The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Translated by Anna R. Meuss

Today we are to deal with the question of the ensoulment of creatures other than man, especially the question whether animals have any kind of soul. Such things appear superfluous to one who hurries by them without attention, and yet noted men of the past have already occupied themselves with them. Cartesius (Descartes), who at the beginning of the 17th Century was a keen renewer of the philosophy which decayed in the Middle Ages, put the question. But he regarded animals as machines—beings of which one could not really speak of a real ensoulment—reflex machines.

Whoever thoughtfully regards animal life can only share this view with difficulty. We need merely to point out that many animals in our environment perform actions, and enter into relationships even among themselves, which are difficult to imagine without a soul. One example is the faithfulness of the dog. We can only with difficulty give ourselves to the thought that nothing lives in its inner being analogous to what lives in man. If we consider certain performances, can we disregard a higher, spiritual activity? Let us consider, for example, a beaver's dam. This so artistically constructed performance would denote for a man a great spiritual effort. A deep wisdom lies, for instance, in the way certain beams are adapted most exactly in the correct angle, to the fall of the water, and the prevailing conditions.

Consider the ants. In each ant heap, you meet something like a wise state order of human beings—indeed transcending that of modern man. The ants are divided into three groups: workers, males, and females. It is demonstrable that the workers are very clever, the females more stupid, and the males very stupid. Everything in the structure is elaborately organized—the way they procure everything necessary for the building and for the rearing of the young, the way they lead their foraging expeditions, etc. If all this within a human state needs a soul, then we cannot deny an ensouling to these creatures. People always satisfy themselves with “instinct,” but they never attempt to think about anything underlying this “instinct.”

We must now also consider the other side, and not overlook the radical distinction between what man performs with his soul, and the animal with its soul. As an example, we will start from a definite fact. Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc.

If we want to make clear to ourselves the animal soul, we must start with this difference from the human soul. A further difference between the animal and human soul is that you can write a biography of each human soul, but not of the animal. That is very important. If you ask yourselves about your interests in different beings, you will find that you bring the same interest to an individual man as in the case of the animals, to a whole group of similar ones. Think of a lion. You feel the same towards the lion-grandfather, father, son, grandson, etc., but this idea would appear to you nonsensical, if applied to human beings.

It says nothing when a dog owner perhaps maintains that he could write a biography of his dog. You could also write a biography of a pen, or the differences in the life of a pin and a needle. That is only an overdrawn distinction. Just as strongly as one whole animal species differs from another, does the single individual person differ from another.

One common soul lives in the entire animal group. As your ten fingers are members of your hands, so are all wolves members of the wolf group soul.

Now we must enter more exactly into the nature of the human soul, which formerly was not as individualized as it is today. At one point of human evolution, man stood far closer to the group soul. Tacitus, one hundred years after Christ, gives us a picture of the different tribal groups. All members of a group then felt themselves belonging together, naturally with gradations, for everything in human evolution is in stages. All members of a group then looked alike. The markedly individual physiognomies are the sign of this freeing of the individual souls from the group soul. You still find today, among savages, more or less the same features. We must hold fast to this fact, that the physiognomy coming to expression is the proof that the individuality works formatively on the body. This will be more and more marked among the further evolved human races. A time will come when the racial character entirely recedes. If a soul incarnates, now in this, now in that nationality, then the national distinctions vanish, and each one will always only remember himself the more his individuality has worked itself out. Formerly, when marriage only took place within the tribe, the members held together like the fingers of the hand, one revenging the wrong done to another, as if it had happened to himself, etc. This cohesion disappeared more and more; the larger, and more general, the aggregation of human beings, all the more individual became the soul and character. A medley does not arise, but the more the distinctions fall away, the more does individuality arise.

Now, in what way are the human group souls distinguished from the animal? For this we must go back far into the story of their origin.

There was a time in which man did not yet live, as now, in his various bodily sheaths and spiritual germ of his being. I mean the Lemurian Age. At that time the highest beings were a kind of human-animal, with physical, etheric, astral bodies, and the tendency to the ego, but not yet the ego itself, beings that were adapted to take up the divine germ. The soul which now lives in their inner being, had not yet left the bosom of the Godhead. It still lived in a soul-spiritual stratum. Think of a vessel of water with 1000 drops, which pass over without separation into each other, thus forming a unity. Take 1000 tiny sponges, each one of which can absorb one drop, and immerse them. Then each will be filled with one drop. You must think similarly that the human sheaths absorb the divine germ; thereby they first become individual and independent.

Now imagine that in the beginning the soul did not take up its dwelling in each single one, but that one soul distributed itself as group soul among many. What today dwells in one, then inhabited a whole tribe. Here you must grasp a new concept. Such a group soul does not die. The beautiful, significant side of death is a specific privilege of the individual human soul. If one part of the group soul dies, then it immediately replaces it, like the tentacle you cut from a polypus. Thus the group soul, which does not descend to the physical plane, feels death as the loss of one member, and birth as the growing of a similar one. It has not the privilege of death. Only when a sense being says “It is I,” death begins to enter individual life. Man struggles for and attains his higher life through death. Unless death were overcome, he could not attain through it to higher life.

The soul of the animal is to be found on the astral plane, and is connected with each single member of its group by a thread. In order to understand how animal group souls arise, you must be clear what makes man the physical being that he is. When the divine germs descended, they found the bearers very different. Many were especially developed for conflict; others were similarly formed but more developed for work, for patience, etc., so that the various bodies differed greatly in development even in external form. What today exist as lower animals, as insects, etc., had already branched off during a former incarnation of the earth, and originated by themselves. We are now concerned only with animals from the fishes upwards. When that descent occurred into the waiting bodies, which outwardly (not inwardly) stood approximately at the stage of the fish body, there were no mammals yet existing. The human being who lived then had to move forward half swimming, half floating, and for this purpose had fin-like organs. That which took place in his body on earth, took place through the indwelling human soul. Only in the course of a long evolution was this body transformed to the present god-like body.

Many things remained stationary on this long path. Since, however, the earth was meantime transformed, this standing still caused a decline in the development of the bodies. Take two brothers—the one is transformed through the different ages of life, the other remains stationary at the childhood stage. At the age of 60, however, he no longer looks like a child. Thus the present fishes have come down and look different from how they looked formerly.

Humanity developed further, and fashioned everything to the mammalian body. Everywhere, again, are those who remain stationary—decadent human beings. If you really grasp aright, you will understand that all animals have aged at the youth stage, have aged too early, have adopted fixed forms which they should have gone beyond. They have, as it were, crystallized in their whole evolution. The upward development, indeed, now brought man into a peculiar position, with reference to certain characteristics. He lost security. Monkeys in captivity soon end through tuberculosis and other illnesses. Animals cannot stand the human way of life. Even as regards nourishment, they have a certain security. If a cow goes over a meadow, she knows exactly what plants are good for her. Man has that no more. He needs insecurity in order to come to freedom of choice. The present insecurity is necessary to reach security at a higher stage. Man adapts himself to higher stages. Thus his becoming insecure is the guarantee that he becomes independent. To have remained secure denotes something that has not advanced to the point where the ego can work in the individual being. We should wonder as little about animal wisdom as about the wisdom of our own hand. The single beaver is merely the handyman of the group soul on the astral plane.

The ant stands at quite a different stage from the beaver, and much further from us, because it already separated off at a much earlier planetary condition of the earth. In its one-sided development it has advanced much further than man. Man thinks, feels, wills, in fixed connection. If I see something which pleases me I grasp at it; the idea evokes the will. Without this interaction man would be very insecure. With the Chela, will, idea, and feeling are torn asunder, and must be quite separate. For general humanity that will first be attained at the Jupiter stage of the earth. But before he experiences this, the Guardian of the Threshold meets him, and gives him clarity about the whole of his previous life.

This falling apart into threefoldness has been gone through prematurely by certain animal group souls. As a matter of fact, individual parts in the brain of the Chela are differentiated like the ants in the ant hill. The ant has undertaken that prematurely and now remains like an unripe, clever child. The beaver group soul will have to make up for what it has missed; the ant soul has lost it once and for all, and goes quite other paths.

The animal souls are human souls that have become one-sided. Oken says: “The tongue is an ink fish.” Naturally, that is not to be taken literally. The being, however, in which the characteristics of the tongue have become too prominent, remains stationary at that point. Paracelsus uttered the profound words: If we survey nature we simply see separate letters and the word they form is the human being. Imagine all the different qualities which you find together in man, allocated to different bodies, then you need a group soul. Animals are human beings which have remained stationary in the one-sided development of their characteristics.

Man became a discoverer through the loss of security. The first element which he learned to put to his service was fire. Therewith he reached the first stage of civilization which made him a productive being. He is an encyclopedia of the different animal souls.

Now you must still be clear on one point. If you go to the lower animals, you will find that they cannot directly express pain and pleasure through sound. The insects, indeed, produce noises, but they are body noises. Occult science here makes a quite decisive distinction between the sounding animals and the non-sounding ones. But, first, in man, does the inner sound become word, speech. Even the highest animals have only one-sidedly developed sounds. In a later epoch the animal group souls, not the single animals, will become human beings but quite differently constituted from the man today. Even before Theosophy, Goethe felt this and expressed it wonderfully in his “Metamorphosis of Animals”; that they (animals) are like a man laid asunder, that the entire animal kingdom looks out from out of the human form.

Thus man says to all animal beings (speaking of himself), “All this, comprised in one, art thou!”

Question: Will further cleavages come in human evolution?

Answer: Yes, and in fact that is what is called in Theosophy “going through the Crisis.” We now stand in the Fifth Root Race. The Sixth Race will see quite another race, noble and beautiful, in contrast to the thrown off, decadence which will be a race of men, horribly ugly, animal-like, sensual, vicious, far more horror-provoking than our present humanity, because these will go on developing downwards. It is shown quite clearly in the Apocalypse how the division will occur in the so-called Last Judgment. He who is quite selfless can even now become ripe for the Sixth Race. He may still indeed continue to incarnate, but only in order to help the others. Many may perhaps find that the Judgment sounds harsh, but they have, as we know, the choice. Understand me aright, not for reincarnation, but for the Sixth Race.

Question: Why do old people become mentally weak, even if the soul cannot change?

Answer: The soul, indeed, does not change. It never descends from the stage once reached. But its instrument has become weak, like a great pianist who can no longer play as he played formerly, if he has a bad instrument. You will say the soul no longer knows its own stage. Yes, the soul does not see itself as long as it is in a physical body. There is only to be found the reflection of the soul, the mirror image. Now the mirror becomes clouded or broken. Then it can no longer reflect. The Chela is really the first able to perceive his soul.

Yesterday an attempt was made to give you an idea of Krishna's revelation and its relation to what entered later into human evolution, the revelation through the Christ. It was especially noted how the revelation of Krishna can appear to us as the conclusion of the clairvoyant, the primitive clairvoyant epoch of human development. If we once more place before our souls from this point of view the understanding we obtained yesterday about the revelation of Krishna as a conclusion, we may say that whatever was gained through this revelation is still present in human evolution, but in a certain way it has reached an end and can go no further. Some teachings handed down at that time must be accepted during all subsequent evolution just as they were given then.

Now it is necessary for us to study the peculiar nature of this revelation from one particular point of view. We might say that it does not really reckon with time and the sequence of time. Everything that does not reckon with time as a real factor is already contained in Krishna's teaching. What do we mean by this?

Every spring we see the plants spring forth from the earth, we see them grow and ripen, bring forth fruit and drop their seeds, and from these seeds when they have been laid in the ground we see similar plants begin to grow again in the same way, come to maturity and again develop their seeds. This process is repeated year after year. If we reckon with the time span that man is able to survey we must say that we are here concerned with a real repetition. The lilies of the valley, the primroses and hyacinths look the same every year. Their nature is repeated within them every year in the same way, in the same form. We can ascend further to the animal kingdom in a certain way, and we shall still find something similar in it. When we consider the individual animal, the separate species of lions, hyenas, the separate species of monkeys, we find that every creature is from the beginning directed to become what it does become. So we may with a certain justification say that no education is possible among the animals. Although some foolish persons have recently begun to apply all kinds of educational and pedagogical concepts to animals, this cannot be considered as something essential, nor does it lead to a correct characterization of animals. When we have short time-spans in mind we see this repetition in nature fundamentally confirmed, in the same way as we see how spring, summer, autumn and winter repeat themselves regularly through the centuries. Only when we consider really large spans of time, so large that they cannot in the first place be observed by man, would we see something resembling the need to take account of the concept of time. Then we should see how in the far distant past things happened differently from the way they do now, and we should, for example, be able to take into account the fact that the present way in which the sun rises and sets will in the far distant future be different. But these are realms which will come into our view only when we enter into the field of true spiritual science. But as regards what man is first of all able to observe, for example the field of astronomy, the fact of recurrence, the recurrence of the same or similar, holds good, as we can especially notice in the annual recurrence of plant forms. With this kind of recurrence time has no special significance; time itself, as time, is essentially not a real, active factor.

It is different when we think of individual human lives. As you all know, we also divide human life into successive, recurring periods. We distinguish one such period from birth to the coming of the second teeth, or about the seventh year, then a period from the seventh to the fourteenth year, to puberty, then one from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year, and so on. In short, we distinguish successive seven-year periods in individual human lives; and it is quite true to say that in these seven-year periods certain things recur. But far more striking than the mere recurrence is something else, the constant changing, the progress that is actually made. For human nature is quite different in the second period of seven years from what it was in the first period; and again in the third period it is different. We cannot say that in the case of man the first seven-year period repeats itself in the second, as we can say that the plant repeats itself in another plant. We can see that time as it passes plays a real role in human life. It has a meaning.

When we thus come to see how what is significant for the individual human being is applicable to all mankind, we can say that in the consecutive periods of evolution this can in a sense be seen to be true for both the individual and for humanity as a whole. We need not go beyond the postAtlantean epoch. Here we differentiate in this era the ancient Indian or first post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the Old Persian as the second, the Egypto-Chaldean as the third, the Greco-Roman as the fourth and our own as the fifth. Two more epochs will follow ours, until there is again a great catastrophe. This evolutionary progress in successive epochs does often show similarities that can be compared in a certain way with the kind of recurrence that may be observed, for example, in the plant kingdom. We see how these periods run their course so that in a certain respect at the beginning of each epoch humanity receives certain revelations; a stream of spiritual life is given to mankind as an impulse, in the same way as the plants of the earth receive an impulse in springtime. Then we see how a further development is built on the first impulse, how it bears fruit and then dies away when the period comes to an end, as plants wither at the approach of winter. However, in addition, something appears during the successive epochs that is similar to the progress of an individual human being, and of this we can say that time plays a significant role, and it proves to be a real factor. It is not only the case that in the second, the Old Persian epoch, seeds are again planted, as was the case in the first epoch, or that in the third epoch the same thing happened as in the first. The impulses are always different, always at a higher level and always new, in just the same way that in human life the seven-year periods can be differentiated, and there is progress.

Now that which came to humanity in the course of time came in such a way that we could say that the things which comprise the sum total of human knowledge were opened up to man slowly and gradually. Not all the streams of peoples and nations always had the same perceptions of things at the same time. Thus we see that in that human evolutionary stream that came to an end at about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the sense for time as a real factor was missing. Indeed, in all Eastern knowledge this sense of time as a real factor was fundamentally missing. Characteristically the Eastern knowledge has a sense for the recurrence of the same. Therefore everything that is concerned with recurrence is magnificently grasped by the knowledge of the East.

