ms flying about like spirals or ns like the curled-up tails that animals sometimes have. We are quite astonished that this does not happen. For the remarkable thing is that these impact sounds, although we form them in the air, have all the time an inclination to the earth element. With these sounds, in fact, we work right into that which is earth in the world of the elements; they are proper to the element of earth. (See table on page 378.) And from this correspondence of impact sounds with the element of earth we can learn something that will be most useful for us in our study of speech.

For if, as we speak k, we imagine before us a crystal form shaped somewhat like a tower, if we hold this form clearly before our mind's eye, that will do a great deal towards purifying our utterance of the sound. It will also make supple the organs we use in speaking the sound. And we shall find it a wonderful help if while speaking the sound m we imagine a climbing plant—some variety of bindweed, for example—that twines itself round the stem of another plant.

And then for n, we cannot do better than think of the woodruff, with its wreath of petals at the top of the stem.

Thus, to find the inner content of impact sounds, we have to go to the earth, we have to conjure it forth from the element of earth.

Suppose you want, for example, to get to know more intimately the inner configuration of the sound p. Call up before your mind's eye the sunflower plant, that bold-faced annual that lifts itself up to such a height. Look at its enormous overhanging golden flowers that spread out their centres so conspicuously for all to see. There you have the sound p most marvellously displayed.

To call forth from the forms and shapes in which the earth element manifests, to conjure up from them the impact sounds, will bring our speaking a stage onward. And then, what this exercise does for us will have to be brought into the lovely and smooth-running flow of speech. Let me show you how this can be achieved.

Think of the pyramid, which so well expresses a k; for as we say k, we live—in speech—in the pyramid Now let the pyramid fall down and crumble to dust. This will mean, we let the k sound pass over into the l sound, and do you see? What before was solid and firm, is now all in flow, runs away like water. k–l—it runs away like water. What is it in a Keil (a wedge) that makes it of value for you? A wedge that won't wedge itself in, a wedge that doesn't run in has no sense. The k is right too, for a wedge has a shape like a pyramid when you stand it up on end; but the main point for you about a wedge is that it slips in easily. Keil—the word is marvellously pregnant of meaning. Speak the word, and feel at the same time what the Keil does, feel the cleft it makes as it eases its way in. Feel then also how the firm solid element meets with hindrances as it goes over into flow, and how these find expression in the vowel, in the ei. In truth, a wonderful word! You can do the same with all the impact sounds. Bring them together with l, and you will find you are bringing them into a right and beautiful flow of speech.

You can also go the other way about, you can begin with something that is in flow and arrest it, establish it Practise saying the word Diele (a deal or plank). It flows in the mouth wonderfully. And now take it backwards. Set out with what is living and in flow, and carry it into the earth element, letting it become fast and firm. Diele reversed takes on a most beautiful form: Lied (a song). The song, to begin with, lives—in the soul; it is then given form, and wrought into a poem: Lied. You should learn to feel what lies behind these transitions from one sound to another.

Take now the sound t and follow it with an l. T expresses a hardening, a making firm; and then what has been made firm goes sloping away in l. In the word Tal (a dale or valley) you have a wonderful picture of this process. The land that has been pressed down hard runs out on to the plain below.

Now reverse the process. Take what is in flow and make it firm; and you have a Latte (a lath).

The sap in the living wood is in flow, and becomes hardened in the lath. Going through a word in this way, entering right into the feeling of each sound in turn, you come at last to the word's own secret.

Suppose now we go through the same process as we did with Keil, but take this time some tool we can manipulate by ourselves and turn easily in any direction. For a wedge, we usually require of course the help of a hammer; now we will take instead a tool with which we can make nearer contact—the one I have in mind is actually rather like a little boat that we can steer whither we will: Beil (an axe). The word answers well to the description and demonstrates quite clearly the difference between k and b.

Now take Beil backwards. Begin with the flow and then make it fast. Instead of bringing your axe into swing, you now bring what is alive into form, enclosing it in firm form—and you have Leib (a body).

Continued practice in uniting impact sounds with the wave sound 1 will work wonders for you. Your speaking will have clearly defined contours, and will at the same time flow well; your words will be formed and finished and yet follow one another in the sentence with ease and fluency.

From now on, therefore, let this association of impact sounds with the wave sound l be designated as the ‘Stoss-Wellen’ (Impact-Wave,—‘press-home and let-flow’). For special attention should be given to this sound-process in speech training. Students can learn from it how to form and frame their single words and at the same time also how to bring them into flow, so that the whole sentence runs like a smoothly flowing stream. All this can be learned from the practice of ‘Stoss-Wellen.’ To describe things of this kind, we have, you see, to look round for new expressions.

Taking our start in this way from impact sounds and going on to 1, we find that we have passed from earth to water. For in the impact sounds we have the element of earth and in l that which essentially signifies the fluid element, water. You can even hear in the sound an imitation of water. But now let us suppose that water becomes so tenuous that it begins to vibrate and quiver inwardly; in effect, we begin to find ourselves in the element of air. The water is evaporating, is turning gaseous, is wanting all the time to pass into the inwardly aeriform condition. This means, we are no longer satisfied to remain in the perpetual inner flow of the watery element; the inner vibration of air must now begin for us. We have this in the sound r. The air that we use for speaking, vibrates inwardly in r. R belongs to the element of air.

Imagine you have a box in front of you. You open it, hoping to find in it a present from a friend. You feel sure there is something really exciting in that box. You open it—and there is nothing there, nothing at all! And all that flow of feeling in you (l) evaporates. Before, the moisture on your tongue had been all in movement. You open the box, and air comes to meet you, nothing but quivering air. You exclaim: Leer!¹ (empty). In this word leer the whole course of your experience is described—even to your starting-back which is so forcibly expressed in the double e. It would indeed be impossible to find a more adequate description of your disappointment than is given in this gesture ... and this word leer. Gesture and word taken together reproduce the experience with marvellous accuracy.

A great deal can be learned by observing words in this manner; continuing in such a study, the actor will be able to fulfil with freedom and fluency all that is required of him.

And now let us suppose that we take this vibration, this quivering, and form it, out there in the air. You will soon see what happens if you study a trumpet, not of course the metal part, but what goes on inside the trumpet when you blow. Study this carefully. Provide yourself with a highly sensitive thermometer and see what it will reveal inside the trumpet, when the vibration begins to assume forms and figures corresponding to certain tones. You will find different temperatures registered in different parts of the trumpet. This is as much as to say that the processes taking place in the trumpet express themselves in the element of fire. And the same is true of all breath sounds. When we utter feelingly the sounds: h, eh, j, sch, s, f, w, we are taken over into the element of fire or warmth. For these sounds live in the element of warmth.

You will also see from this what happens when you say hum. You set out from the warmth element; you are working, to begin with, with your own warmth. In the h you release your warmth, you let it out. Then you catch hold of what you have placed outside you and feel it as a consolidation of your being, of your whole being: hum. You take hold of your warmth and make it fast and firm: hum, ham, and so on.

Again, suppose you want to picture something that is alive, that has life in itself and is ready to go on living on its own. Continued practice with ‘breath’ or ‘blown’ sounds will bring you this experience. Words that have only such consonants are not so frequently met with, because what is alive is not posited by us as easily as are fixed objects; nevertheless you will find them here and there, where something that is outside in space is pictured as alive and unstable; and here you will again have opportunity to make interesting studies. Say, you want to express that an object is alive, but its life is uneasy, is precarious. You may describe the object as schief (aslant, on the incline).² The word itself suggests that the object could at any moment—instead of remaining in life—fall over and come to grief: schief.

Suppose, however, you want, on the other hand, to consolidate what is alive and mobile. Then you will have to see how you can make stand up straight something that is naturally, of itself, full of weaving, flowing life. Imagine before you a form. At first it is a tiny little form. It grows and grows; it rises, runs up higher and higher and becomes eventually quite tall. But now you want to express that the living, weaving form has shot up in a line. You say it is schlank (lank or slender). You begin with the sch, which tells of life, and go into the l (flowing), and then, with the k, which makes the life stand up in a straight line, you come back in the end to an impact sound.

There is still another transition that should without fail be practised by any student who wants to form his speech artistically. For he will want to be able to speak so that his speaking streams out over the audience. He will not attain this by concentrating on the individual sounds he has to utter; rather does it depend on the whole general character he is able to give to his speaking.

For an actor, this is obviously a matter of first importance. His words must penetrate to the farthest limits of the theatre, they must become a living presence throughout the space of the auditorium. This result can be achieved by the following exercise; and he who knows it will find himself in possession of an esoteric secret of the art of speech. The exercise consists in letting the vibrating air move on into breath sounds, thus: Reihe, reihen, reich, rasch, Reis, reif.

And supposing you want the very sound itself to have a hypnotising effect, you can do as the lawyer did of whom we were speaking yesterday, who advised his client to say: veiw. A fine and delicate perception lies behind the use of this sound-sequence in the piece we were studying yesterday. It is, I may say, quite wonderful how many features and details in those old plays, features that were of course introduced quite instinctively, are in perfect accord with the laws of human life.

And so, in order that our speaking shall mould the sentence plastically, we must learn to form in it especially the sounds that belong to earth and water; and for our speaking to be alive and effective we must learn to give form to the air- and fire-sounds—the air-sound r and the breath sounds. I do not mean to imply that what we say will have to be expressed with these sounds. But by practising sound sequences that contain earth sounds and the water sound, we can learn to form a sentence so that it has an inner plastic force; and we can on the other hand learn how to speak impressively, so that we may with comparative certainty assume that what we say has penetrated, has gone home, by practising the exercise I gave just now, the exercise that goes between the air sound r and the fire sounds. The actor will need to develop his speaking in both these directions: he must speak beautifully, and he must also impress his listener. And I have given you here the technique whereby he can learn both.

There is still another thing which is necessary for one who wants to make progress in the forming of speech. He has to acquire the faculty of carrying into the realm of the intimate every feeling or impression that is awakened in him from without; he must be able to bring it right home to himself in an intimate way. Let me make this clear by an example.

Take the sensation that many of you are experiencing in these days when the ‘inner configuration of the air’ in this lecture room forces itself upon your notice. Some of you, I know, feel it distinctly uncomfortable. We will take the most simple and primitive sensation that someone may have. He perceives that it is hot in here—with all the other feelings that can go with this experience. Or let us say that for his feeling the room is warm—simply warm.

Now, anyone who has interested himself at all in the forming of speech will know that a word like ‘warm’ can be spoken in a variety of ways. You are probably familiar with the delightful little story illustrative of the saying: Der Ton macht die Musik.³ Little Itzig writes home to his father: ‘Dear Father, send me a gulden!’ The father cannot read, so takes the letter to a notary who reads out to him in a peremptory, rude tone of voice: ‘Dear Father, send me a gulden!’ ‘Whatever next! The good-for-nothing little scamp will get no money out of me, if he writes like that! Is that really what he says?' But now the poor father cannot after all find it in his heart to leave the matter at that, so he goes to the parson. The parson takes the letter and reads out to him in a gentle, quiet tone : ‘Dear Father, send me a gulden!’ ‘Is that really what he says?’ ‘Certainly!’ replies the parson. ‘The dear little fellow, I'll send him one right away!’ Yes, everything depends, you see, on the tone of voice! Similarly, the word `warm' can be spoken in many different ways. But, my dear friends, if that is so, we must be able to bring into the sounds of the word all the different fine shades of feeling that we want to express. And that has to be learned; we have to learn how to do it.

Let us return to our supposition that someone feels the room warm. (I choose this for my example, since I have a suspicion that quite a number of you may be experiencing this feeling at the present moment.) And now let him follow the experience back into the subjective. Let us imagine he shuts his eyes, forgets there are other people around him and says to himself: Es saust (I feel a buzzing or whizzing sensation in my head!). He calls the ‘being warm’ a sensation of buzzing because he can feel it like that when he withdraws into himself and experiences it subjectively. Try to distinguish different kinds of buzzing that you can experience. When you are very cold, you feel inside you quite another kind. One could imagine, it might almost become a habit to have, when the room is warm, this inner sensation of buzzing.

warm: a buzzing sensation.

Practise this, entering into the inner feeling of it; and it will help you to make your intonation of the word ‘warm’ accord with the precise shade of experience that you want it to express. Exercises of this kind should be included in your training.

Take another: I am cold. Es perlet (I feel a tingling, a stinging sensation—and this time, especially in my legs and arms).

cold: a tingling or stinging sensation.

The more of such examples that you can find for yourselves, the better. See where you can take some word that expresses a perception or sensation, and lead it over into an experience that is more intimate, that touches you more nearly. To carry over in this way a perception that is at first more remote and separate into the realm of the intimate will give to your speaking the right inner ‘feeling’ tone.

So we have now four properties of speech:

The feeling tone of speech,
The beautiful, smooth flow of speech,
The revelation of oneself that is given out in speech,
The penetrating and convincing power of speech.

These are, every one of them, a matter of technique. The actor has simply to learn the technique for achieving them.

In past ages, such things were known instinctively, and men were also aware of their fine spiritual significance. In the school of Pythagoras, for example, the pupils had to recite strongly marked rhythms, the aim being to intervene by this means in human evolution, taking hold of what was instinctive and developing it further by education.

Take a line of verse that runs in trochees or dactyls, such as:

Singe, unsterbliche Seele, der sündigen Menschen Erlösung!⁴

A rhythm of this nature, chanted in a kind of singing recitative, Pythagoras would use in his school to tame the passions of men. He knew its power. And he knew also that verse in the iambic rhythm has the.effect of stirring up the emotions. Such things were well known to the men of earlier times, just as they knew too that the art of music takes us back to the Gods of the past, the plastic and pictorial arts lead us an to the Gods of the future, while the art of drama, standing between the two, conjures up the Spirits of the time in which we live.