When we think of this recurrence of the same in successive cultural epochs, what is it that comes into consideration? Take, for example, the question of plant growth. We see how in springtime the plants shoot forth from the earth; we witness their “creation.” We see how these plants grow and flourish until they reach a kind of culmination. Then they wither, and in withering they carry in themselves the seed for a new plant. Thus we have to do here with a threefold process: coming into being, growth and flourishing, and then withering, and this withering is accompanied by the production of the seed of a similar plant. When time does not come into question, when it is a question of recurrence, then this principle of recurrence is best understood as a triad. It was the special talent of Oriental wisdom, pre-Christian wisdom, to understand recurring development as a triad. The grandeur of this ancient world view was limited by what we may think of as a predisposition in favor of events that recur and are timeless. And when this world view comes to a conclusion, trinities confront us everywhere, and fundamentally these represent the clairvoyant perception of what lies behind coming into being, passing away, and renewal. Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, this trinity of creative forces is the foundation of all things. In the time preceding Krishna's revelation it was recognized as a trinity that could be perceived through clairvoyance, and it was seen as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The image of this trinity exists wherever time is seen only as the successive recurrence of the same.

The significance of a new era is recognized when the gift of seeing events in historical perspective arises, that is, when time is taken into account in relation to evolution, when time is looked upon as a real factor. It was a special task of Western knowledge to develop a historical sense, to penetrate into the truths of history. And the two streams in human evolution coming from East and West differ in that the East looks at the world unhistorically, while the West, prompted by a new impulse, begins to look at the world from a historical point of view. It was the world view of the Hebrews that gave the first impulse to this historical viewpoint.

Let us now consider together what the essential elements of the Oriental world view actually are. We are always told of recurring world ages, of what happens at the beginning of the first and at the end of the first cosmic age. Then we are told of the beginning of the second world age, and its end, then the beginning of the third and its end. And the secret of world development is correctly presented when it is said that when the ancient culture of the third world age had become dry and arid and the culture had entered the phase of autumn and winter, then there appeared Krishna. The son of Vasudeva and Devaki, his task was to sum up for later ages, namely for the fourth period, what could be carried from the third into the fourth period as the germ, the new seed for that period. The individual world ages appear to us like successive years in the life of a plant. In the Oriental world view the cycles of time, which constantly recur, are the essential element.

Now let us compare these world views in their timelessness, their profoundest aspect, with what confronts us in the Old Testament. What a mighty difference we find from the world views of the East! Here we perceive as an essential part of this view a real continuous line in time. We are first led to Genesis, to the Creation, and linked to Creation is the whole history of mankind. We see a continuous sequence through the seven days of Creation, through the era of the patriarchs, from Abraham down through Isaac and Jacob, everything developing, everything a part of history. Where is there any recapitulation? The first day of Creation is by no means repeated in an abstract way in the second. The patriarchs are not repeated in the prophets, nor does the era of the kings repeat the era of the judges. In due course comes the time of the captivity. We are everywhere led through an entire dramatic process, in which time plays a real part as it does in an individual human life. Irrespective of what is repeated time is shown as a real factor in all that happens. The special element in the picture presented by the Old Testament is progress. The Old Testament is the first great example of a historical approach to events, and it is this historical approach that was bequeathed to the West.

Men learn only slowly and gradually what in the course of time has been revealed to them; and we may say that in a certain sense when there are new revelations there is a kind of reversion to what had gone before. Great and significant things were revealed at the beginning of the theosophical movement. But it was an extraordinary feature of this revelation that the historical approach permeated the movement very little. You can convince yourselves of this especially if you glance at Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism,¹ which in other respects is an excellent and meritorious book. All the chapters in it that are pervaded by history will be found acceptable by the Western mind. But side by side with this is another element that we may call an “unhistorical” element, curious passages in which large and small cycles are spoken of, the procession of rounds and races, where the material is presented in such a way that recurrence is of central importance—how the third round follows after the second, how one root-race follows after the other root-race, one subrace follows after the other subrace, and so on. One really becomes caught up in a kind of working of a clock, and the greatest importance is given to recurrence. This was a reversion to a kind of thinking that had already been outgrown by mankind, for the way of thinking suited to western culture is in truth historical.

What is the consequence of this historical element that belongs to Western culture? Precisely the knowledge of the one focus of all earthly development. The Orient regarded development as similar to the process of plant growth that recurs every year. Thus the individual great initiates appeared in each period and repeated—at all events it was what they repeated that was especially stressed—what had been done earlier. It was particularly emphasized in an abstract manner how each initiate was only a particular form of the one who continues his development from epoch to epoch. There was in the East a special interest in picturing how this continuous development of the same also is easily seen in the plant world as the form reveals itself each year, and the individual years are not distinguished from each other. Only in one particular case do people notice that there is a difference from year to year. If someone wants to describe a lily or a vine leaf it is of no consequence whether the plant grew in 1857 or 1867, for lilies all resemble each other if they belong to a particular variety of lily. But when what we may think of as the general, recurring, identical “Apollonian” element passes over into the “Dionysian,” even in the realm of plant life, then we attach special importance to the fact that individual “vintages” do differ, and it becomes important to distinguish the different years. In all other cases no one cares whether a lily flowered in 1890 or 1895.

Similarly, the Orient saw no particular point in distinguishing the incarnation of the Boddhisattva in the third epoch from his incarnation in the second or first epoch. This comparison should not be carried too far, however. For the Easterner the Boddhisattva was always an incarnation of the One. This abstract concentration on the One, this tendency to look for the One, demonstrates the unhistorical nature of Oriental thought; and fundamentally this is equally characteristic of all the unhistorical conceptions of the pre-Christian era. The single exception is the historical point of view that appears in the Old Testament. In the case of the Old Testament this historical viewpoint was only a beginning, which reached a more perfected stage in the New Testament. The important thing here is to look at the whole line of development, as such, and not confine ourselves to looking at what is repeated in the individual cycles, but rather to try to see what constitutes the focus of all development. Then we shall be justified in saying that it is absolute nonsense to say that there can be no such focus of development.

This is the point about which the various peoples, scattered across the world, must come to an understanding: the subject of historical development. The first thing they must realize is that for a true and genuine study of mankind it is absolutely vital to take the historical element into consideration. Even today one may have the experience that if a true and genuine Christianity is taken to the East—not a fanatical or denominational Christianity—but a Christianity that wishes to hold its own beside the other Eastern religions, then one may be received with the words, “It is true that you have only the one God who incarnated only once, in Palestine. But we are ahead of you for we have many embodiments of God.” For an Oriental such an answer would be a matter of course. It is connected with his special gift for looking always for the recurrence of the One. By contrast, what is important for the Westerner is that everything should have a center of gravity. So if people speak of several incarnations of Christ they are making the same mistake as if they were to say that it is ridiculous to pretend that only one fulcrum is needed for a pair of scales, and that the load on one side is balanced by the weights on the other; and moreover that the pair of scales can be supported in two, three or four places. But this of course is nonsense—a pair of scales can have only one fulcrum. So if we wish to understand evolution as a whole we must look for the one fulcrum, the single center of gravity, and not think it would be better if we looked for successive incarnations of the Christ. Regarding this question the nations and peoples spread across the world will have to come to the understanding that in the course of human history it was necessary for men to come to a historical way of thinking, to a concept of history, as the only conception in a higher sense truly worthy of man.

This manner of looking at human evolution from a historical standpoint came about only very slowly; it began in the most primitive conditions. We find this historical evolution first indicated in the Old Testament through the repeated emphasizing of the nature of the people of the Old Testament, how they belong to the bloodstream of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, how the blood flows through successive generations; fundamentally what develops in this people is a form of descent through the blood, of propagation through the blood. As a man progresses through the successive periods in his life and time plays its part in this process, so it is also in the case of the entire people of the Old Testament. And if we examine the process down to its very details we shall find that in truth the sequence of the generations of the Old Testament peoples is analogous to the life of an individual human being insofar as he develops naturally, developing in himself everything that we may think of as being possible through his physical disposition. What could happen as a result of the passing on of his heritage from father to son as an invariable process is described for us in the Old Testament; and it also describes the kind of religious faith that came into being because later generations always clung to those who were their blood relatives. The significance to be attached to the bloodstream in the natural life of the individual human being is made applicable to the entire people of the Old Testament. And just as the soul element, as it were, emerges in individual man at a particular time and plays a specific part in his life, so—and this is an especially interesting fact—does something similar occur in the historical evolution of the Old Testament.

Let us take the case of a child. Here we see that nature predominates; its bodily needs are at first dominant. The soul-element is still concealed within the body; it does not wish to emerge fully. Bodily well-being is produced through pleasant external impressions; unpleasant, painful impressions of the external world are also reflected in the manifestations of the child's soul-nature. Then the child grows up, and through his natural development his soul-element begins to be dominant; we then enter a stage in life—the age varies in different people, but in general this occurs in the twenties—when men give full expression to the element of soul that is within them. Purely bodily pains and necessities recede into the background and the soul configuration emerges in a marked manner. There follows a period during which the soul-element in man is inclined to recede more into the background—and this period will be longer or shorter in different men. It may happen that a man will retain his specific soul-nature his whole life long. Nevertheless something else is really present, even if in his twenties someone persists in emphasizing what he is, as if the world had been only waiting for just that specific soul-element that he bears within him. This is likely to happen especially when a man has strong spiritual potential, as, for example, when he possesses a marked talent for philosophy. It then seems as if the world had only been waiting until he came and established the correct philosophical system, for which only his soul configuration was suited. And it may happen that what is right and good may emerge in this way. Then there comes a time when we begin to see what the world may give through others. Then we allow something different to speak through ourselves, and we take up what others have achieved before us.

The whole body of the ancient Hebrew people is presented in the Old Testament as analogous to an individual man. We see how in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob everything in this people develops through its racial characteristics. And if you follow up what has been described here you will say that it was certain racial characteristics that provided the impulses in the Old Testament. Then came the time when this people formed its soul, in the same way that individual man forms his personal soul in his twenties. It is at this point that the prophet Elijah appears, for Elijah seems in himself like the whole soul peculiar to the Hebrew people. After him came the other prophets of whom I spoke a few days ago, telling you that they were the souls of the widely varying initiates of other peoples who came together in the people of the Old Testament. Now the soul of this people listens to what the souls of the other peoples have to say. What Elijah left behind and what the souls of other peoples have to say through their prophets, who now reincarnate in the people of the Old Testament, is blended as in a great harmony or symphony.

Thus did the body of the old Hebrew people come to maturity. Then in a certain way it dies by retaining only the spiritual, what remains spiritual, in its faith and religion, as we see so wonderfully in the picture of the Maccabees. We could say, “Here appears in a picture of the Maccabees the Old Testament people, now grown old, slowly lying down to rest in its old age, yet at the same time proclaiming, through the sons of the Maccabees, its awareness of the eternity of the human soul. The eternity of individual man confronts us as the consciousness of the people. And it seems as though while the body of the people is sinking to its destruction, its soul continues as a soul seed in an entirely new form. Where is this soul to be found?

This Elijah-soul is at the same time the soul of the Old Testament people, as it enters the Baptist and lives in him. When he was imprisoned and then beheaded by Herod, what happened then to his soul? This we have already indicated. His soul left the body and worked on as an aura; and into the domain of this aura Christ Jesus entered. Where then is the soul of Elijah, the soul of John the Baptist? The Mark Gospel indicates this clearly enough. The soul of John the Baptist, of Elijah, becomes the group soul of the Twelve; it lives, and continues to live in the Twelve. We can say that it is artistically and pictorially shown in a remarkable manner how the teaching of Christ Jesus, his way of teaching, differed when he taught the crowd and when he taught his own individual disciples—and this, even before the Mark Gospel has told us of the death of John the Baptist. We have already spoken of this. However, a change takes place when the soul of Elijah is freed from John the Baptist and works on further in the Twelve as a group soul. And this is indicated, for from this time onward—this is quite clear if we read the passage and reread it—Christ makes greater demands on His disciples than before. He calls upon them to understand higher things. And it is very remarkable what He expects them to understand, and what later on He reproaches them for not understanding. Read it in the Gospel just as it is written. I have already referred to one aspect of these events, namely that mention was made of an increase of bread when Elijah went to the widow at Sareptah, and how, when the soul of Elijah was freed from John the Baptist, again an increase of bread is reported. But now Christ Jesus demands of His disciples that they should understand in particular the meaning of this increase of bread. Before that time He had not spoken to them in such terms. Now they ought to understand what was the destiny of John the Baptist after he had been beheaded through Herod, what happened in the case of the feeding of the five thousand when the fragments of bread were collected in twelve baskets, and what happened when the four thousand were fed from seven loaves and the fragments were collected in seven baskets. So He said to them:

“Do you notice and understand nothing? Are your souls still in the darkness? You have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear, and you do not think of what I did. I broke the five loaves for the five thousand. How many baskets of the fragments did you gather?” They answered, “Twelve.”

“And when seven loaves were divided among four thousand, how many basketsful of fragments did you gather?” And they answered, “Seven.”

Then he said to them, “Do you still not understand?” (Mark 8:17-21.)

He reproaches them severely because they cannot understand the meaning of these revelations. Why does He do this? Because the thought was in His mind, “Now that the spirit of Elijah has been freed, he lives in you, and you must gradually prove yourselves worthy of his penetration into your souls, so that you may understand things that are higher than what you have hitherto been able to understand.” When Christ Jesus spoke to the crowd, He spoke in parables, in pictures, because there was still in their souls an echo of what had formerly been perceived in the super-sensible world in imaginations, in imaginative knowledge. For this reason He had to speak to the crowd in the way used by the old clairvoyants. To those who came out of the Old Testament people and became His disciples He could interpret the parables in a Socratic manner, in accordance with ordinary human reasoning capacities. He could speak to the new sense that had been given to mankind after the old clairvoyance had died out. But because Elijah's spirit as a group soul came near to the Twelve and permeated them like a common aura, they could, or at least it was possible for them to become in a higher sense clairvoyant. Enlightened as they were through the spirit of Elijah-John they could, when the Twelve were united together, perceive what they could not attain as individual men. It was for this that Christ wished to educate them.

To what end did He wish to educate them? Fundamentally what is this story of the increase of bread, the first time the division of five loaves among five thousand and the gathering of twelve basketsful of fragments? Then the second time, when seven loaves were divided among four thousand, with seven basketsful over? This has been a difficult theme for commentators. In our time they have come to an agreement and simply say that the people had brought bread with them, and when they had been made to sit down in rows they unpacked their fragments. Even those who wish to adhere to the letter of the Gospel story seem to have agreed on this interpretation. But when things are taken in this external manner they are reduced to nothing but external trappings and external ceremony; and one cannot tell why the whole story should have been related at all. On the other hand we cannot of course think of black magic, though if a plentiful quantity of bread had really been conjured up out of five or seven loaves respectively then it would indeed have been black magic. But it can neither be a question of black magic, nor yet a process found satisfactory by Philistines who suppose that the people had brought bread with them and unpacked it. Something special is meant by the story. I have indicated this when I interpreted the other Gospels, and in this Gospel it is clearly indicated what is the point at issue:

And the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him everything they had done and what they had taught. And he said to them: “Withdraw to a solitary place apart and rest for a short time.” (Mark 6:30-31.)