We too must learn to perceive truths of this nature. A knowledge of them must return again among mankind; only then will art be able to take its right place in life.

It is really also quite remarkable how strongly the instinctive can still make itself feit in this domain. Look at the popular poetry composed by the Austrian poet Misson, the Piarist monk who wrote in dialect. If you study Misson's biography and read of all the other things that he did, you will find that he obviously wanted this poetry to have a soothing, calming effect. He accordingly chose for it, not the iambic metre but, notwithstanding that he was writing in dialect, the hexameter.

Naaz, iazn loos, töös, was a ta sa, töös sàckt ta tai Vada.
Gottsnam, wails scho soo iis! und probiast tai Glück ö da Waiden.
Muis a da sàgn, töös, was a da sa, töös las der aa gsackt sai.
Ih unt tai Muida san alt und tahoam, wöast as ee, schaut nix aussa.
Was ma sih schint und rackert und plàckt und àbi ta scheert töös
Tuit ma für d'Kiner, was tuit ma nöd ails, bald s'nöd aus der Art schlàgn’!—
Es mar aamàl a presshafts Leut und san schwari Zaiden,
Graifan s' am aa, ma fint töös pai artlinga rachtschàffan Kinern ...

You can feel, as you listen to the lines, their soothing, quieting influence.

If you want to lead straight over to the spiritual, if you want to take your hearers away from the physical and lead them up to where they can move in the realm of the spirit, then you will have to use the iambic metre, but still forming the speaking gently, quietly.

And this is one of the reasons that prompted Goethe, for example, to write his dramas in iambics, one of the reasons also why our Mystery Plays have been written largely in iambic verse. A sensitive perception for such things will have to live within us, if we want to have again true schools of dramatic art. In such schools it must be known that speech is alive, that gesture is alive, that everything that happens on the stage is alive and active and sends its influence out far and wide.

or, using English letter:

• 1. Pronounce like our word ‘lair’, but letting the r vibrate.
• 2. Schief (pronounced like our word’ sheaf’) is the word used to describe the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• 3. It's the tone that makes the music.
• 4. Sing, O immortal soul, the redemption of sinful mankind!

Our study of the life of Christ Jesus according to what I have called the “Fifth Gospel” will certainly have brought home to us all the significance of what took place after the conversation between Jesus of Nazareth and the mother, of which I spoke here. And I want now to speak, in the way that may be possible in the intimate circle of a group like this, of what transpired immediately after that conversation, that is to say, of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth on his way to the Baptism by John in the Jordan.

What I have to tell consists of a number of facts which are revealed to the eye of Intuition; they are simply narrated, so that it is for each of you to form your own thoughts about them.

We have heard that after the life of Jesus of Nazareth from his twelfth until about his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year, a conversation took place between him and the mother who was, actually, his step- or foster mother. In this conversation, the effects of the experiences through which he had passed poured with such intensity into the words uttered by Jesus of Nazareth that together with his words a mighty force flowed into the soul of the foster-mother, a force of such power that the soul of the mother who had borne the body of the Nathan Jesus was able to descend from the spiritual world (for since the twelfth year of the Nathan Jesus the soul of his mother had been in the spiritual world), and permeated the soul of the foster mother. From then onwards, the foster-mother bore within her the soul of the mother of the Nathan Jesus. What had happened in Jesus himself was that together with the words, the Zarathustra-Ego had to a certain extent gone out of him. The being who now made his way to the Baptism in the Jordan was the Nathan Jesus as he had been up to his twelfth year, that is to say, without the Zarathustra-Ego; but the effects left by the Zarathustra-Ego were still present—the effects of all that the Zarathustra-Ego had been able to pour into the threefold sheath. And so we can understand that Jesus was prompted to make his way to the Baptism in the Jordan by an undefined Cosmic urge -—that is to say, in him it was an undefined urge, but in the Cosmos it was definite and deliberate. It is also obvious that this being was not like an ordinary human being, for the Zarathustra-Ego had gone out of him and only the effects remained. The “Fifth Gospel” reveals that as this being, Jesus of Nazareth, made his way to the Jordan, he met, firstly, two Essenes. They were two with whom he had often conversed on the occasions of which I have told you. But as the Zarathustra-Ego had gone out of him, for to physical eyes the outer physiognomy—which had developed under the influence of the indwelling Zarathustra-Ego—had not changed. The two Essenes addressed him with the words:

“Whither go you, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Jesus of Nazareth said: “I go whither souls of your kind are unwilling to gaze, where the pain of humanity can feel the rays of the forgotten Light!”

The two Essenes did not understand his words, and they perceived that he had not recognised them. Then they said to him:

“Jesus of Nazareth, do you not know us?”

And be said:

“You are like lambs gone astray, but I was the shepherd's son from who you strayed. When you truly recognise me you will stray yet again. It is so long since you fled from me into the world.”

The Essenes were greatly perplexed for they did not understand how such words could be uttered by any human soul, and they gazed at him questionly. He spoke again:

“What manner of souls are you? Where is your world? Why do you wrap yourselves in sheaths of deceit? Why does there burn within you a fire that was not kindle in my Father's House? You have upon you the mark of the Tempter. With his fire he has made your wool shining and glistening. The hairs of this wool prick my eyes, you erring lambs. The Tempter has filled your souls with pride. You met him on your flight.”

When he had said this, one of the Essenes answered:

“Have we not shown the Tempter the door? He has no longer any part in us!”

And Jesus spoke:

“True, you showed him the door, but he ran and came to the other men. Therefore he leers at you from the souls of these others. Do you then believe that you can exalt yourselves by abasing others? You do not exalt yourselves when you abase others; you think yourselves exalted but this is only because the others have been abased. You remain as you were, and it is only because you have abased the others that you imagine yourselves to be great.”

The Essenes were afraid, but at this moment Jesus of Nazareth vanished from their sight. And after their eyes had been as if clouded for a little while, they beheld in the distance a kind of Fata Morgana, revealing to them, but enlarged to gigantic proportions, the countenance of the one who had just stood before them. And then from this Fata Morgana they heard words which filled their souls with dread:

“Vain is your striving, for your heart is empty. Your heart is filled only with the spirit which conceals pride in the deceptive guise of humility.”

And when they had stood there for a time as it stupefied by this countenance and these words, the Fate Morgana vanished. But Jesus of Nazareth too had passed further on his way. The two Essenes went home and spoke to no one of what they had experienced, keeping silence about it their whole life long.

As I said before, I shall simply narrate the facts as they present themselves in the Akashic Record, and each one of you must think about them as you will. This is important at the present time, because it is possible that this Fifth Gospel will be revealed in greater detail as time goes on, and may kind of interpretation at this stage might well be a disturbing factor.

When Jesus of Nazareth had gone a little further on his path to the Jordan, he met a man in whose soul there was deep despair. And Jesus of Nazareth said:

“Whither hath thy soul led thee? Aeons ago I saw thee; then thou wert different.”

And the despairing man said:

“I was of high degree; I have risen to high positions in life; I have filled offices of distinguished rank. And often I said to myself that my learning and accomplishments had made me an exceptional human being. Then one might when I was asleep, I had a dream and in the dream it was as if a question were put to me. I knew at once that in the dream I was beholding myself, for the question was thine Who hath made me great? And there stood before me in the dreams, being who said: I have raised thee up, and in return for this thou art mine!—And I was ashamed, for I had believed that I owed everything to myself. And now this being was telling as that it was he who had raised me to a high position! Then, in the dream, I took flight; I left all my offices and honours behind and now I wander about seeking for something but not knowing what I seek.”

As the despairing man was speaking, the being he had seen in the dream again stood before him, between him and Jesus of Nazareth. And a feeling came to the despairing man that this being had something to do with Lucifer. Then Jesus of Nazareth vanished, and the other being too; and the man saw that Jesus of Nazareth had already passed on. And be went on
his way.

As Jesus of Nazareth continued his path, he met a leper, and to him he said:

“To what hath thy soul led thee? Aeons ago I saw thee; then thou wert different.”

The leper answered:

“Men have thrust me away; they have made we an outcast because of my disease; none would come near me; I could not even beg my bread. Then I wandered about, and in my wanderings I came one night into a wood. There I saw a shining, luminous tree which drew me towards it. And as I drew near, it was as if a skeleton came from the shimmering light of the tree. Dearth himself stood before me, and said: I am in thee. I feed on thee. Fear not! Why art thou fearful? Didst thou not once love me?—And yet I knew that I had never told him! And as he said: ‘Didst thou not once love me?’ his nature changed into that of a beautiful Archangel. And when I awoke in the morning I found myself beside the tree and my leprosy grew steadily worse.”

Then the being who had been transformed into the Archangel stood again before the leper and he knew: Ahriman or a being of Ahrimanic nature is standing before me. While he was still gazing, the being disappeared, and Jesus of Nazareth also, and the leper was left to go on his way.

After these three experiences Jesus of Nazareth came to the Jordan for the Baptism. And here too, I repeat that the Baptism in the Jordan was followed by an event that is also described in the other Gospels, namely, the Temptation. But in this Temptation Christ Jesus was confronted not only by the one being—the Temptation took its course in three stages. First there came a being who was now known to Him because he had seen him when the despairing man had come to him; hence he could recognise him as Lucifer. And then, through Lucifer, came the Temptation that is expressed in the words: “All these kingdoms and their glory I will give to thee if thou wilt acknowledge me as thy Lord.” Lucifer's attack was repulsed, but now came two attacks. Lucifer came again, but with him the being who had stood between Jesus of Nazareth and the leper, and whom He therefore now recognised as Ahriman.

And then came the Temptation which in the Gospels is clothed in the words: “Cast Thyself down; nothing can happen to Thee if Thou art the son of God.” But as Lucifer and Ahriman mutually paralysed each other's power, their attack failed. It was only the third Temptation—“Make stones into
bread”—that was not fully answered. This Temptation came from Ahriman alone. And the fact that Ahriman was not completely satisfied, led to events taking the course they did. Because of the unanswered Temptation, Ahriman was able to work through Judas, and all the later events became possible in the way of which we shall hear.

You see, my dear friends, an “Akasha-Intuition” here sheds light on the moment that is of such infinite significance in the whole development of the life of Christ Jesus and in the evolution of the Earth. It was as if the connection of Earth-evolution with the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces were mirrored in the events between the conversation with the mother and the Baptism by John in the Jordan. He who was the Nathan Jesus, who for eighteen years had borne the Zarathustra-Ego within him, was made ready, by these events, to receive the Christ Being.

And this bring, us to the point where it is of vital importance to have right and true conceptions. That is why I have tried to bring together various results of occult investigation which can make our human evolution on the Earth intelligible. It may, perhaps, be possible to speak here too about matters that were the subject of the Lecture-Course in Leipzig, where I tried to indicate the connection between the Christ Event and the Parsifal event. To-day I will speak of one or two points only.

I want to show you how the whole meaning and course of the evolution of humanity comes to expression in manifold events if only they are understood in the right light. I do not want to go into the idea behind the story of Parsifal and its connection with the development of the Christ Impulse, but to speak of something that underlay everything that was said in Leipzig. I shall begin by asking: How does the figure of Parsifal come before us?—Parsifal was one who some centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha was destined to represent an important stage of the further development of the Christ Impulse in a soul. We know the story. Parsifal was the son of an adventurous knight; his mother was Hezeleide. The knight bad ridden away before Parsifal's birth. His mother suffered deep pain and grief before he was born. She wished to shield her son from the vaunted qualities of knighthood and she reared him in isolation, protecting him from the consequences of intercourse with others. He was to know nothing about what goes on among other human beings. We are also told that be knew nothing about what the external world calls religion. From his mother he heard only that there is a God, a God behind all things, a God whom he must serve... but more he did not know. But a meeting with two knights caused him to leave his mother, in order that be might discover to what his inner urge was leading him. And after may wanderings he was led to the Castle of the Holy Grail. What he there experienced is described best of all by Chrestian de Troyes—a source upon which Wolfram von Eschenbach also drew.

We are told that one day Parsifal came to wooded country at the edge of a lake where.two men were fishing. In answer to his question, these men directed him to the Castle of the Fisher-King. He went into the Castle and there found a man lying weak and ill on his bed. The sick man gave him a sword—it was the sword which belonged to Parsifal's mother. Then came a page carrying a lance from which blood was dripping on his blood; then came a maiden, carrying a golden Cup radiating light more brilliant than all the lights in the room. This Cup was carried into the adjoining room where lay the father of the Fisher-King, who is nourished by what this Cup contains. Now Parsifal had previously been advised by a knight to abstain from asking many questions. At the time, therefore, he put no questions but the next morning decided that be must ask about these strange things. When he woke up the following morning, however, the Castle was empty. In the courtyard be found his horse ready saddled and when he had mounted and galloped away the drawbridge was immediately raised behind him. There was no sign of any of those whom he had found in the Castle the previous day.

As we know, the point of salient significance is that Parsifal asked no questions, although miraculous things had been revealed to him. And as the story goes on we hear again and again from those persons who meet Parsifal and who are connected with his mission, that he ought to have asked, that his troubles were to some extent due to this. He is told that by not asking he has brought about disaster.