We should pay careful attention to this saying. Christ Jesus sends His apostles away to a solitary place so that they could rest for a while; that is to put themselves into a condition which comes naturally when one goes into solitude. What now do they see? In this different condition what do they see? They are led into a new kind of clairvoyance, which they are able to enter because the spirit of Elijah-John now overshadows them. Until this time Christ has interpreted the parables for them; now He allows a new clairvoyance to come over them. And what do they see? They see in comprehensive pictures the development of humanity, they see how the peoples of the future gradually come near to the Christ Impulse. The disciples see in the spirit what is described here as the multiple increase of bread. It is an act of clairvoyance. And like other such clairvoyant perceptions it flits past if one is not accustomed to it. It is for this reason that the disciples could not understand it for so long.

In the lectures that are to follow we shall have to occupy ourselves ever more intensively with the fact, especially evident in the Mark Gospel, that the stories concerned with outer events in the world of the senses pass over little by little into reports of clairvoyant moments and the Gospel is then understandable only through spiritual research. Let us, for example, imagine ourselves in the period just after the beheading of John, and let us suppose ourselves to be affected by the Christ Impulse, which was already in the world. From the point of view of ordinary sense perception Christ first of all seems to us like a lonely personality, unable to achieve much. But a clairvoyant vision, schooled in a modern manner, perceives the element of time. Christ did not appear only to those who were living then in Palestine, but to all who will appear in future generations. All of them gather around Him; and what He is able to give to them He gives to thousands upon thousands. This is the way the apostles see Him. They see Him actively working from His own epoch onward through countless millennia, casting His impulse forward spiritually into all perspectives of the future. They perceive how all human beings of the future come near. In this process they are indeed in very special measure united with the Christ.

We must especially recognize that from now on the entire presentation of the Mark Gospel is permeated by the spiritual. How the Gospel grows ever more profound because of this permeation we shall perceive in the lectures that are to follow. But let us focus our attention on one thing—a scene that can be understood only through the spiritual scientific method of research. This scene follows closely on the one we have just quoted:

And Jesus and his disciples went into the areas around Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “What do people say of me? Who do they say I am?”

So they told him, “Some say you are John the Baptist; others that you are Elijah, and yet others that you are one of the prophets.”

And he asked them, “What about you? Who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered and told him, “You are the Christ.”

And he warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach then that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes; and that he would undergo death and after three days be raised. And he spoke quite openly of the matter.

Then Peter went close to him and began to scold him. But he turned round and when he saw his disciples he scolded Peter in this way. “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking only of what is convenient for men, not for God.” (Mark 8:27-33.)

Surely a tough nut for Gospel commentators to crack! For what does the entire passage really mean? Unless we engage in spiritual research nothing in the passage is comprehensible. Christ asks the disciples, “Who do the people say I am?” And they answer, “Some say you are John the Baptist!” But John the Baptist had been beheaded a short time before, and in any event Christ was already teaching while John was still alive! Could the people have been talking such obvious nonsense when they took Christ for John the Baptist while the Baptist was still living? It might have been still acceptable when they said He was Elijah or another prophet. But then Peter says, “You are the Christ!” That is to say, he reveals something of a sublime nature that could have been spoken only from the holiest part of his being. Then, a few lines later, Christ is supposed to have told him, “Satan, get behind me. You are thinking only of what is convenient for men, not for God.” Is it possible for anyone to believe that after Peter had made his sublime affirmation Christ would have insulted him by calling him Satan? Or can one believe what was said just before, that Christ warned them not to tell anyone about Him, that is to say, to tell no one that Peter believes Him to be the Christ? Then the Gospel goes on to say, “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer much, and be rejected and killed, and then after three days be raised. And he spoke quite openly about the matter.” Then after Peter scolded Him because of what He had said He calls Peter a “Satan.” But most curious of all is the remaining passage where it is said that “Jesus and his disciples went into the areas around Caesarea Philippi,” and the rest. The Gospel always tells how they speak to Him, and then later it is said, “and he began to teach them ...” and so on. But then it says, “But he turned around, and when he saw his disciples he scolded Peter.” Earlier it is said that He spoke to them and taught them. Did He do all this with His back turned to them? For it is said that “he turned around and saw his disciples.” Did He really turn His back on them and talk into the air?

You see what a tangle of incomprehensible things is to be found in this single passage. We can only marvel that such things are accepted without ever looking for real and truthful explanations. But if you look at the Gospel commentaries they either hurry over such passages or they are interpreted in a most curious way. It is true that there have been some discussions and controversies; but few will claim they have made them any wiser.

At this moment we wish to stick to only one point, and bring before our souls a picture of what has been said. We pointed out that after the death of John the Baptist when the soul of Elijah-John passed over into the disciples as a group soul, then the first true “miracle” was accomplished, and it will become ever clearer how this word is to be understood. Here we come upon a completely incomprehensible passage in which Christ Jesus is portrayed as having said to His disciples, “What do people believe is now happening?” In truth the question can be put also in this way, for what concerned these people most of all was what the source of these actions was, where these happenings came from. To this the disciples reply, “People think it has something to do with—to use a trivial expression—John the Baptist, or it has to do with Elijah or one of the other prophets. And because of this connection the deeds that we have witnessed have taken place.”

So Christ Jesus then asks, “But where do you believe these things come from?” and now Peter answers, “They come from the fact that you are the Christ.” With these words Peter, in the sense of the Mark Gospel, placed himself through this knowledge at the midpoint of the evolution of mankind. For what did he actually say with these words? Let us picture to ourselves what he said.

In former times it was the initiates who were the great leaders of humanity, those who were taken up to the final stage of initiation in the sacred mysteries. It was these men who approached the gate of death, who had been immersed in the elements, had remained for three days outside their bodies and during these three days were in the super-sensible worlds. Then they were brought back again into their bodies and became thereafter emissaries, ambassadors from the super-sensible worlds. It was always those initiates who had become initiates by means such as these who were the great leaders of mankind. Now Peter says, “You are the Christ,” that is, “You are a leader who has not gone through the mysteries in this way but has come down from the cosmos and become a leader of mankind.” Something which in all other cases had happened in a different way, through initiation, was now to take place on the earth plane once and for all as a historical fact. It was something colossal that Peter had just proclaimed. So what had he to be told? He had to be told that this was something that must not be brought before the people. It is something that according to the most sacred laws of the past must remain a mystery; it is not permissible to speak of the mysteries. That is what Peter had to be told at that moment.

Yet the whole meaning of the further evolution of humanity is that with the Mystery of Golgotha something that otherwise took place only in the depths of the mysteries had now been manifested on the plane of world history. Through what happened on Golgotha, the lying in the grave for three days, the resurrection, through this what otherwise had taken place only in the depths and darkness of the mysteries was placed historically on the earth plane. In other words, the moment in time had now come when what had hitherto been regarded as a sacred law: that silence must be preserved about the mysteries, must be broken. The law that one has to be silent about the mysteries had been established by men. But now, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the mysteries must become manifest! Within the soul of the Christ a decision was taken, the greatest world-historical decision, when He resolved that what until now had always, according to human law, been kept secret must now be made manifest before the sight of all, before world history.

Let us think of this moment in world history when the Christ meditated and reflected in this way, “I am looking at the whole development of mankind. The laws of mankind forbid me to speak about death and resurrection, about raising from the dead, and about the sacred mystery of initiation. Yet no! I have in truth been sent down to the earth by the Gods to make these things manifest. It is not for me to conform to what people say, but I must act in conformity with what the Gods tell me.” It is in this moment that the decision to make the mysteries manifest is prepared. And Christ must shake off the irresolution that might arise from a wish to maintain within human evolution what human commands have enjoined. “Get behind me, irresolution, and decision, grow in me, the decision to place before all mankind what hitherto has been kept in the depths of the mysteries.” Christ addresses His own resolution after He had rejected everything that could make Him irresolute when He says, “Get behind me,” and at this moment He resolves to fulfill what He had been sent down to earth by God to accomplish.

In this passage we have to do with the greatest monologue in world history, the greatest that has ever taken place in the whole of earth evolution, the monologue of a God about making manifest the mysteries. No wonder that the God's monologue is from the beginning incomprehensible to the human intellect. If we wish to penetrate into its depths we must wish, at least in some measure, to make ourselves worthy of understanding the God's monologue through which the deed of the God moves one step further towards realization. More of this tomorrow.

• 1. Sinnet, A. P., 1840–1921. His Esoteric Buddhism was published in London in 1883, and a German translation appeared the following year.

I. Instruction Class, Berlin, April 15, 1908

Based on John, chapter 11.

Easter is not only celebrated at this time because it is the beginning of spring; it has a much deeper significance. In ancient times, the group ego, the tribal ego, lived in people. In the initiated (Moses, Hermes, Buddha, Krishna, Zarathustra), the consciousness of the entire tribe was reflected. When they were initiated, they were out of the physical body with their etheric body and saw the essence of the entire tribe. On their return, they then laid this down in the law that they gave to their people. As a result, they became responsible for the sins committed against this law and had to reincarnate among their people until the people's karma was paid off. This was the case for all initiates before Christ, who received the revelation from within in the initiation sleep. Solomon, who was of the Abel-Seth people, belonged to this type of initiate. With these ancient initiates, the group soul of the people united with their etheric body during the initiation. It also lived in them afterwards. Therefore, they all had to undergo many incarnations.

Those who were not initiates in ancient times and did not belong to a people who received the revelations through such initiates - who lived scattered, who had to gather knowledge even from the physical world, were the Cain sons. One such was Hiram Abiff, who had gathered knowledge through life in the physical body and elevated it to wisdom. He expressed his wisdom in the building of temples. It was not the God within who revealed the wisdom to him, as it did to the descendants of the Abel-Seth sons, but it was the knowledge gained in physical existence. The Abel-Seth initiates were under the influence of Jehovah. In the twilight of their consciousness they were given the higher knowledge under the influence of the moon deity (Yahweh).

At that time, Hiram Abiff reached the limit of initiation. But he was only initiated later. For this, the spiritual sun had to come down to earth. This descended into the physical plane in the Christ. Only He could initiate Hiram Abiff. The clear [spiritual] Sun had to shine upon him at the initiation. He was Lazarus, who after the resurrection was called John. He was initiated by the Christ Jesus. That which Hiram Abiff had acquired through his life in the physical had to remain. Not the life of the group, but each individual incarnation should now become important. Every single incarnation was to add a leaf to the Book of Life, a leaf whose content was taken over into the spiritual, something that remained, that could no longer pass away, but was to remain until all future times. This is what Hiram Abiff represents.

Emphasis is placed not on an inner experience, in which the tribal nature is manifested, but on the one incarnation that has significance for all of the future.

Before this initiation of Hiram Abiff by Christ Jesus could take place, the spiritual sun, the sun, had to appear in spring and the old principle had to recede. The sun had to shine first with its light on the full moon, only then could the day of resurrection take place. Christ brought the new principle in place of the old Jehovah principle, that is why the Pharisees hated him, the representatives of the old principle. And when they realized that He represented this new teaching and brought the new initiation, they sought to kill Him after the resurrection of Lazarus. (“This man performs many signs and wonders.”)

In Christ Jesus, the soul of all mankind united with the Jesus bodies. The Christ was only once incarnated in the flesh. He will come again, but no longer in the flesh, only when humanity will recognize him in his etheric body.¹

Note: The folk spirit that united with Moses at the initiation and then lived in him was Michael.

II. Instruction lesson Berlin, April 15, 1908 (notes from another hand)

1. The resurrection of Lazarus

2. Why did the Pharisees want to seize and kill Christ afterwards?

3. Why does Easter fall on the first Sunday after the moon has become full after the spring equinox, March 21?

The resurrection of Lazarus is a kind of climax of the Gospel of John. It is an initiation, the course of which is told here - but a very special, very unique initiation. The initiations that had been carried out in the depths of the mystery centers in the pre-Christian era were of a completely different nature. In these pre-Christian times there were great, high initiates and also lesser ones. The greatest initiates: Moses, Hermes, Zoroaster – also Buddha and Krishna, who were also the lawgivers of their people, had undergone their initiation in such a way that the etheric body was taken out of the physical body for a period of three and a half days, and during this time the person to be initiated experienced the spiritual worlds in his etheric body.

In the past, the common bond of love was based on shared blood: People who belonged to the same tribe loved each other. The I of the tribe went through many generations; the individual human being had no validity. Everyone looked up to the patriarch - the Jew, for example, to his patriarch Abraham. One felt that one belonged to him as a Jew, one said: I am nothing - I and Father Abraham are one. This sense of belonging went from the individual member of the tribe to the patriarch like a ray of light. The initiate saw this ray of light, he saw the whole nation as embedded in its spiritual essence, which was expressed in the peculiarities of the nation and emanated from the patriarch. He saw all this clearly before him as he lay in the sleep of death. Yes, even more: the group soul of his people entered into him. He was now the group soul of the people. Thus, during his initiation, Moses was united with Michael. The laws that such an initiate then gave to his people were born out of the soul of the people themselves. And in formulating them, in setting them forth, the initiate became responsible for them. He had to incarnate again and again within his people. And the sins of his people against the law were his sins. He was karmically linked to them. The sins of the people lay on his karma. These great initiates who took this on were fully aware of this.

All these ancient initiates belonged to the Abel-Seth line. That is to say, they received enlightenment from above. The enlightenment came to them from the lunar forces. It was the forces of Yahweh that they received. And they received them not in the bright light of the sun, but in the darkness. Their etheric body received these Yahweh forces from the spiritual world, while the physical body lay as if in a sleep of death.

This was now to change. The people of the Cain current, those who had worked their way up from below through the work of their hands, had come so far that they could elevate the science they had gained for themselves to wisdom, that is, they could be initiated. The physical body had imprinted its impressions on their etheric bodies. Through their own labor they had purified, ennobled, spiritualized their physical bodies and their souls. These children of Cain were scattered throughout the world, and Hiram Abiff is named as the first of these scattered children of Cain in the world who had worked his way up so far. Hiram Abiff, the lonely hermit, stood before initiation. In his next incarnation he received it. Then he was called “Lazarus” - for in his previous incarnation, Lazarus was Hiram Abiff.

And this initiation of Lazarus was different from all previous ones. Until then, the initiates had received the lunar-Yahweh forces, that is, the forces concerning the mystery of birth and procreation, and each had received the forces of the people to which he belonged. But now the lunar force was no longer to be effective. Now the time had come when the all-embracing power of the sun, the Christ power, which is the power of all humanity, was to be bestowed upon humanity. This power of all humanity was to initiate Lazarus. The lunar forces were to be defeated by the more comprehensive solar power, which shines for all people. No longer should only blood count, flowing through the tribe, the people. From now on, only that which each individual human being works for in his soul should count. Every single human being within his incarnation should from now on have value, the individual incarnation should be consecrated to the striving for sanctification, spiritualization, no matter what name a person is called. This is the deepest idea of Christianity.

From now on, each incarnation should be like a leaf on which the eternal values of the struggling, striving human soul can be recorded. And at the end of such an incarnation, such a leaf should be placed in the Book of Eternity, which should contain ever greater values, ever deeper meanings, ever greater enrichments for each individual human being. These are the fruits of life that each individual human being should work for in his or her individuality, alone in constant striving. And then he should deposit these fruits of life in the bosom of all humanity, so that they can be integrated into the progress of all humanity.

The Christ is the great divine individuality who once appeared on earth in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, and once lived an incarnation that all striving, seeking human souls can look to as the great model and ideal for their individual striving. The Christ appeared in the flesh only once! But he will appear on earth again! He will reappear in a spiritual body, and those people who, through the striving of their souls, have spiritualized themselves to such an extent, will recognize him in his spiritual body and will be able to live with him.

This Christ, the high sun spirit, initiated Lazarus, the reincarnated Hiram-Abiff.

This meant, however, a radical break with the previous initiation principle. This was fully recognized by the Pharisees, who were also initiates, and this filled them with fear and terror. They recognized what was going on, but they also saw that from now on, if this new principle were to prevail, their own power would be over. From that time forth, they sought to destroy the bearer of the new principle of initiation, and it is they who finally made it possible for the Christ to be led to his death.

It is said of Lazarus that he was the disciple whom the Lord loved. And later it is said that John was the one who rested on the Lord's breast. There is a profound secret of soul development hidden behind these two statements, which we find in the Gospel of John.

Now we also understand why Easter falls at the time of each year when the young spring sun looks the moon full at the spring equinox in the face. She is said to be victorious over the lunar forces. Christ, the Sun-God, conquers the Moon-God! Therefore, in spring, when the sun has regained its full strength, the moon must look the sun full in the face before it is conquered by it. Thus Easter is a festival that reminds us that the human soul rises from the sleep of death within matter, looking up to the Christ-Sun, living in its light, striving in its love, can receive the new life, the resurrection life.

III. Instruction lesson without place or date given with the heading “The mission of man on earth”

When a person begins to ask himself who he actually is, how he can feel this way inside, it must gradually become clear to him that he feels like an ego-entity, and that everything he experiences in terms of joys and pains, everything that drives him to act, is grouped around this center and receives its true impulse from there. Separated from other beings, different from them, is the human being in his sense of self; and yet it is only through this sense of self that it is possible for him to consciously connect with his environment. With regard to the physical body, which visibly, perceptibly represents to the outside world what the human being feels inside as being on one's own, as if he were a being separated from the environment, it becomes clear to him that the heart is the actual center. The heart animates the other organs, in that the invigorating blood is sent from there to the smallest parts of the physical body.

Just as the I is the inner center from which all impulses for the revelation of the human being flow out into the environment, and to which all sensations from the outside world return, being absorbed and processed there, so the invigorating blood flows from the heart through the whole body and then returns to this center. The heart represents an expression of the I-effectiveness in the physical body.

There are two kinds of activity in both the human ego and the physical heart: outward sending and inward receiving and reworking. Just as the returning blue blood is transformed back into red living blood with the help of the breathing process through the lungs, so the experiences that the human ego absorbs from the environment must pass through the feelings and sensations of the astral body and thereby become stimuli for new activity. The human heart accomplishes its effect according to a certain tempo; a short while, a period of time, passes between the successive heartbeats. Thus, the human ego also needs a certain period of time between the arising of the impulse to act and the processing of the sensations, which thereby react from the outside world onto the ego. This tempo will be different for each person, depending on their individual disposition and level of development.

But if a person wants to gradually penetrate to the knowledge of their own being, they must try to understand their own appropriate tempo, listen to their own heartbeat and get to know the inner life of their being. He must be able to see his own being as if it did not belong to him. He must learn to observe it as something external to him, and only then can he gradually descend into it. Just as he previously sent his impulses out into the world around him, he will then transform his powers and turn them inwards instead of outwards. In this way, the inner world becomes the outer world for him.

What man finds when descending into his own interior, first into his three bodily sheaths, is beautifully described in the legend of the temple handed down to mankind from ancient times, in which is symbolically laid the whole course of the evolution of the earth in relation to the building of the temple of the human body - and the evolution of the human ego.

It is told how the great master builder Hiram Abiff wanted to enter the temple once more to see his work. When he wanted to leave the temple again, the first of the three treacherous journeymen met him at the first gate and struck him on the left temple so that the blood flowed down onto his shoulder. Then the Master turned to the other gate, where the second of the treacherous companions struck him and gave him a blow to the right temple, so that the blood flowed down. Then the Master turned to the last of the gates, where the third of the treacherous companions struck him with a blow to the forehead, so that the Master fell dead to the ground.

When the human ego descends into its three sheaths, it first encounters the astral body. It senses this astral body as it truly is. As if by a blow, the ego becomes aware and recognizes itself in this astral sheath. It encounters doubt in everything and in itself. Through this, it is attacked. This is the first of the treacherous companions.

Next, the person then encounters his etheric body, into which he descends. And again he comes to know himself as he is in this body, as if it is suddenly brought to his attention. Then superstition confronts him: all beliefs, all opinions that have been acquired through education. This is the second of the treacherous companions.

Then the person descends into his physical body and gets to know the illusion of the personal self. This is the third of the treacherous companions. When he encounters this, the possibility of feeling himself in his own self as separate from the outside world or his environment is taken away from him in one fell swoop. He learns to recognize appearance and truth, and he steps out of his narrow limitation. No longer enclosed by the three sheaths, the human being steps freely out of himself into the environment and recognizes himself as a microcosm in the macrocosm.

When man is symbolically represented as the pentagram, he must be regarded as encompassing the three lower kingdoms on earth. The mineral kingdom has only the physical body on earth, and can be indicated symbolically by a single line. The plant kingdom has in addition a second principle, the etheric body, and this must therefore be indicated by two lines touching one another. The animal kingdom has a third principle, the astral body. This can be indicated by three lines: (X with line connecting the upper edges) p 414

The etheric body contains the principle of growth. In the plant form, leaf would always appear after leaf if it were not for the astral body coming from above, which causes the flower to emerge. The etheric principle, which in plants would cause continuous growth, is partially transformed in animals, so that it exercises its powers more internally as a receiver of the astral body. The straight line of the etheric is closed and bent by a new line, which symbolically represents the astral principle, and this new line then bends the physical principle again on the other side. Hence the physical form, which in plants represents a vertical line, is bent and has become horizontal in animals. The animal can therefore be symbolically indicated with the three lines; in man, the I is added to the three principles. This I can be symbolically represented as a point above the three lines X, which pours its power into the etheric body and the physical body through two lines that pass through the astral, acting on the one hand through light and on the other through warmth. Through this influence of the I, the human form is raised to an upright line again, and so the symbol of the pentagram arises.

If man is the pentagram himself and lives entirely within it, he will not be able to see himself as such. He will only be able to consciously survey that part of his being that is below his ego, that which he has outgrown. These are the three lines that represent the symbol for the animal. That is why man only sees that part of his physical body that is below the shoulders from the front.

But if he really wants to know himself as an ego, then he must step out of himself, so that he also gets to know the upper part of the pentagram. He must create for himself a new center of perception, which lies outside the pentagram; he must be able to take a superhuman standpoint, which lies outside the ego and yet is a center of consciousness.

The Temple Legend tells how the Master received the first blow on the left temple, the second blow on the right temple, so that the blood ran down upon the shoulder, and the third blow on the forehead. Then physical death sets in. This indicates the upper part of the pentagram. With physical death, the human being steps out of his personal self and experiences himself in the macrocosm. The Temple Legend tells us how the Master's body was buried by the three companions, how the Master himself, reborn in the cosmos, experienced the developmental states of the earth as the old moon, as the sun with the seven planets and as Saturn with the twelve signs of the zodiac. When man has emerged from his three shells and experiences himself in the cosmos, as if newly born, the first thing he feels is the essence of the great mother, the earth mother, from whom he has grown out. He experiences earlier developmental states in which he was more dependent and intimately connected to the earth. He experiences this as the moon state, sun state and Saturn state.

What the great master builder Hiram Abiff could not experience at that time, because – as the temple legend says – he lived before the Christ event on earth, was the light and warmth of the Christ-being in the earth aura. For this being had not yet connected with the earth at that time. It could be seen in the sun, as Zarathustra had once seen it as Ahura Mazdao, the great aura, as the cosmic heart, when it was revealed to him that this sun being would one day live on earth in a human body. His great mission became clear to him, to work through many incarnations and in various ways to prepare such a human body that was capable of carrying the spirit of the sun within itself. He should tune his own individual pace of his ego so that it was in harmony with this higher ego of humanity. The sound and rhythm of his heartbeat should coincide with the sound and rhythm of the great cosmic heart, only then could the sublime sun being live in a human body.

When the great Master Builder, Hiram Abiff, lived on earth, this mighty fact had not yet been accomplished. But the individuality of Hiram Abiff lived on and was reborn on earth at the time when the Christ-being, the great Sun Spirit, lived in Jesus of Nazareth. Once the great master builder, Hiram Abiff, was led to his ancestor in order to receive the new hammer with which he was to continue his work. He was led to him through the fire. At that time, the human ego had to rise through the blood of the generations to the ancestors in order to attain higher wisdom. But now that the great spirit of the Sun had descended to Earth and lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Jesus Himself placed the seed of the new life in the heart of the reborn Hiram Abiff. Through Him, he was raised to spiritual life; he was born again in the disciple whom the Lord loved. The human ego was quickened by the divine ego and raised to a higher existence. Thereafter this disciple could become the writer of the Gospel which has as its starting point the human and the divine ego. And it was revealed to him how the development of this human ego through the post-Atlantean cultural periods extended into the future, until the end of the days on earth, as he portrayed it in the Apocalypse. And in his Gospel it is said how Christ Jesus, with his last words from the cross, handed this disciple over to his mother, who was not his natural mother. As a son he gives the human ego to the Earth Mother, after he has quickened it with his powers, so that she may guard and care for it. As mother, He gives the Earth to this I, so that the son may give his powers to the mother. The human I shall redeem the Earth, uplift it with its powers into spiritual regions, with the full consciousness that without this Earth it could not develop into what it is and is to become.

With the event at Golgotha, when the blood flowed from the wounds of the great redeemer, when the cosmic heart's blood permeated the earth and its powers poured into the center, the earth became radiant, radiating light out into its surroundings from within. Then the possibility was also given for every human individuality to experience this light within itself. When the Earth became the body of the great Sun Spirit by permeating it with his spiritual powers, all beings on Earth were also endowed with these powers. The seed for the reunification of the Sun and the Earth had been sown. The physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was the mediator through which the cosmic powers united with the Earth aura. And when the blood flowed from this body on Golgotha, the Earth was again absorbed into the power of the Sun. Since then, this Christ power radiates from its center into the surrounding area, and from the Sun the Christ power radiates into the Earth. Man can experience this power and this light in himself as an earthly human being when he recognizes himself as a part of the earth, which, as the physical body of Christ, is permeated by His Being. Then the white light shines from within him, as it radiates from the center of the earth.

A person can also experience the power and light of Christ as it radiates from the outside and permeates him with higher life. Then it surrounds and permeates him, just as it passes through the earth, radiating from the sun. Then the human being feels united in spirit with this solar power; he feels himself growing together with the great cosmic heart from the depth of his heart. As a higher being, living in this spiritual sun, he recognizes his true self, as connected to it as he, as an earthly human being, is connected to the earth itself. And just as the sun's forces permeate and give life to the earth, so this higher being permeates and lives through the earthly human being with his powers.

In the temple of the human body there is a holiest of the holy. Many people live in the temple without knowing it. But those who have an inkling of it receive the strength to purify themselves to such an extent that they may enter this Holy of Holies. There is the sacred vessel, which has been prepared throughout the ages so that when the time came, it could be capable of containing the blood of Christ, the Christ-life. When man has entered, he has also found the way to the Holy of Holies in the great temple of the earth. There are many on earth who live without knowing it, but when man has found himself in his innermost sanctuary, he will also be allowed to enter there and find the Holy Grail. The vessel will at first appear to him as if it were cut out of wonderfully sparkling crystals, forming symbols and letters, until he gradually senses the sacred contents, so that it shines for him in a golden splendor. A human being enters the sanctuary of his own heart, then a divine being emerges from this sanctuary and unites with the God outside, with the Christ-being. He lives in the spiritual light that radiates into the vessel and thereby sanctifies it.

Because man lives as a twofold being, he can pour the spiritual power of the sun into the earth and be a connecting link between the sun and the earth. Just as from the center of life, the heart, the invigorating blood flows and pours through the entire physical organism into the bone system, which - as an external solidification and congealing in the organism - can be seen as the opposite of the living, ever active heart, so each human individuality must become a channel for the blood flowing from the cosmic center of life, permeating the solidified earth with life. The earth can be thought of as a cosmic skeletal system. It would be completely ossified and dried up if the cosmic heart had not poured out its life blood through a human body, thereby reviving it anew.

Once upon a time, the great spirit of the sun lived in a human body as an example for humanity, and every human being is meant to follow suit. Through Him the possibility for this has been given. To be imbued with the Christ-spirit, to know oneself as a center, to live in this spirit, through which spiritual light, spiritual power and spiritual warmth can stream into the earth, that is the mission of the individual human being and of all humanity, for in this way will they be able to redeem the earth and uplift it to spiritual regions.

IV Authentic information handed down.

Lazarus, the favorite disciple of Jesus Christ, who later became the author of the Gospel of John, is the re-embodied Hiram Abiff.

Adam-Eva -> Cain

Abel Seth -> Lamech, Hiram Abiff

Solomon -> Lazarus-John.¹

The individuality, which had been re-embodied as Hiram Abiff and Lazarus-Johannes, was initiated anew in its embodiments in the 13th and 14th centuries and has since borne the name Christian Rosenkreutz. ²

From the instruction session in Berlin, February 10, 1913 for the 3rd

The legend, the seven-step ladder ² And each of us should keep these things in mind during the day. Then, as a consequence, if the things we do here are done right, we will feel that the right forces are flowing in.

During the night, the human being can then come close to Hiram Abiff or Adoniram, Lazarus, who was initiated by the Lord Himself. Meditation is given for this purpose: “I am not only in the world for myself, but to become similar to my archetype.

This striving is a duty, not selfishness. These things are given in the first scenes of “Examination of the Soul” and “The Guardian of the Threshold”, as in the three dramas in general, much, much meditation material is given.

You should not forget that the spiritual powers are counting on you in the leadership of mankind.

Every person is a citizen of the spiritual world, but you should be aware of it! At night, you are always in a spiritual world, interacting with beings and judging. This can suddenly come to a person's awareness when waking up or at other times during the day: “I have to educate myself to become a revealer of the divine archetype within me.”

Meditate on death; this is a very important matter.

• 1. See the detailed descriptions in the volume 'The Event of the Appearance of the Christ in the Ethereal World', CW 118.
• 1. Record by Rudolf Steiner for Helene Röchling as a supplement to the temple legend.
• 2. Rudolf Steiner's message conveyed by Marie Steiner in the context of the Knowledge Cult; see the appendix to this section on page 423ff.
• 2. The so-called Jacob's ladder. Schauberg (“Comparative Handbook of the Symbolism of Freemasonry...”) II. Band S. 402f.): “The Persian symbol of the entrance of the soul of the deceased into heaven through the seven planetary spheres is said to have been a staircase or ladder leading to seven different doors. (...) According to Origen, the Egyptians used a similar symbol to represent the descent of heavenly souls in the Milky Way through the seven planetary spheres, namely a ladder that reached from heaven to earth and was divided into seven steps, each with a gate. (...) The ladder that Jacob saw in the famous dream and that also reached from earth to heaven was probably this Egyptian ladder that led the souls of men from heaven to earth and from there back to heaven again, which thus had not just three steps, as is generally the case. 2

Today we want to listen to a recitation from the poetry of Friedrich Lienhard and Wilhelm Jordan. Then I will add something of an anthroposophical literary consideration to it about the present time and its tasks. This will conclude our evening, but first I would like to say a few words by way of introduction.