And now think of Parsifal. He had remained apart from outer civilisation and culture; he is led to the Holy Grail with his virgin soul untouched by the mundane world... Now the Christ Impulse was a Deed which mankind had not at once been capable of understanding, But because the Christ had passed into the Aura of the Earth, He was working on—as indeed men had conjectured in their dogmas and teachings. Christ was working in the hidden foundations of the human soul, in the hidden depths of historical evolution, not in the surface consciousness of men or in the wranglings of Theology. In Parsifal we have a picture of the moment when a further stage was to be reached; therefore he had learned nothing of the teachings of the Gnostics, the Apostolic Fathers or the various theological movements. He was to know nothing of these things; his connection with the Christ-Impulse was to be purely in the life of soul, in his sub-consciousness, where standards of contemporary life played no part. His connection with the Christ Impulse would have been impaired and clouded by knowledge of man-made doctrines. Only the supersensible influences in the onflowing Christ Impulse were to work in Parsifal. External doctrine belongs to the material world but Christ works in the supersensible and it was this supersensible influence that as to come to expression in Parsifal. He must ask only at that place where the living essence of the Christ Impulse confronts him, that is to say, in the Holy Grail. He should have asked what the Holy Grail contains, what the Christ Event actually signifies. He should have asked!

Mark this word my dear friends. There was another, the disciple of Sais, who was not allowed to ask. The disciple at Sais was doomed in that he felt constrained to ask why it was not lawful for him to ask; he desired that the veils of Isis should be lifted. The disciple at Sais represents the Parsifal of the epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha! But in that age the disciple was told: “Take heed that what is behind the veil be not disclosed until thy soul is prepared and ready.” The disciple at Sais after the Mystery of Golgotha is represented in the figure of Parsifal. Parsifal was to undergo no special preparation; he was to be led to the Holy Grail with a virgin soul. And he missed the vital opportunity, for he neglected to do what the disciple at Sais was forbidden to do.—Parsifal ought to have asked about the mystery of his soul... Thus do the times change in the onward march of evolution.

To begin with we can only think of these things in a more abstract sense... What was the mystery of Isis? We are told of Isis with the Child Horus, of the mystery of the connection between Isis and the Child Horus, of the Connection between the Son of Isis and Osiris. A deep, deep mystery lies here. The disciple at Sais was not ripe for the disclosure of the mystery.

When Parsifal rode away from the Grail Mountain, having neglected to ask about the wonders of the Holy Grail, one of his first experiences was that he met a woman, a bride, weeping over the dead bridegroom in her arms.—A true picture, this, of Mary mourning for her Son—the motif of so many Pietàs later on. This is the first indication of what Parsifal would have experienced if be had asked about the wonders of the Holy Grail. Knowledge would have come to him of the new connection between Isis and Horus, between the Mother and the Son of Man. Parsifal ought to have asked. Now significantly this points to the progress that had taken place in the evolution of mankind! What was not lawful before the Mystery of Golgotha, was now, after the Mystery of Golgotha, both lawful and necessary. For in the meantime the evolution of mankind had progressed.

These things are only of value when we turn them to real disciple at Sais is that in accordance with the nature of the times, we must put the right kind of questions, for here lies the secret of ascent. Since the Mystery of Golgotha there have been two main currents in evolution: one which bears within it the Christ Impulse, the other which is, as it were, the continuation of the process of decline and leads to the materialism of the present age. In our age, by far the greater part of external culture is steeped in materialism. And everything that Spiritual Science can tell us about the Christ Impulse makes us realise how deeply the souls of men need the inner impulse of spirituality to counteract the steadily increasing materialism, of external life. To this end we must all learn to question, to ask! But the current of materialism leads men away from questioning. Let us compare the two currents.—There are people who really cling to materialism, even while they assert their belief in this or that spiritual dogma, or profess to acknowledge the existence of a spiritual world in words and theories. Mere words are of no account. What matters is that we shall live with our whole soul in the current of spiritual life. It can be said of those who cling to materialism that they do not question, for they claim to know everything already! It is characteristic of materialistic culture that even the young and immature think they know everything and therefore do not question. To give one's opinion at every turn is thought to be a matter of personal freedom. But it is not usually realised to what these opinions amount.—We grow up in the world, absorbing more and more without noticing it; according to our Karma, we find one thing more pleasing, another less; we reach, say, the respectable age of twenty-five and feel absolutely mature and certain in our judgment because we think it comes from our own soul. But such judgment contains absolutely nothing more than our experiences in the external world. And in that we feel obliged to assert our own judgment in the outer world, we become all the more slavishly dependent upon our inner life. We pass judgment, but we omit to question, to ask. We learn to ask aright only when we acquire that inner sense of proportion which maintains respect and reverence for the things that are holy as sacred in life, when we enter the sacred domains of life in an attitude of waiting without asserting our own judgment. A certain diffidence is necessary in face of things that are holy. We must ask the spiritual world—to which we bring, not our own judgments but our questionings, and a mood-of-soul which asks. Try, my dear friends, to understand the difference between facing the spiritual world in an attitude of “judging” and in an attitude of questioning. There is a radical difference between the two attitudes. Moreover something is connected with this to which we ought to give particular heed in our Movement, for this Movement will not thrive unless we understand the difference between questioning and judging. Naturally, we must also judge, but over against the mysteries of the spiritual life we must unfold the attitude of questioning, of expectancy. The progress of our Movement will be furthered by this attitude of questioning; it will be hindered by the contrary attitude. And when in solemn moments we ponder the story of the one who ought to have asked about the Mystery of the Holy Grail, the figure of Parsifal becomes the personification of an Ideal for our Movement.

Human souls before the Mystery of Golgotha possessed the old, inherited clairvoyance which had been carried over from incarnation to incarnation, but it was gradually fading away. This fading clairvoyance was bound up with that upon which our external sight and other sense-activities are also dependent. When human beings who lived before the time of the Mystery of Golgotha were growing up as children, they learnt not only how to walk and talk, but they also learnt clairvoyance. Clairvoyance arose from the nature and organisation of man, just as speech arises from the organisation of the brain and larynx. Human beings in those times did not stop at learning to speak, but they also learnt clairvoyance. The old clairvoyance therefore was bound up with the human organism. as it was in the physical world. Clairvoyance in one who was a libertine was tainted by his particular characteristics; clairvoyance in a pure man bore the mark of his purity. The consequence of this fact was that a certain mystery, the mystery of the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world as it existed before the descent of Christ, might not be disclosed to an ordinary, unprepared human being. His constitution must first have become mature and ready. It was not lawful for the disciple at Sais to gaze upon the image of the soul of Isis.

In the Fourth post-Atlantean age, when the mystery of Golgotha took place, the old clairvoyance had faded away. The new constitution of the human soul is such that the soul must remain shut off from the spiritual world if it does not ask concerning the spiritual world, if it lacks the urge that is contained in questioning. The harmful forces which in ancient times drew near any human soul who desired to penetrate into these mysteries without due preparation, cannot now approach when a man asks in the right way about the Mystery of the Holy Grail. For in this Mystery there is concealed the power which since the Mystery of Golgotha has flowed into the aura of the Earth but was not previously there. It remains shut off, however, from one who does not ask. There must be an urge really to unfold what is contained in the soul. Before the Mystery of Golgotha this urge was not present, for the Christ had not yet passed into the Aura of the Earth. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, merely by gazing at the image of Isis and striving to fathom the mystery in the lawful way with such powers of clairvoyance as still existed, a human being would have poured all his forces into such an act and thus have recognised the mystery. In the age after the Mystery of Golgotha, a soul who learns to ask in the right way will be able to perceive and feel the new Mystery of Isis. Hence, my dear friends, everything depends upon asking, upon the right attitude to the spiritual conception of the world that is made known in our time. One who comes merely with the intention of judging, may read all the books and the lecture-courses, but he will gain nothing whatever, for he lacks the attitude Parsifal. If a man comes as one who truly asks, a great deal more than what the mere words contain will be revealed to him—for the words will then bear fruit in his soul as actual experience. And this above all is important—that the spiritual teachings should become actual experience.

These things are brought home to us by such events as transpired between the time of Jesus of Nazareth's conversation with the mother, and the Baptism by John in the Jordan. Such things will have meaning for us only when we ask what it is that distinguishes the time before the Mystery of Golgotha from the age that followed it... It it best to allow these things to work upon the soul; all that they can say to us is really contained in the story.

At this point in our study of the “Fifth Gospel” I wanted merely to indicate how important it is in this age to understand the attitude of Parsifal. It was brought to the fore by Richard Wagner, who tried to clothe it in musical and dramatic form. I do not propose to enter the lists of the fight that is going on about it in the outer world, because it is not for spiritual science to mingle in such strife. I shall not pronounce judgment as between those who wish to preserve it in Bayreuth and those who want to consign it to Klingsor's realm—which has, as a matter of fact, already happened. My aim is to show that in the onward flow of the Christ Impulse, the Parsifal attitude must come into play in domains that are beyond the reach of the power of judgment belonging to man's ordinary consciousness but to which this consciousness can more and more be directed by a spiritual conception of the world.

It is important to be aware of the need which existed in the anthroposophical movement for Christianity to be asserted, specifically among those who were initially what might be described as ordinary listeners. For the theosophical movement under the guidance of H.P. Blavatsky had adopted an expressly anti-christian orientation. I wish to throw a little more light on this anti-christian attitude, a perspective which I also mentioned in connection with Friedrich Nietzsche.

It has to be understood that the Mystery of Golgotha occurred in the first instance simply as a fact in the development of mankind on earth. If you look at the way in which I have dealt with the subject in my book, Christianity As Mystical Fact, you will see that I attempted to come to an understanding of the impulses underlying the ancient Mysteries, and then to show how the various forces which were active in the individual mystery centres were harmonized and unified. Thus what was initially encountered by human beings in a hidden way could be presented openly as a historical fact. In this sense the historical reality of the Mystery of Golgotha represents the culmination of the ancient Mysteries. Remnants of the ancient mystery wisdom were present when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. With the aid of these remnants, which were incorporated into the Gospels, it was possible to find access to this event, which gave earth development its true meaning.

The impulses derived from ancient wisdom which were still directly experienced began to fade in the fourth century AD, so that the wisdom was preserved only in a more or less traditional form, allowing particular people in one place or another to revitalize these traditions. But the kind of continuous development which the Mysteries enjoyed in ancient times had disappeared, taking with it the means to understand the Mystery of Golgotha.

The tradition remained. The Gospels existed, kept secret at first by the communities of the church and then published in individual nations. The cults existed. As the western world developed it was possible to keep alive a memory of the Mystery of Golgotha. But the opportunity to maintain the memory came to an end in that moment in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch when intellectualism, with what I described yesterday as modern education, made its appearance. And with it a type of science of the natural world began, which pre-empted any understanding of the spiritual world as it developed the kind of methodology seen to date. This methodology needed to be expanded in the way that anthroposophy has sought to expand it. If one does not progress beyond the scientific method introduced by Copernicus, Galileo and so on, the Mystery of Golgotha has no place within the resultant view of nature.

Now consider the following. In none of the ancient religions was there any division between knowledge of the natural world and knowledge of God. It is a common feature of all pagan religions that there is a unity in the way in which they explain nature, and in how that understanding of nature then ascends to an understanding of the divine, the many-faceted divinity, which is active in nature.

The kind of abstract natural forces we are now aware of, unchallenged in their absoluteness, did not exist. What did exist were nature spirits which guided the various aspects of nature, and with which links could be established through the content of the human soul.

Now anthroposophy will never make the claim that it somehow wants to become a religion. However, although religion will always need to be an independent spiritual stream in mankind, it is a simple human desire for harmony to exist between cognition and the religious life. It must be possible to make the transition from cognition to religion and to return from religion to cognition without having to cross an abyss. That is impossible, given the structure of modern learning. It is impossible, above all, to discover the nature of Christ on this scientific basis. Modern science, in investigating the being of Christ ever more closely, has scattered and lost it.

If you bear this in mind, you will be able to understand what follows. Let me begin by talking about Nietzsche, whose father was a practising minister. He went through a modern grammar school education. But since he was not a bread-and-butter scholar but a thinker, his interest extended to everything which could be learnt through modern methods. So he consciously and in a radical way became aware of the dichotomy which in reality affects all modern minds, although people do not realize it and are prone to illusion because they draw a veil over it. Nietzsche says: Nowhere does modern education provide a direct link to an explanation of Jesus Christ without jumping over an abyss. His uncompromising conclusion is that if one wants to establish a relationship with modern science while preserving some sort of inner feeling for the traditional explanations of Christ, it is necessary to lie. And so he chose modern learning, and thus arrived at a radical indictment of what he knew about Christianity.

No one has been more cutting about Christianity than Nietzsche, the minister's son. And he experiences this with his whole being. One example is when he says—and it is not, of course, my standpoint—that what a modern theologian believes to be true is certainly false. And he finds that the whole of modern philosophy has too much theological blood flowing through its veins. As a result he formulates his tremendous indictment of Christianity, which is of course blasphemous, but which is an honest blasphemy and therefore worthy of greater attention than the hypocrisy which is so often found in this field today. It needs to be emphasized that a person like Nietzsche, who was serious about wanting to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, was not able to do so with the means at his disposal, including the Gospels in their present form.

Anthroposophy provides an interpretation of all four Gospels,¹ and these interpretations are rejected decisively by theologians of all denominations. But they were not available to Nietzsche. It is the most difficult thing for a scientific mind—and almost all people today have scientific minds in this sense, even if at a basic level—to come to terms with the Mystery of Golgotha, and what is precisely not the old Mysteries, but the discovery of a whole new mystery knowledge. The discovery of the spiritual world in a wholly new form is necessary.

Basically Blavatsky's inspiration also came from the ancient Mysteries. If one takes The Secret Doctrine as a whole, it really feels like nothing fundamentally new but the resurrection of that knowledge which was used in the ancient Mysteries to recognize the divine and the spiritual. But these Mysteries are only capable of explaining the events which happened in anticipation of Christ. Those who were familiar with the impulses of the ancient Mysteries when Christianity was still young were able to adopt a positive attitude to what happened at Golgotha. This applied into the fourth century. The real meaning of the Greek Church Fathers was still understood: how their roots stretched back to the ancient Mysteries, and how their words have quite a different tone from those of the later Latin Church Fathers.