Friedrich Lienhard is one of those poets of the present time of whom we are able to say that as far as his own striving in a certain connection, he comes near to the striving of spiritual science. On October 4, 1915, he celebrated his 50th birthday and we at Dornach joined others from all sides in sending our congraulations to this spirit-filled poet. We can look in a certain way into the actual artistic content of the poetical nature of Friedrich Lienhard who in a certain sense has been very friendly to our movement. He himself, says that he originated from the French Alsace Lorraine region where he had to pass through many difficulties in order to attain what he calls his world conception. He tried to develop out of the European German nature so as to bring to effectiveness the actual beating in of the waves of this Central European German being. We can say how there lives within him above all that which I have just attempted to characterize, an element that can perhaps only be evaluated correctly when we realize its worth as we approach it from the spiritual artistic point of view which is fostered in the science of the spirit. In Lienhard's poetry we have, above all, the wonderful description of nature, lyric nature, but put in a very special way when he attempts to bring human beings into speech with nature. Also there is something of the nature of the human being which actually proceeds directly out of the natural way and shows its spirit in nature existence. Now, what does all this come from?

It comes from something that one can perhaps only correctly notice with Friedrich Lienhard when one attempts to evaluate art today which one should always do—so as to realize that there is something which has been completely extinguished from the consciousness of mankind: people no longer are able to evaluate artistic representations. Today they focus completely upon the content of the art, on its representation characteristics and allow that to work on them, but they fail to realize that the important thing is the formal element, the artistic formal element of what is being attempted, not the content so much but how the ideas and the feeling come together, how they undulate in waves and then dissipate. It is very important to see how the poetic language comes into existence in the actual undulation of the waves. In Lienhard you can see quite readily how in the poetical expression of his experiences there is a swaying of the ruling of elemental spirituality, a sort of participation of the poetic soul with that which we would characterize as something which lives in an elementary way in the ether world behind the pure sense existence when the etheric element is brought to manifestation in a natural way as, for example, in the expression of the soul life of young children. If you follow the words of Friedrich Lienhard in a literal way, it appears as if the elementary spirits want to move on further through these words, they sort of ripple through, warm through, weave through all this natural phenomena and this rippling, this warming, this living, this weaving through of elementary beings in relationship to nature continues itself with such a poet who understands how to really live with the spirit of nature.

A further element of Friedrich Lienhard is that precisely through his ability to grasp the great connections of mankind and of the world, with which, I might say, he with his feelings is inwardly connected without anything of the narrow chauvenistic nationalistic spirit entering into these feelings, you can find in him the driving, working forces and beings of the folk life; and again the folk life not out of the details of the accidental individuals, but from the whole weaving and swaying of the priciple of the Folk Soul itself and being able to grasp all that and to place the single personalities into the great spiritual connections in which they are able to stand within the life of the folk. Through that fact Freiedrich Lienhard is in a position of being able to represent such a figure as that of the priest Oberlin of the Alsace Steinthal who was spiritualized by a kind of atavistic clairvoyance. He was able on the one hand to present Oberlin in a real plastic three dimentional way and on the other hand to grasp him in an extraordinarily intimate soul way. Out of these impulses, Lienhard was able to call forth into the present time the divine figures of antiquity, not in the way of these ancient hero sagas, but he took not only the content of it but also attempted in present day speech to find the possibility of again reawakening that which as a beating in of the waves lived through this ancient time and to be able to realize it can still beat into our present age. Lienhard was able to awaken all this and therefore we can say in a certain sense, as it were, that Friedrich Lienhard is one of the most superior poets of the present age, because other poets of this age have attempted to transpose themselves more into the naturalistic, the realistic aspect also rejecting the real artistic spiritual and in that way wanted to create something new. However, the real poet, when he wants to create something new, does not try to use these naturalistic whimsies of our present age, but creates something new by being able to grasp in a new way the stream of the eternal beauty; he grasps that which is eternal in a new way so that art remains art. And real art can never remain real art without being permeated by the spirit. Through this aspect it was possible for Friedrich Lienhard to approach much nearer to that which he called: The Way Toward Weimer. Acutally in his free time he had produced this periodical for a long time which he called Ways Toward Weimer in which he attempted to turn to the ideas and artistic impulses of that great period which began towards the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, and to recognize that which is in these, precisely much of real worth which existed in that particular period which had been forgotten and had faded away. For that reason, in his later artistic period he attempted again to deepen, to make it more inward, I might say, so that ultimately it was possible for such inward poems to come out as those who relate to personalities such as Odelia and the like. He knew how to unite himself with all that in a true sense with the Christian impulses which weave and undulates through mankind. And it is very noticeable that he, not by the external content of his poetic creation but through the way in which they carry the elementary nature right into the details, that he was able to approach the alliteration aspect of the artistic element which appeared as if it was being lost from the whole of German literature. This allilteration and that which is related to the German nature, has with it the whole central European German Folk substance. Because of Lienhard's ability to do that, that brought him close to Wilhelm Jordan, another peot who partly through his own fault and partly through the fault of our age has been little understood by our present time. We shall attempt to bring Wilhelm Jordan to you later on through recitation.

Precisely through alliteration, Wilhelm Jordan attempted again to renew, as he called it, a way of speaking which belonged to times gone by. He could do nothing else than bring this formal element of the ancient poetry, again into the present time. He attempted to lift it up to great moving impulses out of the smallness of everyday things. One must say that it is literally a calamity, although it is not quite without Jordan's own fault that such a poem as “The Damier” which attempted to bring the world moving spiritual principles into connection with mankind upon the earth, that such a creation as “The Danier” should be passed over without effect in our present time. This is partly his fault, because he allowed himself to be damaged by the natural scientific way of looking at things. Much of this damaged his poem “The Niebelungen”, whereas instead of having the deeper principles which should have been applied in this poem, he allows the naturalistic principle of heredity to dominate it; he allowed the substance transition of the forces of inheritance from one generation to another to dominate instead of the soul aspect dominating. There is too much domination of the blood aspect in a certain sense through that. You can say that Wilhelm Jordan paid his tribute to the natural scientific grasping of the present age. However, on the other hand he has taken away from his poems what perhaps already in an earlier time would have been able to give the great spiritual impulses to the artistic striving of mankind, so that not everything would have had to sink into the inartistic barbarism, which in many cases in the later period appeared in the place of the earlier spiritual principles. We can indeed see how today people want to scoff about that which Wilhelm Jordan wanted to do. But I might say that as far as we are concerned, it is our job to be able, in a certain sense, to allow these great impulses to work upon our soul wherever they might appear, because nevertheless there will come a time when these inpulses will have to fulfill a certain mission in mankind's development.

Certainly the poet, Friedrich Lienhard, will be recognized in wide circles. However, in our circles we should attempt to discover that which perhaps can be found precisely in him, because that will be, above all, what I believe will be able to carry his artistic strivings together upon the waves of the spiritual scientific strivings into the future.

Having said that now we will listen to the poems of Friedrich Lienhard and then to some extracts from the poem “Niebelungen” by Wilhelm Jordan. (The following are the poems recited by Frau Dr. Steiner: “Faith”; “The Morning Wind”; “A Greeting to the Forest”; “TheCreative Light”; “The Lonely Stone”; “Have You Also Experienced?”; “All The Tender FLower Cups”; “Soul Wandering”; “The Dance of the Elves”; “The Summer Night”. “The Songs of Odelian”; “Autumn On the Mount of Odelian”; “St. Odelia” then a recitation from the Niebelungen Song by Wilhelm Jordan.)

It is also good to allow this type of poetic art to work upon us. We have in Friedrich Lienhard a poet who really attempts in the present time to carry in spiritual idealistic soul experiences which are strong enough to unite themselves with nature experiences; and with such things one can detect something which is more appropriate to the ‘how’ in art than to the ‘what’ in art. How wonderful is that which draws itself to the magic in the district around the Mount of Odelian and how beautiful it is, how directly lyrical is the perception which streams out of this protective patroness, Odelia, of the Cloister of Mount Odelian. The fact that Odelia was once persecuted by her horrible father, that she was blinded and precisely through the loss of her eye sight, she achieved the mystical capacity of healing the blind, making them see, this is the saga around which all the rest gathers itself. All that which in truth gathers itself around this saga in deep mysticism is lyrically united with the nature which is around the Alsacian Mount of Odelian and it finds itself precisely within these poems by Friedrich Lienhard which have been recited to you. You can find in these poems that he gives the real opportunity for, I might say, the swinging in of an elemental nature which weaves itself in the form of his poems much of which reminds you of the forgotten Wilhelm Jordan. From this small sample which we have been able to hear today you will be able on the one hand to realize how very much this poet attempted to place these figures from the great spiritual weaving of life before us to create them out of this spiritual weaving of life and to allow us to realize that the weaving of the spiritual world works in the external world. You can experience precisely through Wilhelm Jordan, I believe, how the poetic soul can unite itself with a world historical streaming so that in that which confronts us in a poetic artistic form, there actually lives the striving of a spiritual stream which works through the development of the world.

When we were together last Tuesday, I had to ask the question: What would be the outcome of the development of mankind on earth if it were not possible for a spiritual beating-in to find its way into that which exists in the pure external physical existence. Not only in the external realm of scientific knowledge, of the social life and so on, but also in the realm of art, the fact that confronts us and comes to meet us very strongly is that we live in a very critical age, an age which is filled with crises, because if that which is living in spiritual science is not able to take hold of human soul life, then art itself would gradually disappear from mankind, because it cannot exist without the spirit. This art is trying to disappear from such figures as Wilhelm Jordan. However such figures as Friedrich Lienhard have attempted to hold fast to that which tried to disappear—the spiritual aspect—from Wilhelm Jordan. Today people do not see much of the threatening danger of the artistic decay, because in many connections, intoxication also dominates in this realm of dream life of which I spoke Tuesday, of which one can really only perceive if one has an organ to grasp it. I can only wish that more and more people were actually able to realize from a spiritual scientific perception what it means for the ... is an indication of what is going to come into art if this rejection of all spirtual life, of spiritual perception, still continues. One of the great tragedies of the modern times is that such a large nunber of people are able to consider art as all that which is represented by Rheinhard. When one receives a real artistic perception from Spiritual Science, then one will be able to see clearly the so-called rubbish involved in Rheinhard, because that which in modern life appears in the artistic domain is nothing other than a distorted world. When one really attempts to grasp the life of the present time, one can, I might say, indicate the actual places where a life which has been eaten up by materialism affects the art of our age and causes it to fall into a morass. You can see how everything of what art really is is forgotten. In order for a real artistic sense to continue itself into the development of mankind, it is necessary that that which comes to us from earlier times, which, for example, lives also in Lienhard's poetry and which in a certain way is a kind of nature pantheism and a kind of spirit pantheism can develop from that into something more concrete, so that human beings are able to learn to understand the manifoldness of life so that they can see the etheric, astral and the spiritual by the side of the physical sense aspect. Without seeing these things mankind remains blind, blind precisely in relationship to the artistic. As far as the artistic perceptions is concerned, the world as it is today is predisposed to only take in the quite solid external sense aspect, to look on it exactly as it is and to describe it as it is; and that is not art.

One can also experience this nonsensical unclear staggering and wabbling, this frenzy we find with reference to the phenomena of life as it is regarded by people who are called fine psychologists. It often makes your heart sad to see that so few people are strongly adapted enough to perceive what is happening in this realm, to see it in such a way as to be able to rebel against it. Contemplate human beings as they confront us. The artist must indeed look upon them in so far as he is able to place them into the deeper life of the world. If one looks upon people with that particular soul organ which the evolutionary development of mankind has already brought into existence, then we need the possibility of saying the following. There is a person; he is configured in such and such a way. He has experienced this or that thing. We know that this person is more inserted into his physical life, another is more inserted into his ego, another more into his astral body. We must have a living feeling for the fact that the characteristics of mankind can divide themselves in so far as they are taken hold of more by the physical in one case, another more by the etheric, another more by the astral and another more by the ego aspect; and if one is not able to do this in our present time and still wants to describe people artistically in poetry, etc, then one gets the sort of staggering which today is regarded as art.

You must, I might say, take hold of the significant phenomena of our age in order to obtain a real understanding of what is actually happening. For example, one can meet four people who, shall we say, have been brought together by karma. Then one can understand how they are brought together in certain connections through karma when we see them together, how the stream of karma also flows in the progress of the world and how these human beings precisely in a certain way, through their karma, wanted to insert themselves into the world. One will never be able to understand things from the standpoint which is possible today if one is not able to see such karmic connections. Let us take the four brothers, Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha and Smerdyakov in Dostoevski's novel The Brothers Karamazov. When you are really able to see them with the eye of the soul, you actually see in these four brothers four types which you can only understand through the way they are carried by karma. Thus one knows the following. The four brothers carry a stream of karma into the world in such a way that they must be the sons of a typical scoundral of the present age who has these four brothers as his sons. They are carried in in so far as they have selected it through this karma. They are placed one by the side of the other so that one sees how they differ from each other, and this can only be understood when one knows the following. In Dimitri Karamazov there is an overpowering by the “I”; in Aloysha Karamazov there is an overpowering by the astral body; in Ivan Karamazov there is an overpowering by the etheric body and in Smerdyakov there is a complete overpowering by the physical body. A light of understanding falls upon these four brothers when one is able to consider them from this standpoint.

Now, just think how a poet with Wilhelm Jordan's gift and with a spiritual grasping of the world as it must be in accordance with our modern age, how such a person would place these four brothers side by side, how he would grasp their spiritual and fundamental conditioning. How would Wilhelm Jordan do it?

Let us consider Dostoevski; how does he grasp the situation? He grasps it in no other way than that he places these four brothers as the sons of a quite typical drunken man in a certain stagnated society of the present age. Let us take the first son, Dimitri, the son of a half adventurous, half hysterical woman who after she first elopes with the drunken sop, Fyador Karamazov, beats him and finally cannot endure him anymore and leaves him with his son, Dimitri, the eldest son. Everything is now placed only an inheritance, it is so placed that one has the impression that here the poet describes something like a modern psychiatrist who only focuses upon the coarsest principle of heredity and has no inkling of the spiritual connections, and wants to bring before us the sin of heredity. Now we have the next two sons, Ivan and Aloysha. They come fron the second wife. Naturally the sin of heredity will work differently with these two sons. They come from the so-called screaming Liza, who, because she is not half hysterical but completely hysterical has spasms of screaming. Whereas the first wife soundly thrashed the old drunkard, now the old drunkard thrashes the screaming Liza. Now we have the fourth son, who, I might say, is overpowered by everything which is in the physical body have Smerdyakov, a kind of mixture of a wise, thoughtful and idiotic man, someone who is quite imbecilic and also a partly clever man. He is also the son of the old drunkard and has been begotten with a deaf person who was regarded as the village idiot, namely, the stinking Lizaveta who is seduced by the old drunkard. She dies in childbirth and it is obvious that he does not know that Smerdyakov is his son. Smerdyakov then remains in the house and now all the scenes which occur between these personalities are played out.

As far as Dimitri is concerned it is understandable that he is influenced by his heredity. He is a man in whom the quite unconscious ego flows and pushes him further in life so that he acts out of the unconscious, but of the thoughtlessness and he is so delineated to us that, in the main, you realize that you are not dealing here with a healthy spiritual person, but with someone of a more hysterical nature. Therefore you will find the effect of all that from the nature evolution of the present, that present which will not permit itself to be influenced by that which comes from the spiritual world conception. All the unclear instincts which can actually just as well develop themselves into the best sort of mysticism as well as the most external criminality, in all that you can find the transition from the unconscious, all that Dostoevski deliniates in Dimitri Karamazov. He wants to depict as Russian, because he always tries to describe the true Russianness.

Ivan, the other son, is a Westerner, they call him the Wesler because he wants to familiarize himself with the culture of the West; whereas Dimitri knows very little of the culture of the West but prefers to function out of the Russian instincts. Ivan was in Paris. He studied all sorts of things. He has taken up the Western world conception; he argues with people; he is completely filled with the materialistic world conception of the West modified however by the brooding of the Russian. He argues with all types of people using all sorts of thoughts about how the modern spiritual culture can enter into the midst of the instincts: Should a person be an athiest? Should a person not be an athiest? Can you assume that there is a God? Can you say that there is no God? Can you arrive at an assumption of God? Yes, I accept God, but I do not accept the world. That is the sort of discussion that goes on and on. This is how it is with Ivan.

Now, the third son, Aloysha, becomes a monk early. He is the one in whom the astral body has the superior powers but it also shows that all sorts of instincts work in him, the same instincts as his older brother had developed in him developed through mysticism. Dimitri, who comes from another mother, actually is predisposed to criminality which manifests itself as with other people, but in the case of Aloysha it manifests itself differently, he becomes a mystic. You can say that criminality is only a special development of the same instinct which on the other hand prays for self-emulation—the belief in divine love which goes through the world. Both of them come out of the lower instinctive nature of men, but they develop themselves in different ways. We are not objecting to having these personalities in art, because anything which is real can be the object of art. The important part is not so much the content but how it is presented—is there a weaving of the spiritual in it?—that is the important point.

In Russian culture you have a certain spirituality which is a further development of natural relationships which I have described in my previous lectures as a contrast of spiritual relationships. From the very beginning Dostoevski was a hater of Germany. He had his task of instinctively letting none of West European culture flow into his soul. Because of his being a true Russian, Dostoevski did not come out of the real soul aspect, but that which comes from his subconscious nature arose, all the brooding in the inner human being, that sort of worked itself out and developed itself in the art with the exclusion of all spirtual aspects.

Now we have in Dostoevski's Brothers Karamazov that remarkable episode of the great inquisitor in front of whom the reincarnated Christ appears. And being a true orthodox Christian of his time, this priest knows that he has to put Jesus Christ in prison. That is the first thing that he does. Then he gets the inquisition to give him a hearing. The great inquisitor who develops religion in the sense of the Christianity of our age says to himself: “Ah, yes, Christ has come back. You are indeed the Christ. However, you cannot enter into Christianity as it is now with our priests of the holy order, because you do not understand these things. Take what you yourself have performed. Has it done anything to make people happy? We had to put right what was impractical in your approach. If Christianity as you know it came among people, it would not have the sort of salvation which we have brought to the people, because when you really want to bring salvation to people, you have to bring them a teaching which actually works upon human beings. Now, you believe the teaching also must be the truth. However, you cannot begin to confront human beings with such things. Above all, human beings have to believe the teachings we have given to them; they have to be forced to accept those teachings. We have done better than you. We have established authority. Therefore the only thing that can be done is to take this reincarnated Christ over to the inquisition.” In the case of Dostoevski you see that there is nothing at all spiritual; you see Christ appearing externally in the physical body and then His being broken up by the-great inquisitor.

It is very necessary that we understand the characteristics of our present age where you get books entitled: Jesus, A Psychopathical study; another entitled: Jesus Christ Considered from the Psychiatric Standpoint. Here you have the standpoint of modern evolution which is the pathological situation of Jesus Christ. A well known psychiatrist—people run after this—writes epoch making works about psychiatry; he gives talks to students and colleagues not only about Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche, all sorts of people, then he also talks about Jesus Christ.

Now if we just sit down and listen to Anthroposophy with a sort of lust for sensation or some mystical sensation, we cannot move forward; that is not good enough. This Spiritual Science must become living, it must become living impulses within us. We are not anthroposophists because every week we learn about the elementary spirits, about the hierarchies, and so on. No, we really become spiritual scientists if we are able to carry our ideas into all the single details of life and Anthroposophy gives us the sort of mood which will enable us to actually feel a disgust for many things that are going on at the present time. But let us not be fooled by the sort of standpoint which the Theosophists think they are duty bound to follow, the idea of universal human love. Because we believe in universal human love, we avoid all the disgusting things that are happening all around us, we avoid giving them the right names because we are filled with universal love. People today are not inclined to keep their eyes open. Now this is not the guilt of a single people; it is the guilt of the whole spiritual life of the present. Before we come to any judgements about anything, it is necessary that we make sure that we know all that we need to know so that a judgement can be formed. Let us consider Tolstoy, for example. Now everyone who has listened to me for any length of time knows how I see the greatness which is in Tolstoy; nevertheless we must not forget the other aspects of his personality. Here we have a great spirit of the East filled with bitter hatred for what comes fron Germanism. People did not know about that, because the translators of Tolstoy into German left out these very reprehensible passages. Therefore they presented literature with a false Tolstoy. The so-called critics of our age consider Goethe and Schiller and then they put Dostoevski side by side with them without realizing the vast difference. Whereas Goethe and Schiller had some spiritual motivation in them, Dostoevski was thoroughly absorbed by our modern culture; he reflected it. Now, these things must be brought out in order that one can get a perception of the significance of our anthroposophical striving.

I wanted to add this sort of anthroposophical literary consideration to the recitation which you heard today.

Questions are raised concerning pregnancy and the possible effects of outer events during pregnancy.

Dr. Steiner: Gentlemen, these are extremely important aspects of life. Generally, no significant influence can be exerted on the child during pregnancy except indirectly by way of the mother, since the child is connected with the mother, as I have said here already, by numerous delicate blood vessels. The unborn child receives everything it requires, including its nourishment, from its mother. Later, it acquires a completely different breathing process.

We can best consider the matters that you have brought up if we deal further with the general basis of human states of illness and health. In pregnancy, it is even more difficult than in the case of common hunger and thirst to say where the inclination toward illness begins and where it ends. Other things also enter into pregnancy that prove beyond doubt that the mother's condition of soul has an extraordinary influence on the developing child. You only have to observe what happens, for example, if the mother, especially in the early months of pregnancy, is badly frightened. As a rule, the child will be affected for its whole life. Naturally, you cannot say that a physical change occurs in the child but only that the mother suffers a fright. How can a mother's fright affect the child?

Modern science basically gives the most inadequate answers here, because it really knows nothing, or claims to know nothing, of what influences the human soul and spirit. We can best approach these difficult questions—and they are indeed complicated—if we focus on two phenomena of life that man experiences primarily in illness, that is, fever and shock. These are two opposite conditions that man undergoes, fever and shock.

What is fever? You know that man's normal body temperature is 98.6°. If it rises any higher, we say that he has a fever. The fever is visible outwardly through a person becoming hotter. What is shock? Shock is actually the opposite condition. Shock occurs when a person is incapable of developing sufficient warmth within. If you take an overdose of a poison such as henbane (Hyoscyamwus niger), for example, which is also used as a remedy, you risk the danger of going into shock. The reaction is that, through the shock, all the membranes in the abdomen of the mother, where the child must also be developing—therefore, the membranes of the intestines but also those of the organ in which the child rests during pregnancy, the so-called uterus, the womb, in other words, all the membranes through which a substance is introduced into the body—become slack. It is as if a sack were stretched too far, becoming worn out and unable to hold anything any longer. With the introduction of henbane, undigested food backs up, and the proper functioning of the abdomen, which I described recently, is disrupted. A large amount of food accumulates in a man's abdomen that he cannot assimilate.

In order to understand what is at work here, we must take a closer look at the human organism. What actually happens when the abdomen does not work properly? Although it is the abdomen that isn't working properly, you will find that something is actually wrong with the front portion of the brain. A very interesting relationship!

Consider the human being—the abdomen, the chest, the diaphragm, which is about here (Rudolf Steiner sketched on the blackboard). There we have abdomen, chest, and head. If something is out of order in the abdomen, then something is not functioning properly also in the front part of the brain. The two therefore belong together. In the human being they belong inwardly together, the forebrain and abdomen. We can also say that the heart with its arteries, as I have described them to you, is connected with the midbrain. Finally, the chest with the lungs and the breathing process is related to the back portion of the brain.

Every time something is amiss with the breathing, something is also wrong in the back part of the brain. Whenever a person has difficulty breathing and doesn't receive enough oxygen, one can observe that something is wrong with the back of the brain. When a person suffers from disorders of the heart, especially if the rhythm of the heart's activity is disrupted so that the pulse is irregular, then something is wrong in the midbrain. In a disorder of the abdomen, one always finds some irregularity in the forebrain. Everything is remarkably related in the human being.

You see, people often don't want to believe these things, because in the formation of the forehead they see the noblest aspect of the human being and the less noble in the abdomen. And if one speaks the truth about these things, such people find it unworthy of man. You will have realized from my lectures, however, that the digestive system is in turn related to the limb system in such a way that it represents a most significant aspect of the human being.

Once I knew a man who had quite an unusual forehead. A Greek forehead is different (sketching). In Greek statues we find foreheads that slope backward. This man actually had a pronounced bulge, and his forebrain was actually pushed out. I am convinced that this man, whose brain was pushed forward so much, possessed a particularly well-formed abdomen and never suffered from diarrhea or constipation, for example; he never suffered from stomach aches and the like. The man in question was, in fact, a person of unusual sensitivity, but this sensitivity depended on his always feeling inwardly comfortable. This indicates that his powerful, protruding forehead never permitted disorders of the abdomen. You can see from this that a man's forehead is related in a remarkable way to his abdomen.

If I give someone too large a dose of henbane, he goes into shock. What causes this shock? Something goes wrong with the forebrain, because everything possible collects in his abdomen. Oddly, however, when a person complains of a stomach ache, caused perhaps by mild constipation, I can give him henbane in highly diluted form, and he will become healthy. He gets a slight fever and becomes well.

Here you see a strange fact. If I give too much henbane to a perfectly healthy person, he goes into shock. He will suffer severe abdominal distress, his head will feel cold, his abdomen will swell, the intestines will slacken, and the abdominal functions will cease. What do you see from this? You see that I have introduced too much henbane into the stomach. The stomach should react with vastly increased digestive activity, because henbane is extremely difficult to digest. Being poisonous simply means that a substance is difficult to digest. The stomach therefore must become furiously active. The brain is not strong enough, the front part of the brain. These things thus are related in the human body. The brain is not strong enough to stimulate the stomach sufficiently; the brain becomes cold and the person goes into shock.

What happens now if I give a person a minute, diluted dose of henbane? In this case, the stomach has less to do, and the brain is strong enough to regulate this minor task. Through introducing a minute amount of henbane, which the brain can manage, I have stimulated the brain into working harder than before. If the brain can overcome it, it is like asking a person to do a job that he can manage; then, he does it well. If I ask him to do a job in one day that actually requires ten, he would be ruined. This is the case with the brain. It contains, as it were, the workman in charge of the abdomen. If I ask too little of the brain, the workman remains lazy; if he is stimulated through his activity, he does well; if I ask too much of the abdomen, however, he refuses to participate and the person goes into shock.

What is the cause of fever? Fever is actually the result of an over-activity of the brain, which penetrates the entire human being. Assume that a person suffers from a disorder in some organ, say the liver or the kidneys, or especially the lungs, in the way I discussed with you recently. The brain begins to rebel against it. If the lungs no longer function correctly, the back portion of the brain rebels and stimulates the front part into rebelling against this lung disease, and hence fever occurs.

This shows that man becomes warmer from his head downward and colder from below upward. This is very interesting. The human being actually is warmed downward from above. With fever we are concerned with our head. If there is an inflammation in the big toe, we produce the ensuing fever with the head. It is interesting that what lies farthest down is regulated by the foremost parts of the brain. Just as in the case of the dog, whose tail is regulated by his nose, so it is with the human being. If he struggles with a fever in his big toe, the activity that begets this fever lies entirely in the front of his brain. It is no slight to his dignity that, if man has an infection in his big toe, the fever originates entirely from the front, from a point above his nose. The human being thus always becomes warmer from above and colder from below.

This is related to why shock can be induced if excessively large doses of certain substances are administered to the human being but why a healing rise in temperature can be produced if we do not overtax the brain but stimulate its activity only with small doses. The activity of the brain, however, is stimulated all day not only by substances that we introduce into the brain; what we see and hear also stimulate it constantly. Also, when you eat, you not only fill your stomachs, but you taste your food as well. Taste is stimulated, as is the sense of smell, all of which stimulates the brain.

Consider a woman who is pregnant. The child is in the first period of the pregnancy, which entails a tremendous increase in the mother's abdominal activity. Except during pregnancy, such activity in the abdomen is never necessary; in men, it doesn't occur at all. The abdominal activity thus is increased in an unprecedented way. When abdominal activity is increased, the sensory nerves above all are stimulated, because the abdomen and the forebrain belong together.

What does it mean when a person is hungry? I have explained to you that here a certain activity that really should be continuous cannot be performed. When hungry, a person craves food, which means that at the same time he longs for the stimulation of his taste buds. He can alleviate this by eating.

When a woman is pregnant, however, and must provide in her abdomen something for the growing child, much is stimulated also in the brain, particularly in the sensory nerves, the nerves of taste and smell. Eating does not satisfy these nerves of taste and smell, because the food doesn't go directly to the child but to the stomach. An excess of activity is required. The abdomen must work overtime in a certain way, and so the need arises in the head for beyond-normal smells and tastes. The best care for the unborn child naturally requires an understanding of these matters.

Pregnant women thus often are not at all satisfied when they obtain what they momentarily crave; as soon as they have it, they crave another taste. Being also extremely moody, their taste is subject to abrupt change. One can appease them, however, by being kind to them and paying heed to what, in one's own opinion, is only a figment of their imagination. In the early months of pregnancy, women live in fantasies of tastes and smells. If you simply say to a pregnant woman, it is just your imagination, it is a real emotional slap to her. What is developing in her quite naturally due to the connection between the brain or head and the abdomen is repulsed. But if one cheers her up by being attentive, neither denying her wishes nor taking them literally, it is much easier to satisfy her. If, for example, one buys her something with vanilla flavor the second she craves it, by the time it is brought to her it may no longer be the right thing; she might say, “Yes, but now I want sauerkraut!” It is well that it should be so! You must realize that if something so extraordinary is to take place in her abdomen it is because the child's development must demand it, and the pregnant woman must therefore receive special consideration.

Indeed, this shows us a lot more. It shows us that a powerful influence is exerted on the child by the environment of soul and spirit in which the mother lives. With some insight, the following can be understood. There are children who are born with “water on the brain,” that is, with hydrocephalus. In most cases this can be traced back to the fact that the mother, who perhaps rightly sought stimulation in life, was bored stiff during the first months of pregnancy, particularly the first few weeks. Perhaps her husband frequently went out alone to the local pub and she, being left at home, was extremely bored. The result was that she lacked the energy required to influence the brain cells. Boredom makes her head empty; the empty head, in turn, imparts emptiness to the abdomen. It does not develop sufficient strength to hold the forces of the child's head together properly. The head swells up, becoming hydrocephalous. Other children are born with abnormally small heads, particularly the upper portion of the head, that is, with acrocephaly. Most of these cases are connected with the fact that during the first weeks of pregnancy the mother engaged in too much diversion and amused herself excessively. If such matters are observed properly, a relationship can always be noted between the child's development and the mother's mood of soul during the early weeks of pregnancy.