The ancient wisdom which understood nature and spirit as one was contained in Blavatsky's revelations. That is the way, she thought, to find the divine and the spiritual, to make them accessible to human perception. And from that perspective she turned her attention to what present-day traditional thinking and the modern faiths were saying about Christ Jesus. She could not, of course, understand the Gospels in the way they are understood in anthroposophy, and the knowledge which came from elsewhere was not adequate to deal with the knowledge of the spirit which Blavatsky brought. That is the origin of her contempt for the way in which the Mystery of Golgotha was understood by the world. In her view, what people were saying about the Mystery of Golgotha was on a much lower level than all the majestic wisdom provided by the ancient Mysteries. In other words, the Christian god stands on a lower level than the content of the ancient Mysteries.

That was not the fault of the Christian god, but it was the result of interpretations of the Christian god. Blavatsky simply did not know the nature of the Mystery of Golgotha and was able to judge it only by what was being said about it. These things have to be seen in an objective light. As the power of the ancient Mysteries was drawing to a final close in the last remnants of Greek culture in the fourth century AD, Rome took possession of Christianity. The empirical attitude of Roman culture to learning was incapable of opening a real path to the spirit. Rome forced Christianity to adopt its outer trappings. It is this romanized Christianity alone which was known to Nietzsche and Blavatsky.

Thus these souls whom I described as homeless, whose earlier earth lives were lighting up within them, took the first thing on offer because their sole aim was to find access to the spiritual world, even at the risk of losing Christianity. These were the people who began by seeking a way into the Theosophical Society.

Now the position of anthroposophy in relation to these homeless souls has to be clearly understood. These were searching, questioning souls. And the first necessity was to find out what questions resided in their innermost selves. And if anthroposophy addressed these souls, it was because they had questions about things to which anthroposophy thought it had the answer. The other people among our contemporaries were not bothered by such questions.

Anthroposophy therefore considered what came into the world with Blavatsky to be an important fact. But its purpose was not to observe the knowledge which she presented, but essentially to understand those questions which people found perplexing.

How were the answers to be formulated? We need to look at the matter as positively and as factually as possible. Here we had these questioning souls. Their questions were clear. They believed they could find an answer to them in something like Annie Besant's book The Ancient Wisdom,² for instance. Obviously, it would have been stupid to tell people that this or that bit of The Ancient Wisdom was no longer relevant. The only possible course was to give real answers by ignoring The Ancient Wisdom at a time when this book was, as it were, dogma among these people, and by writing my book Theosophy,³ which gave answers to questions which I knew were being asked. That was the positive answer. And there was no need to do more than that. People had to be left completely free to choose whether they wanted to continue to read The Ancient Wisdom or whether they wanted to use Theosophy.

In times of great historical change things are not decided in as rational and direct a manner as one likes to think. Thus I did not find it at all surprising that the theosophists who attended the lecture cycle on anthroposophy when the German Section was established, remarked that it did not agree in the slightest with what Mrs Besant was saying.

Of course it could not agree, because the answers had to be found in what the deepened consciousness of the present can provide. Until about 1907 each step taken by anthroposophy was a battle against the traditions of the Theosophical Society. At first the members of the Theosophical Society were the only people whom one could approach with these things. Every step had to be conquered. A polemical approach would have been useless; the only sensible course was hope, and making the right choices.

These things certainly did not happen without inner reservations. Everything had to be done at the right time and place, at least in my view. I believe that in my Theosophy I did not go one step beyond what it was possible to publish and for a certain number of people to accept at that time. The wide distribution of the book since then shows that this was an accurate assumption.

It was possible to go further among those who were engaged in a more intensive search, who had been caught up in the stream set in motion by Blavatsky. I will take only one instance. It was common in the Theosophical Society to describe how human beings went through what was called kamaloka after death. To begin with, the description given by its leaders could only be put in a proper context in my book Theosophy by avoiding the concept of time. But I wanted to deal with the correct concept of time within the Society.

As a result I gave lectures about life between death and a new birth within the then Dutch Section of the Theosophical Society. And there I pointed out, right at the start of my activity, that it is nonsense simply to say that we pass through kamaloka as if our consciousness is merely extended a little. (see diagram above). I showed that time has to be seen as moving backwards, and I described how our existence in kamaloka is life in reverse, stage by stage, only at three times the pace of the life we spend on earth. Nowadays, of course, people leading their physical lives have no idea that this backward movement is a reality in the spiritual realm, because time is imagined simply as a straight line.

Now the leaders of the Theosophical Society professed to renew the teachings of the old wisdom. All kinds of other writings appeared which were based on Blavatsky's book. But their content took a form which corresponded exactly to the way things are presented as a result of modern materialism. Why? Because new knowledge, not simply the renewal of old knowledge, had to be pursued if the right things were to be found. Buddha's wheel of birth and death and the old oriental wisdom was quoted on every occasion. That a wheel is something which has to be drawn as turning back on itself (see diagram) was ignored by people. There was no life in this rejuvenation of the old wisdom, because it did not spring from direct knowledge. In short, it was necessary through direct knowledge to create something which was also capable of illuminating the ancient wisdom.

Nevertheless, in the first seven years of my anthroposophical work there were people who denied that there was anything new in my material in relation to theosophy. But people never forgot the trouble I caused in the Dutch Section by filling my lectures with living material. When the congress took place in Munich in 1907⁴ the Dutch theosophists were seething that an alien influence, as they perceived it, was muscling in. They did not feel the living present standing against something which was based merely on tradition.

Something had to change. That is when the conversation between Mrs Besant and myself took place in Munich,⁵ and it was clarified that the things which I had to represent as anthroposophy would work quite independently of other things active within the Theosophical Society. What I might describe as a modus vivendi was agreed.

On the other hand, even at that time the absurdities of the Theosophical Society which eventually led to its downfall began to be visible on the horizon. For it is clear today that it has been ruined as a society which is able to support a spiritual movement, however great its membership. What the Theosophical Society used to be is no longer alive today.

When anthroposophy began its work the Theosophical Society still contained a justified and full spirituality. The things which were brought into the world by Blavatsky were a reality, and people had a living relationship with them. But Blavatsky had already been dead for a decade. The mood within the Theosophical Society, the things which existed as a continuation of Blavatsky's work, had a solid historico-cultural foundation; they were quite capable of giving something to people. But even at that time they already contained the seeds of decay. The only question was whether these could be overcome, or whether they would inevitably lead to complete disharmony between anthroposophy and the old Theosophical Society.

It has to be said that a destructive element existed in the Theosophical Society even in Blavatsky's time. It is necessary to separate Blavatsky's spiritual contribution from the effect of the way in which she was prompted to make her revelations. We are dealing with a personality who, however she was prompted, nevertheless was creative and through herself gave wisdom to mankind, even if this wisdom was more like a memory of earlier lives on earth and restricted to the rejuvenation of ancient wisdom. The second fact, that Blavatsky was prompted to act in a particular way, introduced elements into the theosophical movement which were no longer appropriate if it was to become a purely spiritual movement.

For that it was not. The fact is that Blavatsky was prompted from a certain direction, and as a result of this she produced all the things which are written in Isis Unveiled. But by various machinations Blavatsky for a second time fell under outside influence, namely of eastern esoteric teachers propelled by cultural tendencies of an egoistic nature. From the beginning a biased policy lay at the basis of the things they wished to achieve through Blavatsky. It included the desire to create a kind of sphere of influence—first of a spiritual nature, but then in a more general sense—of the East over the West, by providing the West's spirituality, or lack of it if you like, with eastern wisdom. That is how the transformation took place from the thoroughly European nature of Isis Unveiled to the thoroughly eastern nature of Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine.

Various factors were at work, including the wish to link India with Asia in order to create an Indo-Asian sphere of influence with the help of the Russian Empire. In this way her teaching received its Indian content in order to win a spiritual victory over the West. It reflected a one-sidedly egoistic, nationally egoistic, influence. It was present right from the beginning and was striking in its symptomatic significance. The first lecture by Annie Besant which I attended dealt with theosophy and imperialism.⁶ And if one questioned whether the fundamental impulse of the lecture was contained in the wish to continue in Blavatsky's spiritual direction or to continue what went alongside it, the answer had to be the latter.

Annie Besant frequently said things without fully understanding the implications. But if you read the lecture “Theosophy and Imperialism” attentively, with an awareness of the underlying implications, you will see that if someone wanted to separate India from England in a spiritual way, the first, apparently innocuous step could be taken in a lecture of this kind.

It has always spelled the beginning of the end for spiritual movements and societies when they have started to introduce partisan political elements into their activity. A spiritual movement can only develop in the world today if it embraces all humanity. Indeed, today it is one of the most essential conditions for a spiritual movement whose intention it is to give access to the real spirit that it should embrace all mankind. And anything which aims to split mankind in any way is, from the beginning, a destructive element.

Just consider the extent to which one reaches into the subconscious regions of the human psyche with such things. It is simply part of the conditions for spiritual movements, such as anthroposophy wants to be, that they honestly and seriously endeavour to distance themselves from all partisan human interests, and aspire to take account of the general interest of mankind. That was what made the theosophical movement so destructive, in so far as it contained divisive elements from its inception. And on occasion they also veered in their position; during the war there was a tendency to become very anglo-chauvinistic. But it is essential to understand very clearly that it is completely impossible to make a genuine spiritual movement flourish if it contains factional interests which people are unwilling to leave behind.

That is why one of the main dangers facing the anthroposophical movement today—in an age deteriorating everywhere into nationalist posturing—lies in the lack of courage among people to discard these tendencies.

But what is the root cause of this tendency? It arises when a society wants to accrue power by something other than spiritual revelation. At the beginning of the twentieth century there was still much that was positive in the way the Theosophical Society developed an awareness of its power, but that awareness had almost completely disappeared by 1906 and was replaced by a strong drive for power.

It is important to understand that anthroposophy grew out of the general interests of mankind, and to recognize that it had to find access to the Theosophical Society, because that is where the questioners were to be found. It would not have found accomodation anywhere else.

Indeed, as soon as the first period came to an end, the complete inappropriateness of the theosophical movement for western life became evident, particularly in its approach to the issues surrounding Christ. Where Blavatsky's contempt for Christianity was still basically theoretical, albeit with an emotional basis, the theosophical movement later turned this contempt into practice, to the extent that a boy was specially brought up with the intention of making him the vehicle for the resurrection of Christ. There is hardly anything more absurd. An Order⁷ was established within the Theosophical Society with the aim of engineering the birth of Christ in a boy already alive here.

This soon descended into total farce. A congress of the Theosophical Society was to take place in Genoa in 1911,⁸ and I felt it necessary to announce my lecture “From Buddha to Christ” for this congress. This should have resulted in a clear and concise debate by bringing into the open everything which was already in the air. But—surprise, surprise—the Genoa Congress was cancelled. It is, of course, easy to find excuses for something like that, and every word that was uttered sounded uncommonly like an excuse.

Thus we can say that the anthroposophical movement entered its second stage by pursuing its straightforward course, and it was introduced by a lecture which I delivered to a non-theosophical audience of which only one person—no more!—is still with us, although many people attended the original lecture. That first lecture, lecture cycle in fact, was entitled “From Buddha to Christ”. In 1911 I had wanted to deliver the same cycle. There was a direct connection! But the theosophical movement had become caught up in a hideous zig-zag course.

If the history of the anthroposophical movement fails to be taken seriously and these things are not properly identified, it is also impossible to give a proper answer to the superficial points which are continually raised about the relationship between anthroposophy and theosophy; points made by people who refuse absolutely to acknowledge that anthroposophy was something quite independent from the beginning, and that it was quite natural for anthroposophy to provide the answers it possessed to the questions which were being asked.

Thus we might say that the second period of the anthroposophical movement lasted until 1914. During that time nothing in particular happened, at least as far as I am concerned, to resolve its relationship with the theosophical movement. The Theosophical Society remedied that when it expelled the anthroposophists.⁹ But it was not particularly relevant to be in the Theosophical Society and it was not particularly relevant to be excluded. We simply continued as before. Until 1914 everything which occurred was initiated by the Theosophical Society. I was invited to lecture there on the basis of the lectures which have been reprinted in my book Eleven European Mystics. I then proceeded to develop in various directions the material contained in it.

The Society, with its unchanged views, then proceeded to expel me—and, of course, my supporters. I was invited in for the same material which later caused my exclusion. That is how it was. The history of the anthroposophical movement will not be understood until the fundamental fact is recognized that it was irrelevant whether I was included in or excluded from the theosophical movement. That is something upon which I would ask you to concentrate in your self-reflection.

Today how many souls have a hint of such homelessness about them? That is revealed in incidents such as the following, which was reported very recently. A professor announced a course of university lectures on the development, as he called it, of mystic-occult perceptions from Pythagoras to Steiner. Following the announcement, so many people came to the first lecture that it could not be held in the usual lecture hall but had to be transferred to the Auditorium Maximum which is normally used only for big festive occasions.

Such occurrences demonstrate the way things are today, how the tendency to such homelessness has become an integral element in many souls. All of this could be anticipated: the rapidly growing evidence of a longing in homeless souls for an attitude to life which was not organized in advance, which was not laid out in advance; a longing for the spirit among them which was increasingly asserting itself, and asserting itself more strongly week by week.