Naturally, much is accomplished with medicine, but regarding these questions we have as yet no real medicine today but only a kind of quackery, because the many relationships are not correctly discerned by a merely materialistic science. These relationships require individual observation in most instances, and during the embryonic life of the human being, and therefore during pregnancy, they can be observed particularly well. Consider the significantly increased abdominal activity during pregnancy; the abdomen must be terribly active. This, in turn, calls for the strongest possible activity of the forebrain. It is not surprising, therefore, that some mothers actually become a little crazy during the first stage of pregnancy. They become a little crazy, because the abdomen and the forebrain, which actually thinks, are closely related. One arrives at very remarkable and interesting results if one looks for the relationships between the abdomen and what humanity accomplishes spiritually. It is curious and funny that spiritual science must call attention to these matters, whereas materialistic science completely fails in this area.

It would be extraordinarily interesting, for example, to consider the following. You see, there were a great many philosophers in England—Hobbes, Bacon, Locke, Hume. These philosophers, even including John Stuart Mill, led essentially to the great rise of materialism. These philosophers all had such heavy thoughts that they could not penetrate the spiritual with their thoughts. They clung to matter with their thoughts. It would be extraordinarily interesting to examine the digestions of all these philosophers, these many philosophers. I am convinced they all suffered from constipation! Starting with Hobbes in the seventeenth century, and proceeding all the way into the nineteenth, this whole philosophy that brought us materialism was actually caused by the constipation of individual philosophers! This materialism could have been prevented—what I say now is not in earnest, I only wish to make a joke!—if one had given Hobbes, Bacon, Locke, and the others regular laxatives in their youth. Then all this materialism most likely would not have arisen.

It is indeed odd, you see, that something that people frequently call materialistic must be pointed out by spiritual science. But the reason for this is that when the human being is really observed, the spirit is revealed where others see only matter. Anthroposophy does not assume that the abdomen is only a chemical factory. I once told you that the liver is a wondrous organ, that the kidney with its functions is also a marvelous organ. Only by comprehending these organs will one find the spirit everywhere. If you stop finding the spirit in some area, if you think that digestion is a process that is too materialistic to be studied in a spiritual way, you then become a materialist. Indeed, materialism came into being through spiritual arrogance. I have told you this before, though it sounds remarkable: when the ancient Jews of the Old Testament had bad thoughts during the night, they did not blame the bad, unhealthy thoughts on their heads but on their kidneys. When they said, “This night God has affected my kidneys,” they were more correct than today's medicine. The ancient Jews also said that God reveals Himself to man not through man's head but directly through the activity of his kidneys and generally through his abdominal activity.

Considering this viewpoint, it is most interesting, though I don't know if you gentlemen have seen it, to watch an Orthodox Jew pray. When a devout Orthodox Jew prays, he does not take his phylactery out of a pocket that he wears over his heart or that hangs over his head. He wears his phylactery over his abdomen and prays with it in this position. People today naturally no longer know what the relationship is here, but those who long ago gave the ancient Jews their commandments were aware of the relationship. In western regions of Europe, people don't have much opportunity anymore to see this, but in eastern European regions it makes quite a special impression to observe how the old Jews pray. When they prepare for prayer, they take the phylactery out of the slit in their trousers; it then hangs around them and they pray.

This knowledge that humanity once possessed by means of various dreamlike, ancient clairvoyant forces has been lost, and humanity today is not advanced enough to rediscover the spirit in all matter. You can comprehend nothing if you simply take your ordinary thoughts into a laboratory and mechanically execute experiments, and so on. You are not thinking at all while doing this. You must experiment in such a way that something of the spirit emerges everywhere; for that to happen, your experiments must be arranged accordingly. And so one can say that it is funny that anthroposophy, the science of the spirit, has to point out how the human brain, the so-called noblest part, is connected with the lower abdomen, but it is simply so. Only a true science leads to these facts. Similarly, any number of things can cause a disorder of the heart, for example. It can come through an internal irregularity, but in most cases an irregular activity of the heart can be traced to some disorder in the midbrain, where the feelings are particularly based (see sketch, Diagram 1). It is interesting to discover that just as the abdomen is related to the forebrain, so this forebrain is related, from the viewpoint of the soul, to the will, and the midbrain is related to feeling. Actually, only the back part of the brain is related to thinking. If we look into the brain, we see that the hindbrain is related to breathing and to thinking. Breathing has, in fact, a pronounced relationship to thinking.

Picture the following case. A person lacking the benefits of Waldorf education, in which these things are frequently discussed, develops in his youth in such a way that he turns out to be a scoundrel. His feelings are confused, causing him to be malicious. What does this mean? It means that the soul does not work correctly in the midbrain. If the soul is not properly nourished, the heart's rhythm becomes irregular. You can cause an irregular rhythm of the heart and all sorts of diseases of the heart by developing into an ill-tempered person.

Naturally, if a woman in early pregnancy goes into a forest, let us say, and has the misfortune of discovering a person who has hanged himself from a tree and is already dead—if he is still twitching, it's even worse—she sustains a terrible shock. It becomes an image in her, and probably, unless other measures can be taken—usually by life itself, not by artificially induced means—she will give birth to a child who is pale, with a pointed chin and skinny limbs, and who is unable to move around properly. With a pregnant woman, just one such frightening sight suffices to affect the unborn child. In later life, when one is eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old, to be a scoundrel only once won't hurt; one must become a habitual scoundrel, and that takes longer. With a pregnant woman, however, a single incident is enough.

The results of such experiments can reach much further. Imagine a young mother-to-be who is busy with her work. She hasn't been told that army maneuvers are being held nearby. Cannons begin to thunder, and her ears are given a frightful shock. Since hearing is strongly connected with the hindbrain as well as with the breathing, such a fright can cause a disorder of the breathing system of her developing child.

You might ask, “What is he saying? Why, he wants us to pay attention to every little detail in life!” Yes, gentlemen, if a healthy educational system and healthy social conditions existed, you wouldn't have to think at all about many of these things, since they would develop by force of habit like other routine matters. I don't believe that there are many men who, when they habitually beat their wives in the middle of every month, give it too much thought. They do it out of habit. There are such husbands. Why do they beat their wives? Because they have run out of money, they cannot go down to the local pub, so they amuse themselves at home by abusing their wives. These are habits that are formed. Well, gentlemen, if we had a sound educational system for everybody, we would acquire different habits. Were it known, for example, that army maneuvers would be held one morning and that there would be explosions, it should as a matter of course be called to the attention of any pregnant woman in the area. Something like this can become a habit. Sound education and socially acceptable conditions can give rise to a number of habits that need not be thought about any longer but simply carried out. This is something toward which we must work. Essentially, however, this can be accomplished only through proper education.

This is why the science of the spirit in particular will be in a position to explain the material world correctly. Materialism only looks at the material realm but is ignorant of all that lives in the material. It observes fever but does not know that fever is called forth by tremendously expanded brain activity. Materialism is always greatly astonished by shock but does not rightly recognize that shock comes from a drop of body temperature, because the proper “internal combustion” [Verbrennung] can no longer continue. Thus we can say that the way the head of a pregnant woman is stimulated is strongly connected with the child's development.

People pay no heed to what is contained in spiritual culture. A sound education will also gradually permeate everything we read and are told. Someday, for example, when people pay attention to what anthroposophy says, novels will perhaps be published for pregnant women. When pregnant women read them, they will receive impressions of ideal human beings. As a result, beautiful babies will be born who will grow to be strong, fine-looking human beings. What a woman does with her head during pregnancy becomes the source of the activity taking place in her abdomen. She shapes and forms the child with what she imagines, feels, and wills.

Here, spiritual science becomes tangible to the point where one can no longer say that the spirit has no influence on the human being. For the rest of his life, unless education sets it right later on, a person is under the influence of what his mother did during the first months of pregnancy. The later months are not as particularly important, because man has already been shaped, and definite forms have become fixed, but the first months are of particular importance and are full of significance. When one sees the physical origin of the human being in the womb, something reveals itself that in every respect points to spiritual science.

If one thinks reasonably, one can say to oneself that the warmth streaming down from above and the cold streaming up from below must always meet in the right way in the abdomen. One must care for the abdomen in the right way. This is something that must be seen, so that what comes from above can meet what comes from below in the right way. When we are clear that a person is so strongly influenced by his mother's experiences of soul and spirit that he can end up with a large or a small head, a ruined heart or breathing system, then we see that a person is, in fact, completely influenced by soul-spiritual considerations.

It can also happen that a mother-to-be, in the first or second months of pregnancy, could run into somebody with an unusually crooked nose, the likes of which she has never seen before. Unless some corrective measure is taken, in most cases the child will receive a crooked nose. You will even be able to see that in most cases if the woman was startled by the sight of a person whose nose was twisted to the right, the child will be born with a nose twisted to the left. Just as a man's right hand is connected with the left speech center in the brain, just as everything is reversed in the human being, so the twist of the nose is also reversed. We can conclude that if someone has a crooked nose, he most likely has it because his mother was frightened by someone with a crooked nose. A person has many other features. Materialistic science, when it doesn't know something's origin, always talks of heredity. If one has a crooked nose—well, that's inherited; the red skin tone of another—that's inherited, too. Things are not like this, however. They arise from causes such as I have related. The concept of heredity is one of the most ambiguous held by modern science. If you look at a person and see a twisted nose or a birthmark, this does not necessarily indicate that the mother saw the same birthmark. She might have seen something else that caused the child's blood to flow in the wrong direction. These are all deviations from the normal human form, but there is indeed a normal human form.

One cannot say simply that deviations from the normal human form do not come from bodily but from spiritual experiences while still maintaining that the entire human being comes merely from the belly of the mother, from that which is within the material realm! If one wishes to explain deviations spiritually, one must explain the entire human being spiritually. Naturally, the mother no more than the father can produce a human being spiritually. To do so would require the production of something impossible, that is, the art of being human, which is infinite. We are led to understand, therefore, that man already exists prior to birth as a spiritual being, and as soul he united with what is made available to him corporeally. Only regarding abnormal features can the embryo be influenced spiritually. It is much more remarkable, however, that I have a nose in the middle of my face or that I have two eyes! If I am born with a crooked nose, that is an abnormal feature, but recall the nose in the middle of the face with its marvelous normal form, which I recently explained to you, and the eye—what a wonder-filled thing! All this does not grow out of the mother's womb; it is something that already exists in the soul realm before the human being arises in the womb.

Here, correctly understood, natural science points to what human life is like in the spiritual world before conception. Today's materialists will naturally say that this is fantasy. Why do they say this? All the ancient people who, in primordial human times, still possessed certain dreamlike perceptions, which we no longer have, knew that man exists before he appears on earth. Throughout the Middle Ages, however, it was forbidden by decree of the Church to think of so-called pre-existence, which means pre-earthly existence; the Church forbade it. When a materialist agitates today, the rostrum is only the continuation of the medieval pulpit, and though he no longer speaks the language of those preachers, using instead the words of an agitator, he only says what medieval sermons stated long ago. Materialism has simply taken over the medieval preachings, and, though they are not aware of. it, today's materialists basically elaborate on what the Church taught. Materialism stems basically from the Church of the Middle Ages. Then, no soul was permitted to have existed before its earthly life. The intention was to teach people that God creates the soul when conception takes place. If a couple were in the mood to let conception occur—we know that in many instances this can be a mood of the moment—the Good Lord had to move quickly and create a soul for them! This is what the Church edict really implied and what one was supposed to believe.

It is not a sensible viewpoint, however, to make God the servant of the moods of human beings, so that he must hurriedly produce a soul when they happen to be in a mood to let conception take place. If you give this some thought, you discover what is actually contained in the materialistic viewpoint, which undermines human dignity. A real and true knowledge of the human being leads us instead to the realization that the soul is already there, has always lived. It descends to what is offered it through the human seed and its fertilization.

Anthroposophy has not, therefore, arrived back at the spirit because of some arbitrary fantasy but simply because it must, because it takes scientific knowledge seriously, which the others do not. People study natural science, which would lead to the spirit, but they are too lazy to come through natural science to the spirit on their own. That would require a little effort on the part of their heads. Instead, they allow some old teachers to deprive them of the spirit, and yet they still manage to be religious! Then they are dishonest, however; it is like keeping two sets of books. A person who is consistent in his reckoning must ascend from nature to spirit, and matters such as those we have discussed today, for example, will lead us there.

Today we shall be bringing to a close for the time being this winter's rather disconnected studies of St. Mark's Gospel. The passages quoted in the last lecture, to the effect that we are living in a period of transition are the key to the ideas with which we have been particularly concerned. On even a superficial consideration of spiritual life we must admit that thoughts and ideas of a new kind are emerging, although individuals living in the very midst of this new order hardly realise it themselves. It will be a good thing if we can take away material for thought which will help us to carry our ideas further, so this evening I want to give certain suggestions which will enable you to elaborate the spiritual-scientific knowledge already communicated to you.

When we refer to a period of transition it is well to remind ourselves of the greater epochs of transition in the evolution of humanity and particularly of the crucial point reached in the events in Palestine. From much that has been said we know the significance of that time. When we try to form some conception of how the supremely important idea, the Christ-idea, arose out of thoughts and feelings of the immediately preceding period, we must remember that the Jahve- or Jehovah-idea meant as much to the ancient Hebrews as the Christ-idea meant to those who became His followers. From other lectures we also know that for those who penetrate deeply into the essence of Christianity, the Being Jahve or Jehovah is not to be distinguished from Christ Himself. We must clearly understand that there is an intimate relationship between the Jahve-idea and the Christ-idea. It is difficult to summarise in a few words the vast aspects of the relationship. The subject has been elaborated in many lectures and lecture-courses in recent years, but I can illustrate it by a picture. I need only remind you again of the picture of the sunlight which can come to us either direct from the Sun or by reflection at night from the Moon, especially at Full Moon. After all, it is sunlight that comes from the Full Moon, even if it is reflected sunlight and this does indeed differ from sunlight directly received. If we think of Christ as symbolised by the direct sunlight, we may liken Jahve to sunlight reflected by the Moon and that would represent the exact sense in which the two ideas should be understood. Those who are to some extent conversant with this subject regard the transition from a temporary reflection of Christ in Jahve into Christ Himself just as they think of the difference between sunlight and moonlight: Jahve is an indirect and Christ a direct revelation of the same Being. Thinking in terms of evolution, however, we must picture what is side by side in space as successive in time. Those who speak of these things from the point of view of occultism will say: If we call the religion of Christ a Sun-religion—and there are good grounds for this expression if we recall what was said about Zarathustra—we may call the Jahve-religion a Moon-religion—the transitory reflection of the Christ-religion. Thus in the period preceding the birth of Christianity the Sun-religion was prepared for by a Moon-religion. You will only be able to understand what I am now going to say if you realise that symbols are not chosen arbitrarily but have deep foundations. When a world-conception or world-religion is associated with a symbol, those who use the symbol with adequate knowledge are aware that it is intimately and essentially connected with what it represents. People to-day have in many ways lost sight of the symbol of moonlight for the old Jahve-religion and to some extent also of the symbol of the Sun for Christianity.