• 1. Rudolf Steiner: The Gospel of St. John (Hamburg 1908). Translated by M. B. Monges. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1962. The Gospel of St. John and its Relation to the Other Gospels (Kassel 1909). Translated by S. and L. Lockwood, revised by M. St. Goar. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1982. The Gospel of St. Luke (Basel 1909). Translated by D. S. Osmond and O. Barfield. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1975. The Gospel of St. Matthew (Bern 1910). Translated by D. S. Osmond and M. Kirkcaldy. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1965. The Gospel of St. Mark (Basel 1912). Translated by C. Mainzer, edited by S. C. Easton. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1986. Background to the Gospel According to St. Mark (Berlin and other places 1910/11). Translated by E. H. Goddard and D. S. Osmond. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, and Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1968.
• 2. Published in 1897.
• 3. Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man (1904). Translated by M. Cotterell, revised by A. P. Shepherd. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1989.
• 4. From 18–21 May 1907 the fourth annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society took place in Munich. Under Rudolf Steiner's guidance the attempt had been made to create a harmonious correlation between the spiritual activity in and the artistic arrangement of the conference room. In addition there was a performance of E. Schure's reconstruction of The Holy Drama of Eleusis. See The Course of My Life, Chapter XXXVIII.
4
• 5. In the lecture of 14 December 1911 Rudolf Steiner said: In front of a witness (Marie von Sivers) who is willing to testify to this at any time, Annie Besant said in Munich in 1907 that she was not qualified to deal with Christianity. And that is why she, as it were, handed the movement over to me, in so far as its Christian aspects were concerned. See Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers, p.45f.
• 6. The lecture—Theosophy and Imperialism. A Lecture by Annie Besant. London (Theos. Publ. Soc.) 1902—was delivered at the Theosophical Society Congress in London in July 1902. cf. Rudolf Steiner's lecture of 12 March 1916 in GA 174b (not yet translated).
• 7. See Lecture Two, Note 2.
• 8. See Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers, p.70f.
• 9. See Lecture Two, Note 2.

Automated Translation

One of the outstanding figures in world history is Julian the Apostate (a successor of Constantine) who fell by the hand of an assassin in the campaign against the Persians in the year A.D. 363 (note 1). Julian occupies a special place in the history of the West. His life and career show how the course of world history is determined by the clash of contending forces. I pointed out in my previous lecture that in Constantine we have a personality who had to abandon the former coercive measures practised by the majority of the earlier emperors when they sought initiation into the Mysteries. To compensate for this he therefore did everything in his power to advance the cause of exoteric Christianity in the Empire.

Now from earliest childhood Julian was held in low esteem by the Imperial family and their adherents. In the age with which we are dealing it was the custom to anticipate the future of an individual such as Julian by resorting to prenatal prophecies. The Imperial family had been obliged to conclude from the predictions of the Sibylline oracles that Julian would actively oppose the policy pursued by the Emperor Constantine. From the first, therefore, they tried to prevent Julian from being raised to the purple. It was decided that he should be murdered while still a child and preparations were made to have him butchered along with his brother. There was a strange aura attaching to Julian which inspired terror in those around him and countless stories relating to his personality testify to the fact that there was something uncanny about him. On one occasion during his campaign in Gaul a somnambulist cried out as the army passed by: “There is the man who will restore the old Gods and their images.”

The appearance of Julian at this moment in history must be seen as something predestined, something deeply significant. As often happens in such cases his life was spared lest his murder should bring greater disaster in its train. People persuaded themselves that whatever steps he might take against the policies of Constantine could be quickly nullified. And precautionary measures were taken to neutralize the dangerous tendencies of Julian's make-up and his leanings towards Paganism. In the first place it was decided to give him a sound Christian education which accorded with the ideas of Constantine. It was wasted effort and met with no response. Anything which had survived from the ancient Hellenic traditions fascinated him. Where powerful forces are at work in such a personality they ultimately prevail. And so, because his mentors sought to protect him from dangerous associations he was driven into the arms of Hellenic tutors and was introduced to Hellenic culture and civilization. When he grew older Julian learned how the neo-Platonic philosophers were imbued with the spirit of Hellenism and in consequence he was finally initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. Thus at a time when the Roman Emperors had already dispensed with the principle of initiation, an initiate in the person of Julian once again sat on the throne of the Caesars.

Everything that Julian undertook must be judged in the light of his initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries (and history has been at great pains to misrepresent his actions in every possible way). In order to form a true estimate of such a personality as Julian we must give due weight to the effects of this initiation. What spiritual benefit had Julian derived from his initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries? Through direct spiritual perception he learned the secrets of cosmic and world evolution, the spiritual origin of the world and how spiritual forces operate in the planetary and solar systems. He learned to understand certain things which were quite incomprehensible to his contemporaries (with the exception of a few Greek initiates), namely, the relation of solar influences and the Being of the Sun to the old Hermes-Logos. He understood the meaning of the Pythagorean maxim: “Thou shalt not speak against the Sun!” This does not refer, of course, to the physical sun but to the Spirit which is concealed behind the Sun. He knew that the ancient sacred traditions ascribed the origin of the world to the spiritual Being of the Sun and above all that man must recover his relation to the spiritual Sun if he is to penetrate to the source of his existence.

Julian therefore was aware of the ancient Sun-Mystery. He realized that the physical sun is but the external form of a spiritual Sun which can be awakened in the soul of man through initiation, and when awakened can reveal to him the intimate connection between the universe and the historical life of man on Earth. It was clear to Julian that the world can never be ordered on a basis of rationalism, that only those who are able to be in touch with the Sun Logos are in any way fitted to have a voice in the ordering of the world. He had to recognize that the movements of the celestial bodies and the great historical movements of mankind are governed by a common law.

Even a Church Father such as St. Chrysostom was aware of the existence of an ancient Sun-Mystery, since he went so far as to declare that men are so dazzled by the physical sun that they cannot penetrate to the spiritual Sun. The soul of St. Chrysostom was still illumined by a ray of wisdom from olden times, but in those around him hardly a trace of it remained. It is clear that scarcely a vestige of understanding remained for that method of awakening the soul to the secrets of the universe which had been communicated through the ancient Mysteries and which were certainly communicated to Julian who was one of the last to be instructed in that method. He was therefore surrounded entirely by adherents of Constantine, by those who echoed the thoughts of Constantine. It is true that in the West, up to the end of the ninth century we find outstanding personalities even amongst the Popes, who were still inspired by the ancient Mystery wisdom; but the real opposition came from Rome which set out to nullify the efforts of these individuals and to pursue in its place a definite policy of its own towards the traditions of the ancient Mysteries. I shall say a few words about this later. In effect, Julian only came in contact with a very exoteric form of Christianity.

Through complicated psychological processes which are difficult to describe in detail he lighted upon the idea of utilizing the last surviving remnants of initiation in order to ensure continuity in evolution. In reality he was not an opponent of Christianity; he simply favoured the continuity of Hellenism. He was more interested in promoting Hellenism than in opposing Christianity. With passionate enthusiasm he strove to arrest the decline of Hellenism and to transmit its traditions to posterity. He was opposed to any sudden break in continuity, any radical change. As an initiate of Eleusis he knew that the policies he proposed to embark upon could not be realized unless one was in close touch with the spiritual forces operating in the sensible world, and that if we seek to introduce new impulses into world evolution by appealing to physical and psychic forces alone, then we are “speaking against the Sun” in the Pythagorean sense. Julian had no such intention; indeed his purpose was quite the reverse. In effect he accepted one of the greatest challenges that it is possible to imagine.

Now we must not forget that in Rome at that time and throughout the whole of Southern Europe there was active opposition to this challenge. Remember that up to the time of Constantine, in large sections of the population the last remnants of ancient cults had been preserved. Today the question of miracles is a real thorn in the side of Biblical exegesis, because people refuse to read the Gospels from the standpoint of the age to which they, the Gospels, belong. The question of miracles raised no problems for the contemporaries of the Evangelists, for they were aware of the existence of rites and ceremonies from which men derived spiritual forces which they were able to control.

Whilst, on the one hand, Christianity was introduced as a political measure which culminated in Constantine's edict of toleration, so attempts were made on the other hand, to suppress the ancient pagan rites. Endless laws were promulgated by Rome which forbade the celebration of rites which derived their power from the spiritual world. These laws, it is true, declared that the old superstitions must cease, that no one may practise ritual magic in order to injure others and no one may communicate with the dead, and so on, but these were only pretexts. The real purpose of these laws was to eradicate root and branch any traces of pagan cults which had survived from ancient times. Wherever possible, history has endeavoured to hush up or to conceal the real facts of the situation. But our earliest historical records were the work of priests and monks in the monasteries (a fact which modern science, which claims to be “objective and to accept nothing on authority”, studiously ignores). The avowed object of the monasteries (i.e. priests and monks) was to suppress all knowledge of the true character of antiquity and to prevent the essential teachings of the pagan Mysteries from being transmitted to posterity.

And so Julian saw the vanishing world of antiquity in a totally different light from the forerunners of Constantine. Through his initiation he knew that the human soul was related to the spiritual world. He could only hope to succeed in the task he had undertaken—to use the forces of the old principle of initiation in order to further the continuity of human evolution—by resisting the current attitude to man's evolution. Because of his initiation Julian was in reality a man with a profound and sincere love of truth, a sense for truth that was totally foreign to Constantine. Indeed Julian's profound respect for truth has not its like in the history of the West. With his deep instinct for truth that had been fortified by his initiation he turned his attention to teachings of the universities and schools of his day. He found that the Christian dogma had been introduced into the schools in the form that had existed since the time of Constantine. Armed with this dogma the teachers gave their personal interpretations of the Hellenistic writers whose works were centred round the figures of Zeus, Apollo, Pallas Athene, Aphrodite, Hermes-Mercury and so on. And Julian said to himself: “These teachers are the most outrageous sophists. How can they presume to expound ancient writings whose authors were convinced that the old gods were still living forces in the world? On what grounds do these teachers presume to interpret these writings when, by the very nature of their dogmas, they must deny the existence of these gods?” Julian's instinct for truth was outraged. He therefore forbade those who, by virtue of their Christian dogma were unable to believe in the old gods, to expound the ancient writings in the schools. If today we had the same honesty of purpose as Julian you can well imagine how much would be excluded from the curricula of our schools!

Julian wished to meet the challenge of the current trends which none the less were a necessity from another point of view. In the first place he had to come to terms with the Gospels, which had arisen in a totally different way from the knowledge imparted to him in the Eleusinian Mysteries. He could not reconcile himself to the way in which the Gospels had arisen. He said to himself: If that which is manifested in the Christ is a genuine inspiration that stems from the Mysteries then it must be possible to find it in the Mysteries, for it must have been incorporated in the Mystery-teachings. He wanted to ascertain if it were possible to continue the ancient Mystery-teachings. In the first place he was only familiar with the Christianity of his time in its exoteric aspect. He decided to make an experiment—not the kind of experiment that relies purely on human expedients (that would have seemed childish to him)—but to undertake an experiment that had a spiritual significance. He reasoned as follows: It has been prophesied that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, not a single stone would remain standing. This has indeed come to pass. But if this prophecy could be discredited, if its fulfilment could be prevented then the mission of Christianity could not be accomplished. At the cost of great capital outlay Julian decided therefore to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. A large number of workmen was assembled to begin the reconstruction. Now the whole affair must be regarded from a spiritual standpoint; it was not men alone, but gods, whom Julian set out to challenge. And it is an undoubted fact that can be demonstrated historically—in so far as historical facts can be demonstrated, even externally, although internal evidence leaves no doubt of their truth—that each of the workmen engaged on the work of reconstruction had a vision; he saw tongues of flame licking over the place where he was working and was obliged to withdraw. The undertaking was abandoned; but we recognize the high purpose that inspired Julian to undertake this venture.

Julian's experiment miscarried. After he had failed to discredit the prophecy of the destruction of the temple, he decided to approach the problem from another angle. His new plan was no less boldly conceived. The time had not yet come when the evolution of Europe had been influenced by that spiritual current which owed its origin to the fact that one of the greatest Church Fathers, Augustine (note 2), could not rise to a certain idea because at that time he lacked the necessary spiritual development. You know perhaps from your study of history—and I have referred to this on frequent occasions when discussing the Faust legend—that Augustine had originally been a Manichaean. Manichaeism originated in Persia and claimed to understand Christ Jesus better than Rome and Constantinople. This doctrine (unfortunately it is not yet permissible today to unveil the ultimate secrets of this doctrine, even in our present circle) filtered through into Europe in later times in various guises and still survived, though in a corrupt form, in its ramifications in the sixteenth century when the Faust legend was first recorded. By a happy intuition the revival of the Faust legend by Goethe preserved something of the spirit of Manichaeism. Julian thought on the grand scale; his thought embraced all mankind. In the presence of a man such as Julian we realize only too clearly how limited are the thoughts of ordinary mortals. The doctrine of the “Son of Man” will of necessity assume different forms according to our capacity to form conceptions of the real nature of man himself. Our conceptions of the “Son of Man” must therefore depend upon our conceptions of man; the one involves the other. In this respect men differ widely. At the present time people have only the most superficial understanding of such matters.

In Sanscrit the word for man is Manushya. This word expresses the basic feeling which a large number of people associate with the idea of humanity. When we use this vocable to describe man we are referring to the spiritual aspect of man, we are appraising man primarily as a spiritual being. If we wish to express the idea that man is spirit and his physical aspect is only the manifestation of spirit, then we use the word “Manushya”.

From our earlier discussions you know that we can study man from another angle. We can consider him mainly from his psychic aspect. We shall then give more attention to man as soul than to man as spirit; his physical aspect and everything that is related to his external aspect will be of secondary importance. We shall then be able to characterize man from the information derived from his inner life which is reflected in the eye or in the fact that he holds his head erect. If you look into the derivation of the Greek word anthropos you will find that it gives a rough indication of this aspect. Those who characterize man with the word Manushya or some similar vocable see him primarily as spirit, as that which descends from the spiritual world. Those who characterize man with a word resembling the Greek word anthropos (and this applies especially to the Greeks themselves) are expressing his soul nature.

Now there is a third possibility; we can concentrate on the external, the corporeal or somatic aspect, which is the product of physical inheritance. We shall then characterize man with the word homo that signifies (approximately) the procreator or the procreated.

Here are three conceptions of man. Julian who was aware of this trichotomy felt the need to look for a spiritual interpretation of the “Son of Man”. The thought occurred to him: “I have already been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Perhaps it is possible to have myself initiated into the Persian Mysteries and into the Mysteries which are in accordance with the doctrine of the Manichaeans. By this means perhaps I may be able to achieve my aim—the continuity of the pagan Mysteries.” This was a momentous thought. Just as Alexander's campaign had deeper motives than the mere conquest of Asia, so Julian's expedition had other motives than the conquest of Persia. He wished to find out whether he could further his objective with the help of the Persian Mysteries.

In order to understand the problem that faced Julian we must ask: What was it that Augustine could not understand in Manichaeism? I have already said that the time had not yet come to reveal the ultimate secrets of Manichaeism but it is possible to give a few indications. In his youth, Augustine was deeply attached to these teachings and they made a profound impression on him. He later exchanged the teachings of Manichaeism for Roman Catholicism. What did he not understand in Manichaeism? Why did he reject it, what was beyond his comprehension in Manichaeism?

The Manichaeans did not cultivate abstract ideas which divorced the world of thought from the world of reality. The Manichaeans and the initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries were alike incapable of abstract thinking. In earlier lectures I attempted to show the difference between logical concepts and concepts in conformity with reality. The basic principle of Manichaeism was to cultivate only those ideas which are consistent with reality. Not that unreal ideas do not play a part in life; unfortunately they play a large part in life, especially at the present day, and the part they play is disastrous. And so, amongst other things, it was consistent with Manichaeism to form representations that were not purely abstract, but which were sufficiently powerful to intervene in the external world and to play an active part in that world. The conception of Christ Jesus that was commonly held by people at that time would have been quite impossible for the Manichaeans. And what was this conception? They had a somewhat nebulous idea of the Christ who had incarnated in Jesus through whom a change had been brought about in Earth evolution. Ideas about Christ have become incredibly vague, especially in the nineteenth century.

If we are really honest and sincere we cannot say that the notions afforded by Christian dogma about Christ and His mission will take us very far. If Christian ideas are not powerful enough to envisage an Earth which is not the graveyard of humanity, but the seed-bed of a transformed humanity, if we cannot envisage Earth evolution differently from the natural scientists of today who predict that life on the Earth will one day become extinct, then all our conceptions of Christ are vain. For even if we believe that Christ has brought new life to the Earth, it is difficult for us to imagine that matter can be so spiritualized that we can envisage it as capable of being transmuted from its present earthly condition to its future condition. We have need of far more powerful ideas in order to be able to conceive of the Earth's metamorphosis to the Jupiter condition.

I said recently in a public lecture that natural science thinks—or rather calculates—that if the forces of nature as they exist today were to persist for millions of years, then a condition would arise according to Dewar (I mentioned in Lecture Three his lecture before the Royal Institute) when, if the walls of a room were painted with albumen, it would be possible to read the newspaper in its phosphorescent light. And I spoke of the scientist who declared that in the distant future milk would be solid and emit a blue light and so on. These ideas are the inevitable consequence of nebulous thinking that is unable to come to terms with reality. Such calculations are equivalent to deducing from the modifications in the human stomach over a period of four or five years what its condition would be after two hundred and fifty years. I am able to arrive at this conclusion by extending my calculations over a large number of years. The scientist calculates what will be the condition of the Earth a million years hence; on the same principle I can calculate the condition of the human stomach after two hundred and fifty years—only by that time the man will be dead! Just as the geologists calculate the condition of the Earth millions of years ago, so too on the same principle one could calculate, by showing the modifications in a child's stomach over a period of a week or a fortnight, the condition of the same stomach two hundred and fifty years ago—but of course the child would not have been alive at that time. Concepts cannot provide a total picture of reality. Scientific concepts are valid for the period of time between 6000–7000 B.C. and A.D. 6000–7000, but not beyond that time.

We must think of the evolution of man in terms of a totally different time scale. And the Christ Being must occupy a central place in this future evolution. I said therefore on a previous occasion that we must distinguish between what the Middle Ages called “mystical marriage” and what Christian Rosenkreutz called “chymical marriage”. Mystical marriage is simply an inner experience. As many theosophists used to say (and perhaps still say): if one looks within, if one withdraws into oneself one becomes united with the divine Being! This was depicted in such roseate hues that, after an hour's lecture, the members emerged with the firm conviction that if they took firm control of their inner life, if they practised self-discipline, they would experience the first intimations of the divine within. The chymical marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz imagines forces to be active in man which embrace the whole man, which so transform his being that when he is purified from the dross of the physical body he is translated to the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan conditions.

The aim of Manichaeism was the conquest of evil and of matter by thought. Julian was brought face to face with the deeper implications of the problem of evil and the relation of Christ Jesus to this problem. He hoped to find an answer through initiation into the Persian Mysteries and to return to Europe with the solution. But unfortunately he fell by an assassin's hand during the Persian campaign. It can be proved historically that this was the work of an adherent of Constantine. Thus we see that in the course of history the attempt to establish the “principle of continuity” was fraught with tragedy and that in the case of Julian it led into a blind alley.

In the following years the Augustinian principle triumphed—ideas that in any way echoed Manichaeism were forbidden, i.e. the inclusion of material ideas in spiritual thinking. The West therefore was driven to an abstract mode of thinking and in the course of time this mode of thinking permeated the whole of Western Europe. Only a few of the foremost minds rebelled against this tendency and one of the most celebrated of these was Goethe. His whole cast of mind was opposed to abstract theorizing. And one of those who succumbed to it most was Kant. Take, for example, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason—I know that what I am about to say is heretical—and let us look at the main propositions. If you reverse each of these propositions you will arrive at the truth. And the same applies particularly to his theory of space and time. You can equally well reverse every proposition and you will then arrive at conclusions that are valid for the spiritual world. You can gather from this why some people have a professional interest in misrepresenting Goethe (the great opponent of Kant) as I showed in the case of Haller, who wrote: “no created spirit can penetrate into the inner recesses of nature”—a complete distortion of Goethe's conception of nature.

If we bear this point of view in mind, we can appreciate at its true worth Julian's essay which was directed against Pauline Christianity (note 2). It is a remarkable document, not so much for its contents, but for its similarity to certain writings of the nineteenth century. This may seem paradoxical, but the facts are as follows: Julian's polemic against Christianity musters every kind of argument against Christianity, against the historical Jesus and certain Christian dogmas, with passionate sincerity. And when we compare these arguments with the objections raised by the liberal theology of the nineteenth century (note 3) and the later theology of the adherents of Drews against the historicity of Christ, when we consider the whole field of literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which reveals most careful, painstaking and thorough philological investigation, there are endless repetitions, so that one has to consult whole libraries—we find that we can piece together certain guiding principles. The leading critics began to undertake a comparative study of the Gospels and found many discrepancies in the texts. But all these critical methods were already anticipated by Julian. The nineteenth-century criticism offered nothing new that was not already known to Julian. Julian spoke out of a natural creative gift whilst the nineteenth-century criticism displayed enormous industry, great erudition and downright theological sophistry.

Julian therefore was engaged in a titanic struggle. He finally attempted, by reviving Manichaeism, to bring about continuity in the evolution of the pagan Mysteries. Bear in mind how the most enlightened minds such as Goethe felt an instinctive urge to recapture the spirit of ancient Greece! Imagine what would have happened if Julian's policy had been crowned with success! That he was doomed to fail was a necessity of the time. And we shall not understand the reason for his failure if we belittle his great achievements, if we fail to see him as a titanic figure, fighting for a realistic understanding of the relations between man and the universe. And it is of paramount importance today to recall these great moments in the historical evolution of the West. For we are living in an age from which we shall not emerge with a healthy outlook unless we make a fresh assessment of the aims of Julian the Apostate. It was not possible in his time—herein lies his great tragedy—to reconcile the old principle of initiation with the real essence of Christianity. Today this has become possible and we must not fail to translate the possibility into reality if the world and mankind are not to suffer evolutionary decline. People must realize the need for regeneration in all spheres of life and above all the crying need to restore communication with the spiritual world.

First of all we must understand the factors that militate against this necessary regeneration. Today we are afraid of definite, clear-cut ideas which could lead to such an understanding. There is no lack of physical courage today—but we are certainly lacking in intellectual courage! Mankind today is unwilling to face realities and this is the greatest need of our time. For if our age is not to end in futility it must learn to understand the principle of the creative spirit and what it means when it is said that the spirit, when creative, is as powerful a force as the instincts, save that our instincts work in the dark, whilst the creative spirit works in the light of the Sun, i.e. the spiritual Sun. This is what our age must learn to understand. And especially in our own time many forces are still arrayed against any understanding of the creative spirit and are actively engaged in suppressing that knowledge.

Cato's policy was to establish a highly centralized political system. In order to achieve this he felt it was necessary to exile the adherents of Hellenistic philosophy. “They only prate”, he said, “and that has a disturbing effect upon the decrees of the authorities.” And the celebrated Florentine Machiavelli was also of this opinion and gave high praise to Cato because he proposed to banish those who used the weapon of spiritual knowledge in order to raise objections to State decrees. Machiavelli fully appreciated the fact that in the Roman Empire any interference with the structure of the social order was on certain occasions punishable by death. Intercourse with the spiritual world was anathema especially to the Roman Empire and the successor States in Europe. Every effort was therefore made to ensure that the greatest uncertainty should prevail in these matters and they were hushed up as much as possible. If a conception of the Mystery of Golgotha that is both radical and uncompromising gains a firm foothold in the world, then we shall have to modify considerably our mental attitude. This is not to our liking, but it will have to come. And a way must be found to arrive at a real understanding of the nature of Christ. In our next lecture I propose to discuss how we can directly experience the being and nature of Christ today.

We shall see this whole question in wider perspective through a study of two contrasting figures—Constantine who inaugurated the exoteric side of Western culture and Julian the Apostate who, when the times were out of joint (for him), attempted to take up the struggle against the exoteric side of Western evolution. It is a curious phenomenon that if anyone with a slight knowledge—I do not mean of occult facts, but with a real knowledge of those occult facts that can still be found in ancient writings—makes a study of Christian dogma, if, for example, we inquire into the origin of the Mass, or if ritual and dogma are studied in the light of this occult knowledge derived from ancient writings, we discover the most extraordinary things. What lies behind these dogmas and cult acts? Not I alone, but countless authors who have studied these questions from this standpoint have come to the conclusion that in ritual and dogma a large residuum of paganism has been preserved or has survived, so that an attempt was made for example by the French writer Drach (note 4), who was an authority on Hebraism, to demonstrate that the dogma and ritual of the Catholic Church were simply a revival of paganism. And others attempted to show that certain people were at pains to conceal from the faithful the fact that the dogmas and ritual of the Church were imbued with paganism.

Now it would have been a strange phenomenon if paganism in particular had survived quite unconsciously. In that event, we might ask, in what way would the survival of paganism have contributed to the survival of the Roman Empire? And what would have been the position of Julian the Apostate? If many recent writers are right in saying that the Catholic sacrifice of the Mass, for example, is in essence a pagan sacrifice and that Julian had been at great pains to preserve and perpetuate the ancient pagan rites, then to some extent Julian has achieved his aim after all. A study of these two contrasting figures, Constantine and Julian, raises countless problems of the highest importance, “thorny” problems as Nietzsche calls them, problems which are fraught with fateful consequences for us today and which without question will become the central problems of our time.

I propose to return to these problems in my next lecture.

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NOTES BY TRANSLATOR

Note 1. Julian had received a strict Christian education; during his internment in Cappadocia he began to doubt the validity of Christianity and when sent to Athens in 354, the intellectual centre of Greece, he secretly abandoned Christian beliefs. His treatise “Against the Galileans” (referred to here) summarizes his polemical arguments against Christianity. Briefly they are as follows: Knowledge of God is natural to man and does not come by teaching. The story of Eden in the Old Testament is a fable and the account of Creation is inferior to that of Plato. The idea of a jealous God and a chosen people is unacceptable. The Mosaic law is barbarous; the Decalogue common to all nations. No man is better for reading the Jewish scriptures. The New Testament is full of inconsistencies. Matthew and Luke disagree on the genealogy of Jesus. Peter and Paul were hypocrites. Matt. IV, 5, is illogical and in Luke XXII, 42-47, since the disciples were asleep, who could have told him the story of the angel? The Christians were fanatics and cheerfully massacred heretics. By contrast the Greeks were mild and forbearing, they were superior in wisdom and intelligence. Christianity has achieved little or nothing in the fields of science, astronomy, arithmetic and music. The achievements of Plato, Socrates, Aristides, Thales, Lycurgus, Agesilaus and Archedemus, the Sibyls, the Delphic Oracle and the pagan Mysteries surpassed anything that Christianity had to offer.

The formal refutation of Julian's treatise was “Pro Christiana Religione” composed between A.D. 429 and 441 by Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria.

Note 2. Manichaeism and Augustine. Augustine (A.D. 345–410), an African by birth, was a Manichaean for ten years. He became dissatisfied with Manichaeism and when Faustus, a leader of the sect, failed to resolve his doubts he abandoned Manichaean teachings. (See Confessions, Books IV and V.) Augustine repaired to Rome where he was converted by St. Ambrose in A.D. 386. His chief works were directed against the Manichaeans, e.g. Books against the Manichaeans and On the Utility of Believing. The Scriptures were a means to faith and hope and the Canon was the testimony of Christianity in the Church. His dictum, “Better a man's body be destroyed than his soul” leads to the Inquisition. When Christianity became the State religion he distinguished between “Civitas Dei”, which was perfect and in which all men were equal in the sight of God, and “Civitas terrena”, which of necessity was imperfect. It was the devil's domain where sinful men had to submit to the authorities. Augustine was the founder of Western monasticism and monastic spirituality and exercised considerable influence on Pascal, Fenelon and Port Royal. On Manichaeism in general, see F. C. Burkitt, Religion of the Manichees 1925) and H. C. Puesch, Le Manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine (1949).

Note 3. Liberal theology. The chief representatives of Liberal Protestant theology in the nineteenth century were Bauer, founder of the Tübingen school of New Testament research, and Ritschl (1822–89) who rejected metaphysics and mysticism and developed an objective and scientific method of research. The great exponent of the Ritschl school was A. von Harnack (1851–1930) whose History of Dogma and What is Christianity? are regarded as monuments of liberal historiography. Harnack eschewed metaphysical speculation, perfected the scientific-historical method and emphasized the need for source study and the faithful representation of facts. “The Gospel about Jesus does not belong to the Gospel preached by Jesus”, said Harnack. Radical historical research led to Bultmann's “demythologization”, the attempt to liberate the Church's teaching from the mythological language in which it is expressed. Myths, he said, need reinterpretation in terms of modern consciousness. The other burning question of the nineteenth century was: is the Gospel true and how can we know that it is true? Drews, Jensen and Kalthoff in Germany, J. M. Robertson, W. B. Smith and T. A. Jackson in England claimed that the Christ figure was a copy of the cult-god of pagan beliefs under another name.

Note 4. Drach (1791–1865) studied at various Talmudic Schools and was converted to Christianity, 1823. He went to Rome and was appointed librarian of propaganda.

Yesterday we tried to follow the evolution of humanity in the universe and also upon the earth. Today I shall only add a few explanations to this, in order to pass over to that which spiritual science is able to say concerning the significance of Christianity and also concerning the Christian initiation. But to begin with please turn your gaze once more to the point of issue of human development.

We have said that when the earth separated from the present Moon, it was enclosed by a kind of primordial ocean, and we explained how the human being then united himself with his soul-spiritual part. We then pursued this course of development as far as the present time, which we characterised as the time of man's deepest descent into matter through the spirit. We recognised that an ascent must once more come, a spiritualisation, and we also spoke of the mission of Theosophy,or Spiritual Science in regard to this course of development.

We already pointed out that the division into two sexes took place in ancient Lemuria. The lower beings upon the Moon were already divided into two sexes, but the human being who lives in each one of you was only at that time divided into two sexes upon entering his bodily form. We must think of these antediluvian times of human evolution; before the separation of mankind into two sexes, male and female, in such a way that what we designate as sex did not exist as yet, or at least, it existed in quite a different form. Now a great deal depends upon our grasping the great significance of the fact explained just now for the whole course of human evolution.

If this division into two sexes had not occurred, if humanity were not to complete its course of development through this cooperation of the male and female principle, the human being would have an entirely different form. The individual element in man comes from the influence of the male principle. Yesterday I explained to you the difference between a group soul and an individual soul. This is quite different among animals. The animal has two sexes even on the astral plane. But the human beings did not have these two sexes on the astral plane before descending like drops into the individualised human bodies, or they had not yet passed, as one might. say, through “the fall into sex”. Had the sexlessness of man continued in the physical world, replacing the two sexes, man could not have become an individual being. The true meaning of human development is that man should become more and more individualised.

If we once more survey the epochs which I described to you yesterday you would see how greatly the human beings resembled one another in regard to their external form. The cooperation of the two sexes gave rise to individual differentiations; these became more and more pronounced the further man advanced into the future. Without the division into sexes the generations would always look alike. We must really say that the fact that man becomes an independent being depends upon the division into two sexes.

In that remote time, and far back in the Atlantean epoch, but even in the post-Atlantean epoch, you find that the law of “marriage among close relatives” prevails, and: that this is only gradually replaced by the law of “marriage among non-relatives” In remote epochs people married within closely related groups, within small tribes. In every nation you will find that it was once considered unusual and wrong to marry someone who belonged to another tribe one's own, and this was everywhere considered an exceptional event.

The further back we go, the more we find that it was looked upon as an ethical law for people to marry within their own tribe; so that blood only mixed with the blood of relatives. We can explain this process best of all by setting out from a comparison which hits the nail on the head, whereas all other comparisons are weak. Let me tell you a little story in this connection.

You know Anzengruber and Rosegger. Rosegger is a writer who described his village characters with great devotion. Also Anzengruber has a good knowledge of his subject. In his drama “Der Meineidbauer,” (The Perjured Farmer) the farmer and peasants whom he portrays really live. We know how plastic these characters are in the “Meineidbauer” and in his, “Parson Of Kirchfeld” and in other plays. Rosegger and Anzengruber one day went for a walk together and Rosegger said: “I know you really never look at farmers; perhaps you could describe them better if you went to see them in the village.” Anzengruber replied: “If I did this, I would probably be quite at a loss. I never learned to know peasants more closely, but I can describe them because my father, my grandfather and all my ancestors were farmers, and I still have this farmer's blood in my veins. I form my characters through the farmer's blood in me, and I do not bother about the rest!”

This is an interesting fact and it indicates what we should bear in mind. Where blood does not mix, as in the case of old tribal communities, or in the case of the Anzengruber family, we find such a marked character as the writer Anzengruber, in his last incarnation. He had inherited the plastic force and he knew how to appreciate it; this plastic force ran through the blood of the generations. This really occurs where the blood only mixes with the blood of relatives. If the blood mixed with alien blood it quenched the soul's plastic forces. Had Anzengruber married, had he married a someone belonging to a different social class his children would no longer have had this plastic force.

In the case of almost every nation still existing to-day we can observe this phenomenon at the beginning; marriages within small circles of blood-relatives were always connected with an extraordinary power of memory. They were connected with a dull, vague clairvoyance people could remember what they had experienced since their birth and they looked upon these experiences as something connected with their personality. Before these marriages between close relatives were replaced by marriages with non-relatives, people could literally remember the experiences of their grandfather and even of distant ancestors; they said “I”, and passed through the experiences of their grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and forefathers. The further back we go the more we find a power of memory reaching far back into the line of the generations.

it is interesting to see that these people: did not feel that they were individual egos when they said “I”, their grandfather was included in in this, and they bore his name, a name which encompassed all. Even as you now adopt a name connecting it with an individual person; so these nations adopted a name reaching far back into the centuries, because birth did not break off the thread of memory. The individual human being had no name, for birth was no special event. All men had one name, as long as the thread of memory remained unbroken.

In the Bible you have a document relating this giving of names: all the discussions about the names of the patriarchs are merely theological discussions! Adam was Adam and became so old because the power of memory was preserved for centuries, and the individual who descended from Adam felt that his Ego was one with that of his ancestor. The blood which thus flowed through the centuries producing such a memory was named “Adam”. So long as memory lasted in the line of the generations and the experiences of the forefathers could be remembered as if they were one's own, one said: “Adam still lives. People did no at all experience themselves as individual physical personalities, but they identified themselves with that which existed spiritually and which united them.

Then the marriages between non-relatives became more and more frequent. The mixing of the blood gradually killed the power of memory which once reached beyond the individual human being. The limitation of memory is a result of these marriages between non-relatives. In the course of human evolution the individual human being gradually grew out of his tribe.The blood in common which flowed through the tribes also contained the common expression for this blood: love. Those who were blood-relatives loved each other. But this love, which we may designate as a primordial love connected with the blood and leading to the development of families gradually died out in the course of time. The love of the past greatly differed from the love which shines towards us as the love of future times. During the Atlantean epoch, this love ruling through the blood prevailed; people who had the same blood in their veins loved one another. But this gradually disappeared; individually, the human beings gradually emancipated themselves from the closer family ties.

This primordial love, which arose when the souls began to descend into physical bodies, thus faces us in a descending,course of development; this love streamed into the human beings at the moment which the Bible describes in the words: “And God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul.”

But something else arose at that time. Man became a living soul, and consequently a being who breathed through his lungs. The air which he thus breathed in, produced his red blood. The Ego-nature expressed itself in the red blood. As long as the blood was a common element shared by many, the Ego too was a common Ego. We see this in the Jews, where a whole nation was ruled by a group-soul. But the human beings gradually developed and emancipated themselves from the blood of their relatives. When the first breath of air entered the human being it formed the first foundation of his blood. But long epochs of time passed by before mankind reached the degree of maturity enabling it to influence the blood so that the primordial love could be replaced by a love for mankind as a whole.

Imagine the course of human development as described just now: The primordial love would gradually die out; love among relatives, the love of a mother for her child, and so forth, would have to decrease; the blood has not the power of encompassing the whole of humanity with a tie of love, so that the power of the Ego, the power of selfishness would grow ever more ... An event had therefore to occur which replaced the primordial love with another kind of love, calling into life a spiritual love, and this event is Christianity.

The appearance of Christianity prevented that which would otherwise have taken place: the disintegration of the whole of humanity into single human atoms. The human beings must indeed become more and more independent, for this lies in the development of their blood, but that which was driven apart naturally, must once more be led together spiritually, through a new power which is able to exercise its influence without the love connected with the blood: This new power is Christianity.

The Mystery of Golgotha thus acquires a fundamental significance for the whole evolution of humanity. If we understand this, we also understand the meaning of the words: the Blood of Christ. This is not something which can be experienced or investigated externally, but something which must be considered as a mystical fact. I have therefore entitled my book purposely, “Christianity as Mystical Fact” and not “The Mysticism of Christianity”!

In order to understand the nature of Christ Jesus upon the earth, in order to understand this fundamental significance of Christianity, we must study the preparatory stages which led to Christianity. For they already existed in ancient times. You may really see how an early Christian regarded this by taking a passage of St. Augustine's writings: “What we now call religion has always been the true religion, except, that that which once constituted the true religion is now called the Christian religion.” St. Augustine still knew that Christianity has a foundation: that which once lived in the ancient Mysteries. These very Mysteries are now to be revealed through the theosophical movement. Let me characterize it in a few words.

There were schools which were at the same time churches and centres of art; at the head of these schools stood the leaders of humanity, those who had advanced most in human development. Into these schools were admitted people who were considered to be adapted for a training enabling them to gain an independent conception of the spiritual world which surrounded them. They were carefully prepared; first of all they had to learn the facts of the spiritual world theoretically, more or less in the same way in which we now learn these facts through spiritual science. Then they reached ever higher stages. Theory changed into practice, exoteric into esoteric truths. They received a living instruction in every subject. Strict rules governed the pupil's life, so that he might gradually ascend to the contemplation of the spiritual world. The pupil first learned to know the facts and laws of the spiritual world, and then he had to develop through exercises the organs which enabled him to look into the spiritual world.

Let me now describe to you the final act. You must bear in mind that man's sleep consists in the fact that his astral body goes out of his etheric and physical bodies, whereas death consists in the fact that the physical body remains alone, because the etheric and astral body have left it. Now the leader of the Mysteries, the hierophant, through methods which he applied, prepared the human being in such a way that his physical body lay for three and a half days as if dead, while the etheric body and the other members were outside. This was not sleep, nor death, but a third condition. Everything was prepared in such a way that during these three and a half days the human being could journey into the higher worlds, through the guidance of the hierophant who initiated him, he now learned to know the things which have been described in my preceding lectures. He learned to know this in a direct way, through his own vision; after these three and a half days he was newly born. When he returned, he could remember everything which he had experienced in the spiritual worlds; now he was a living witness to the existence of these worlds. His words acquired a different sound from that which they had before, he had become “Blessed”, and the words could be applied to him: “Blessed are those who see”.

When he returned, he was given new name; he laid aside his old name and as an initiate he continued to use his new name. A strange phenomenon arose when he descended from the spiritual worlds and again took possession of his physical body, when he again began to live in the physical worlds. In the case of every initiate—this was a law—words rose to his lips which can be translated with: “My God, my God, how Thou hast glorified me!”

This could be felt by a human being who had reached this stage. He could say of himself: “Everything which still existed in the form of primordial love, everything which is to be implanted in man through the blood, must be replaced within me by a love which knows no difference between mother, brother, sister and other human beings”. Spiritually, he had abandoned his parents, wife, children, brother and sister, and had become a follower of the Spirit. And people said of him that Christ had come to life within him.

All this had taken place in the concealment of the Mysteries. These men were the witnesses of the spiritual world, and they were also prophets, for they pointed towards a coming event. This event is none other than the Mystery Of Golgotha. What took place with the individual human beings in the Mystery schools, occurred upon the physical plane in Palestine once only, for the whole world.

If you were now able to study the instructions which were given, to the old initiates, you would find that they closed with this experience lasting three and a half days; but never before had this experience been enacted upon the physical plane! A new epoch began with the Mystery of Golgotha. You may therefore say: All initiations were prophetic announcements of that which took place in the Mystery of Golgotha; this event could only take place because an individuality as encompassing as the Ruler of the Sun Spirits was incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. What took place upon Mount Golgotha, could not have been fulfilled by any human Ego; such as we have it. Such a deed called for an Ego which had already advanced t0 a high stage of development upon the Sun.

In this way we are able to grasp the Divine humanity of Christ Jesus, which modern men so easily reject, because they cannot penetrate into the depths of the spiritual world. If we consider things in the true light, we may therefore perceive that upon Golgotha an event took place which has a significance greatly surpassing that of any other event.

Among modern men, Richard Wagner alone had an inkling of the significance of the blood, I have already explained to you that man's glandular processes are an expression of the etheric body; his nervous processes an expression of the astral body, and the blood an expression of the Ego. I have shown you that if Christ had not appeared, the development of the blood would have led to a greater form of egoism; the Ego would more and more have increased man's selfishness and egoism. The unnecessary blood, man's excess of blood, had to flow out, had to be sacrificed, so that humanity might not completely lose itself in selfishness. The true mystic sees in the blood which flowed out of the Savior's wounds the surplus blood which had to flow out in order that a soul-spiritual brother love might take hold of the whole of mankind.

This is how the spiritual scientist looks upon the blood which streamed down from the Cross; the blood which had to be taken away from humanity in, order that man might rise above material things. The love which was linked by blood ties was therefore replaced by a love which will fully develop in the future; by a love going from one human being to the other. Only in this light is it possible to understand the words of Christ Jesus:—“He that forsaketh not father, mother, brother, sister, wife and child, cannot become my disciple.” These words can only be grasped if we bear in mind that the event upon Golgotha has overcome everything which had once to be strengthened through the kindred blood, through the love of relatives. He who replaced this love by the new, soul-spiritual love, could say that the old form of love had to be relinquished. This is how things are connected.

The appearance of Christ Jesus Himself is a deep mystical fact; and can only be understood if we do not apply to it the standard of natural science. Those who apply natural-scientific standards to the appearance of Christ Jesus, resemble people who see a tear and judge it according to the law of gravity, refusing to see in it an expression of the soul.

Such things can only be understood with the aid of spiritual science. The appearance of Christ Jesus upon the earth differs from that of all other founders of religions. What the others gave was a teaching. In the case of Christ Jesus we can really say: Almost every word which He uttered, has already, been said in the past in one or the other connection. The essential thing in the case of Hermes or of Buddha is the words which they spoke: in Christ Jesus the essential thing is the fact that He existed, that He lived upon the earth, and that the Mystery of Golgotha was enacted.

Those who wish to be Christians in a truly spiritual-scientific meaning, become so through the fact that they believe in the Divinity of Christ-Jesus. The first disciples did not only proclaim: “we are sent out into the world in order to announce His words”, but they were to bear witness to His existence: “We have heard the words themselves and, have placed our hands into His wounds!”

The essential thing is the fact that Christ-Jesus existed. In other religions you may eliminate the founders of these religions and you would not lose much. But if you were to eliminate Christ-Jesus, then Christianity would not be there! This is the difference. People like Darwin, Strauss, Drews, etc. may proclaim as much as they like that all other religions can be rediscovered in Christianity—this is not essential, for the essential point to be borne in mind is the fact that He existed and that He set forth as a fact what the Prophets had foretold. Christianity is therefore no theory, but a working power.

If you were to rise from the earth to another planet, you would not only see the earth, but also the earth's etheric and astral body; you would see the spiritual earth besides the physical one; and if you could dwell on that planet for thousands of years, if you could have dwelt on it even before the appearance of Christ-Jesus, you would have seen how in the spiritual part of the earth the colour of the astral body underwent a change through the fact that Christ-Jesus was there. The earth really underwent a change, and the men who lived after Christ-Jesus, lived upon a transformed earth. For this reason they can overcome the deepest descent of the spirit. Before that time, it was necessary to be raised to the spiritual worlds if one wished to know something about it; but in Christianity the Mystery Itself has descended to the earth. It was there, as a historical event, visible to physical eyes. The Godhead had to descend in order to lead humanity up once more, from the physical world into the spiritual.

This is the description of Christianity which you will find in the purest of Gospels, in the Gospel of St. John. It is not only a poetical work, but a book of life. Only one who has experienced it, knows what the Gospel of St. John really is: and if its reality has been experienced, then everything which I have explained to you to-day can be proclaimed as a self--discovered truth.

Let me now show you briefly how we may attain knowledge of the truths of Christianity.

Among many books, the Gospel of St. John is the one which indicates the methods by which it is possible to fathom the depths of Christianity. Even when Christianity did not as yet exist in its present form, it was already taught in the Mystery-schools; for instance, in the school of Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of the Apostle Paul. In ancient times it was usual to designate throughout centuries the nearer of the Mysteries with the same name, so that this person who took over the Mysteries and wrote them down, was given the same name as his predecessor.

Those who immerse themselves into the first words of the Gospel of St. John from the standpoint of esotericism, experience that they become within them a quickening force. But the Gospel of St. John must be applied as it was originally intended to be applied; and we must have the patience to take the first sentences of the Gospel of St. John again and again as a subject of meditation, and to let them pass every morning before our soul. They. will in that case have the power to draw out of our soul deeply hidden forces. But we must of course have a correct translation of these words expressed in German word-characters, they must more or less express what the original text contained. In a translation which is as faithful as possible, let me now show you that the real life of the spirit is indicated in the words of the Gospel of St. John.

“Im Urbeginne war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, and ein Gott war das Wort. Dieses war im Urbeginne bei Gott.

Alles ist durch dasselbe geworden, and ausser durch dieses ist nichts von dem Entstandenen geworden. In diesem war das Leben, and das Leben war das Licht der Menschen. Und das Licht schien in die Finsternis, aber die Finsternis hat es nicht begriffen.

Es ward ein Mensch gesandt von Gott, mit seinem Namen Johannes. Dieser kam zum Zeugnis, auf dass er Zeugnis ablege von dem Licht, auf dass durch ihn alle glauben sollten. Er war nicht das Licht, sondern ein Zeuge des Lichtes; denn das wahre Licht, das alle Menschen erleuchtet, sollte in die Welt kommen.

Es war in der Welt, und die Welt ist durch es geworden, aber die Welt hat es nicht elkannt.

Zu den einzelnen Menschan kam es, bis zu den Ich-Menschen kam es, aber die einzelnen Menschen—die Ich-Menschen—nahmen es nicht auf.

Die es aber aufnahmen, die konnten sich durch es als Gotteskinder offenbaren.—Die seinem Namen vertrauten, sind nicht aus Blut, nicht aus dem Willen des Fleisches and nicht aus menschlichen Willen,—sondern aus Gott geworden. Und das Wort is Fleisch geworden und hat unter uns gewohnen, and wir haben seine Lehre gehöret,—die Lehre von dem einigen Sohne des Vaters, erfüllt von Hingabe und Wahrheit!”

(Translation into English)

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a God. This was from the very beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him, and except through Him, was not anything made that was made.

In Him was the life, and the life became the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not the Light, but a witness for the Light; for the true Light which lighteth every man had to come into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, but the world did not comprehend Him.
To each man He came, even to the Ego-men, but these individual men, these Ego-men, received Him not.

As many as received Him could manifest themselves through Him as children of God. Those who confided in His name are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have heard His teaching, the teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with devotion and truth.”

I could now tell you many things of how you would have to immerse yourselves in each chapter of St. John's Gospel. Let me only give you one example—how you would have to use the chapters from the thirteenth chapter onward, if you were a true disciple of Christian Initiation. What I am telling you in words, has occurred in fact to render it more comprehensible, I will clothe it in the form of a dialogue, giving you an idea of what took place between teacher and pupil.

The teacher said to his pupil:—You must develop within you a feeling, you must think the following: Transfer yourself into the plant. If it had consciousness such as you have, and if this consciousness enabled it to look down to the stones, it would say: Thou lifeless stone; thou art a lower being than I in rank among the beings of this world; I am higher than thou. But could I exist as a plant, if thou were not there as stone? I draw my nourishment from thee. I could not exist without that which is lower than me.

And if the plant were endowed with feeling it would say: I am indeed higher than the stone, but I bow down humbly towards it, for the stone made it possible for me to live.

Similarly the animal would have to bow down to the plant and say: If thou; O plant, were not there, I could not exist, although I am higher than thee. To thee, a lower being, I owe my existence. Humbly I bow before thee.

Now rise up to the kingdom of man, survey the different human beings, the lowest and the highest,—what would each one have to say, who stands upon a higher rank of development than the others? Even as the plant bends down to the mineral and the animal to the plant; so each human being who stands upon a higher stage must bend down to those upon a lower stage and say; Thou standest upon a lower rank, yet to thee I owe the fact that I can be there!

Now imagine this carried out to the highest stages, reaching as far as Christ-Jesus, and you will have Christ's attitude towards the Apostles with whom He lived. He bent down towards them, even as the plant bends down to the mineral and washed their feet “I owe my life to you, and I bend down to you!”

For a long time the pupil had to pass through a scale of all these feelings. This feeling had to become more and more alive and then he awoke to the first stage of Christian Initiation. This can be felt through an outer and inner symptom: The outer symptom consists therein that the pupil really feels for a time as if the watery element were washing around his feet, and the inner symptom consists in the fact that he himself experiences the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John as an inner vision upon the astral plane.

The teacher then proceeded by telling the pupil: You must experience something else: you must now imagine that bodily and psychical pair and suffering rush towards you from every side; but you must arm yourself against everything so that you can say: However great the pain and suffering which come towards me, I remain upright, I do not allow myself to overthrown! This is called the Scourging. Its outer symptom is that one experiences on the skin's surface pains which are an indication that the soul has reached this stage. And the inner symptom is that one sees oneself upon the astral plane undergoing scourging. But the essential thing is that the soul gains in the form of inner experience.

The third thing which the pupil heard from his teacher was the following: Now you must develop a feeling that you do not only withstand every form of pain coming towards you, but that you remain upright and steady, even when the holiest
within you is cast down into the dust. You must remain so strong, that everyone can tell you, This is worth nothing. But even though people trample on you, you must know its worth, and you must be able to withstand a whole world.—If the pupil reached this stage, he was said to have reached the “Crowning with Thorns”. The outer symptom is to feel a certain pain in the head and the inner one, to see oneself in the situation of the Redeemer with the crown of thorns.

The fourth thing was the following: The teacher told his pupil: You must gain a new connection with your body. You dwell in your body, but you must look upon it as something quite strange, even as the table outside is a strange object for you. You must even learn to say: I am carrying my body through the world. The body must become for you, as alien as other external objects.—This was said to be the experience of the Crucifixion. Even as the Redeemer carried the Cross, so one carried one's body about, as if it were a piece of wood. The outer symptom for the Crucifixion consists in the stigmata. During the meditation the pupil could produce on his hands, feet and on the right side of his breast the signs of Christ's bleeding wounds; red spots on these places reminded him of the Crucifixion wounds. This “blood trial” is an outer symptom showing that one has learned t0 know the inner essence of Christianity. And the inner experience is to see oneself on astral vision hanging upon the Cross.

The fifth stage is what one calls the “Mystical Death”. This can only be described approximately, The Mystical death consists for the pupil in the fact that the whole world appears to him as if it were enveloped in black darkness, as if a black wall stood before him. The whole physical world appears to him as if it were blotted out, as if it had disappeared. This can be experienced. It is a moment revealing everything bad and evil which can exist in the world (in reality, it can only be known through this experience). In order to know life one must also pass through this experience. It is called the “Descent into Hell”, and it is followed by a strange event appearing before one's eyes; that black wall is rent asunder. This is the “Rending Of the Veil of the Temple”. After this one cam look into the spiritual world. This is designated as the “Mystical Death and the Rending of the Veil of the Temple”.

The sixth stage is the “Burial and the Resurrection”, where the pupil learns to experience that in addition to the other feelings, all external objects appear as if they belonged to his body, that the whole world belongs to him. Even as the finger might say: I an only a finger through the fact that I belong to the organism of the hand, so the human being only lives upon the earth through the fact that he belongs to the earth. People can walk about upon the earth, and consequently they think that they are independent. But if we permeate ourselves with the feeling that everything belongs to us, we have the experience designated as the “Burial”. Soul-spiritually we rest in the earth and only after this experience we rise again, spiritually. Only then can we have an understanding of the deed of Christ-Jesus who united death with his own soul; and even as He has once been the Ruler of the Sun, He has now become the Spirit of the Earth. We should take the words of St. John's Gospel literally: “Whoso eateth my bread, treadeth me underfoot.” If you look upon Christ-Jesus as the highest planetary Spirit of the Earth, and the earth as His body, you will understand that you literally tread the body of Christ-Jesus with your feet. And you become united with Him when you experience this sixth stage, of the Burial.

Then comes the seventh stage, the “Ascension”, which cannot be described, for it can only be understood by those who can think without using their brain.

Now I have described to you the process of the Christian Initiation. The pupil acquired thereby what was called the “Eye of Christ”. Everything, around you would be dark if you had no eyes; even as you cannot see the sun without eyes, so you cannot perceive Christ without the Christ-organ. The eye is born through the light for the light. Light is the source of vision. The sun must exist outside as real sun, and you experience this real sun within your eye. It is the same with the spiritual eye. We use empty words when speaking only of the “Christ within”; it is the same thing as speaking of the eye without taking into account the existence of the sun! The capacity to look upon the Christ may be acquired through the exercises indicated above; but the power enabling him to do this, again conies from the historical Christ. Even as the sun is related to the eye, so the Christ is related to the Christ-organ which develops in the human being.

This is not meant as, a. guidance, but as an explanation of facts. We must learn to know what exists in the world. These, lectures aim at showing the deep sources of the truly Christian spirit, and how the Gospel of St. John itself contains the methods of a Christian Initiation, giving in man the eye which enables him to see Christ Himself. But those who wish to announce Him, must in a certain way have lived with Him, not only through faith, but in reality.