You will remember how I have described the course of the evolution of humanity. First it is a descent, beginning when man was driven out of the spiritual world and sank more and more deeply into matter. And if we picture the general path of evolution, we can think of the lowest point as having been reached at the time of the Christ Impulse, after which the descent was transformed gradually into an ascent. The Christ Impulse began to have its effect at the lowest point and will continue to work until the Earth has achieved its mission.

Now evolution is a very complicated process and certain aspects of it are continuations of impulses given in earlier times. The Christ Impulse given at the beginning of our era will go straight forward, becoming more and more powerful in the souls of men until the goal of human evolution is reached—when from the souls of men it will influence the whole of life on the Earth. All later history will be evidence of the development and influence of this Impulse at a higher and more perfect stage. Many such impulses work in the world in the same way.

But there are also other impulses and factors in evolution which cannot be said to advance in a straight line. Some of them have already been mentioned. In post-Atlantean evolution we have distinguished seven epochs: the Old Indian, then in sequence, the Old Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Graeco-Latin—during which the Christ event took place—and our own fifth epoch which will be followed by two others. In the fifth epoch, certain happenings characteristic of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch are repeated in a different form. The Christ Impulse was given in the middle epoch (the fourth) and the third epoch is in a certain sense repeated in the fifth. There is a similar relationship between the sixth and second epochs and between the seventh and first. Here we are concerned with overlapping factors of evolution which will reveal themselves in such a way that we can apply to them the Biblical saying: The first shall be last. The Old Indian epoch will reappear in the seventh in a different but nevertheless recognisable form.

There is, however, still another way in which an earlier epoch may have an effect in a later one. Shorter periods may also occur in the course of evolution. Thus conditions present in pre-Christian times during the period of ancient Hebrew culture reappeared later in post-Christian times: something that was prepared within the Jahve-or Jehovah-religion, overlapping the Christ Impulse as it were, appeared again and played into the other factors which had by then developed.

If, then, we try to describe by means of a symbol what pressure of time prevents our discussing adequately to-day, we may say: Taking the Moon, contrasted with the Sun, as the symbol representing the Jahve-religion; we may expect that a similar form of belief, by-passing as it were the Christ Impulse, would emerge later on as a kind of Moon-religion. And this is what actually happened. The old Jahve-religion emerged again after the Christ Event, in the religion of the Crescent, carrying earlier impulses into post-Christian times. If you do not take things superficially, the use of the Moon and Crescent as symbols for these two faiths will not be something to smile at, for it is an actual fact that a religion or creed and its symbol are intimately connected. So in a later time we have the repetition of an earlier phase which has skipped the intervening years. This takes place in the last third of the Graeco-Latin epoch which in the occult sense we reckon as lasting up to the twelfth and into the thirteenth century. Leaving out a period of six hundred years, this means that beginning in the sixth century A.D. and exercising a very vigorous influence upon all aspects of development, we have the religion brought by the Arabians from Africa over into Spain: this represents a re-emergence, in a different form, of the Jahve-Moon-religion. The intervening Christ Impulse has been ignored. It is not possible to enumerate all the characteristics brought over with the religion of Mohammed; but it is important to realise that the Christ Impulse is disregarded in the religion of Islam which was actually a kind of revival of Mosaic monotheism. This idea of the One God, however, included a good deal derived from other sources, for instance from Egypto-Chaldean religion, which had yielded very exact knowledge of the connection of happenings in the starry heavens with earthly events. Thus the thoughts and ideas current among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Babylonians and Assyrians appear again in the religion of Mohammed but pervaded by the One God, Jahve. Speaking scientifically, what we have in Arabism is a kind of gathering-together, a synthesis, of the wisdom-teachings of the priests of Egypt and Chaldea and the Jahve-religion of the ancient Hebrews.

In such a process there is not only compression but also rejection and elimination. In this case everything connected with clairvoyant perception had to be discarded and men were to depend entirely upon reason and intellectual thinking. Hence the concepts belonging to the Egyptian art of healing and to Chaldean astronomy—which in both these peoples were the outcome of clairvoyance—are to be found in the Arabism of Mohammed in an intellectualised and individualised form. Something that had passed as it were through a filter was thus brought into Europe by the Arabians. Old concepts that had been current among the Egyptians and Chaldeans were denuded of their visionary, pictorial content and re-cast into abstract forms. They reappear in the wonderful scientific knowledge possessed by the Arabians who made their way into Europe via Africa and Spain. Whereas Christianity brought an impulse connected essentially with man's life of soul, the greatest impulse given to the human intellect was brought by the Arabians. Without thorough knowledge of the course taken by the evolution of humanity it is impossible to form any idea of how much the world-conception which arose in a new form under the symbol of the Moon, has given to mankind. There could have been no Kepler, no Galileo, without the impulses brought by Arabism into Europe. For the old mode of thinking appears again, but now denuded of its ancient clairvoyance, when the third culture-epoch celebrated its resurrection in our own fifth epoch, in our modern astronomy, in our modern science.

Thus the course of evolution is such that on the one hand the Christ Impulse penetrates into the European peoples directly, through Greece and Italy, and on the other hand a more southerly stream by-passes Greece and Italy and unites with the influences brought indirectly by the Arabians.

Only through the union of Christianity and Mohammedanism during the important period with which we are dealing, was it possible for our modern culture to come into being. For reasons which I cannot go into to-day we have to reckon with periods of six to six-and-a-half centuries for such impulses as I have been describing. Thus actually six centuries after the Christ Event the renewed Moon-cult of the Arabians appears, expanding and spreading into Europe, and until the thirteenth century enriching the Christian culture which had received its direct impulses by other paths. There was an unbroken interchange of thought. If you are conversant merely with the outer course of events, if you know how in the monasteries of Western Europe—in spite of apparent opposition to Arabism—the Arabian concepts made their way into science, you will also be aware that until the middle of the thirteenth century—again a particularly significant point of time—the Arabian impulse and the direct Christ Impulse were interwoven.

From this you will gather that the direct Christ Impulse actually moved along paths different from those taken by the impulses which streamed in like tributaries to unite with it. Six centuries after the Christ Event, as a result of happenings that are not easy to characterise although they are well known to every occultist, a new wave of culture arose in the East, made its way via Africa and Spain into the spiritual life of Europe and united with the Christ Impulse which had taken different paths. We can therefore say that the Sun-and-Moon-symbols merged into each other from the sixth/seventh century up to the twelfth/thirteenth century—again a period of some six hundred years.

After this process of cross-fertilisation had in a certain respect achieved its goal, something new arose which had been in preparation since about the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is interesting that to-day even orthodox science recognises that something inexplicable passed through the souls of Europeans at that time. Science considers it inexplicable but occultism knows that in this period, as though it were following the Christ Impulse, something yielded by the fourth post-Atlantean epoch poured, spiritually, into the souls of men: the fruits of Greek culture constituted a following wave. We call this period the Renaissance—it was the culture which during the next centuries enriched everything already in existence. Here again there was an overlapping after a period of six hundred years since the influx of Arabism. At this point in evolution the age of Greece—which was a kind of centre among the seven post-Atlantean epochs—underwent a certain renewal in the Renaissance. Then again there is a period of six hundred years, during which the Greek wave reaches its culmination; this brings us to the period in which we ourselves are living. We are living to-day at the beginning of a period of transition before the onset of the next six-hundred-year wave of culture, when something entirely new is pressing in upon us, when the Christ Impulse is to be enriched by something new. After the Moon-culture underwent its revival in the religion symbolised by the Crescent and had reached its conclusion during the period of the Renaissance, the time has now come when the Christ Impulse must receive into itself another tributary stream. With this tributary stream our own age has a particular affinity. But we must clearly understand what the influx of this new stream means to our own culture. All these happenings are entirely in accordance with an occult plan—we could also say, an occult purpose.

If we think of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, in the old not the new sequence, we should expect, after the renewal of the Moon-influence had reached its culmination during the Renaissance, the influx of another stream, to which we could legitimately assign the symbol of Mercury. If our symbolism is correct, just as we called the wave of Arabism a Moon-culture, so we might say theoretically that we now face the prospect of an influx of a form of Mercury-culture.

If we understand the way in which culture and civilisation have developed we may justifiably name Goethe as the last great individual to combine in his soul the full fruits of science, (that is to say, intellectualism enriched by Arabism) of Christianity and of Renaissance culture. We should therefore expect him to represent a glorious union of the three domains and having studied Goethe as we have been doing for years we can easily recognise that these elements do indeed flow together in his soul. But after what has been said about the cycles of six hundred years we should not expect to find in Goethe any trace of the Mercury-influence; we should expect it to appear as something new only after his time. And here it is interesting to note that Goethe's pupil, Schopenhauer, already reveals signs of this new influence. I have said that Schopenhauer's philosophy contains elements of Eastern wisdom, particularly in the form of Buddhism. Mercury has always been regarded as the symbol of Buddhism. So after the age of Goethe there was a revival of the Buddha-influence—Buddha standing for Mercury and Mercury for Buddha—in the same way as the Moon-influence reappeared in Arabism. This side-stream, which flowed into the direct Christ Impulse at the beginning of a new six-hundred-year period can therefore be described—within the limits indicated in my public lecture on the subject—as a revival of Buddhism.

We can now ask: Which is the stream of culture that flows straight forward into the future? It is the Christ-stream. And what side-streams are there? Firstly there is the Arabian stream which flows into the main current, then has a pause and finally passes into the culture of the Renaissance. At the present time a renewed influx of the Buddha-stream is taking place. If we are able to see these things in the right light it will become evident that we have to absorb those elements of the Buddha-stream which were not hitherto present in Western culture. And we can see how certain elements of the Buddha-stream are actually making their way into the spiritual development of the West, for instance, the teaching of Reincarnation and Karma. But there is something else that we must impress firmly upon our minds and it is this: none of these side-streams will ever be able to throw light on the central fact of our world-conception, of our Spiritual Science. To expect from Buddhism or any other pre-Christian oriental religion undergoing revival in our time any illumination on the nature of Christ would be no more intelligent than for European Christians to have expected this of the Arabians who had spread into Spain. The people of Europe at that time knew very well that the Christ-idea was foreign to the Arabians, that the Arabians could say nothing essential about the Christ. And when they did say anything the ideas put forward were incompatible with the true Christ-idea. The various prophets down to Sabbatai Zewi [Sabbatai Zewi (1626-76), proclaimed himself publicly in the year 1666 as the Messiah but subsequently became an adherent of Islam.] who appeared as false Messiahs without any understanding whatever of the Christ Impulse, all sprang from Arabism. Obviously, therefore, the contribution of this Arabian side-stream consisted of quite different elements; it could shed no light on the central mystery of the Christ.

Our attitude to the stream that is approaching to-day as a side-current must be the same. It is a revival of an older stream and will promote understanding of Reincarnation and Karma but cannot possibly bring any elucidation of the Christ Impulse. That would be as absurd as if the Arabians, although they were able to bring to Europeans many ideas through false Messiahs up to the time of Sabbatai Zewi, had set about giving Europe a true idea of Christ. Such occurrences will be repeated, for the evolution of mankind can go forward only if men are strong enough to see through these things with greater and greater clarity.

What we shall find is that the Spiritual Science founded by European Rosicrucianism, with Christ as its central idea, will establish itself despite external obstacles and penetrate into the hearts of men in defiance of all temptations from outside. From my book, Occult Science, you can gather how the central Christ-idea must penetrate into human souls, how the Christ is interwoven with the evolution not only of humanity but of the whole world, and you will be able to recognise along which path progress will be made. The possibility of following this onward march of Spiritual Science will be within reach of everyone who understands the words from the Gospel of St. Mark quoted at the end of the last lecture: ‘False Christs and false prophets will appear ... when men say to you: ‘Lo, here is the Christ, lo, there!—believe them not!’—But beside this stream there is another, claiming to be better informed than Western Rosicrucian Spiritual Science about the nature of Christ. This other stream will introduce all kinds of ideas and dogmas which will develop quite naturally out of the side-stream of oriental Buddhism. But Western souls would be showing the worst kind of feebleness if they failed to understand that the Buddha- or Mercury-stream has as little light to throw on the direct development of the Christ-idea as Arabism had in its time. What I am saying now is not the outcome of any special belief, dogma or fantasy; it emerges from the objective course of world-evolution. If you wanted to follow this up I could prove by figures or by the trends of culture that things will inevitably be as occult science teaches.

But in connection with all this a distinction must be made. On the one hand there is orthodox oriental Buddhism in its original form. The attempt might be made to transplant this as a fixed and unalterable system into Europe and to produce out of it an idea, a conception, of Christ. On the other hand there is Buddhism that has progressed to further stages of development. There will be people who will tell you to think of the Buddha just as he was some five or six hundred years before our era and of the doctrines he then promulgated. But compare this with what Rosicrucian Spiritual Science has to say. It will say: The fault lies with you, not with the Buddha, that you talk as if Buddha had come to a standstill at the point he had attained all those centuries ago. Do you imagine that Buddha has not progressed? When you speak as you do, you are speaking of teaching that was right for his epoch. But we look to the Buddha who has moved onwards and from spiritual realms exercises an enduring influence upon human culture. We contemplate the Buddha as described in our studies of St. Luke's Gospel, whose influence streamed down upon the Jesus of the Nathan line of the House of David; we contemplate the Buddha at the further stage of his development in the realm of the spirit, who proclaims from there the truths of basic importance for our time.

Something strange has happened in dogmatic Christianity in the West. By a curious concatenation of circumstances a Buddha-like figure has appeared among the Christian Saints. You will remember that I once spoke of a legend current all over Europe in the Middle Ages, namely, the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Its content was more or less as follows.—There was once an Indian King who had a son. In his early years, far removed from all human misery and life in the outer world, the son was brought up in the royal palace, where he saw only conditions making for human happiness and well-being. Josaphat was his name, though it has been frequently changed and has assumed several different forms—Josaphat, Judasaph, Budasaph. Until a certain age Josaphat lived in his father's palace, knowing nothing about the world outside. Then one day he was led out of the palace and came to know something of the world. First of all he saw a leper, then a blind man, then an old man. Thereafter he met a Christian hermit by the name of Barlaam, who converted him to Christianity.

You will not fail to recognise in this legend clear echoes of the legend of Buddha. He too was an Indian king's son who lived isolated from the world, was later led out of the palace and saw a leper, a blind man and an old man. But you will notice that in the Middle Ages something was added that cannot be attributed to Buddha, namely that Josaphat allowed himself to be converted to Christianity. This could not have been said of Buddha. The legend evoked a certain response among individual Christians, particularly among those who were responsible for drawing up the calendar of the Saints.

It was known that the name Josaphat, Judasaph, Budasaph, is directly connected with Bodhisattva. So here we have evidence of a remarkable connection of a Christian legend with the figure of Buddha. We know that according to the Eastern legend Buddha passed into Nirvana, having handed on the Bodhisattva's crown to his successor, who is now a Bodhisattva and will subsequently become the Maitreya Buddha of the future. Buddha is presented to us in the legend in the figure of Josaphat; and the union of Buddhism with Christianity is wonderfully indicated by the fact that Josaphat is included among the Saints. Buddha was held to be so holy that in the legend he was converted to Christianity and from being the son of an Indian king could rightly be included among the Saints—although from another side this has been disputed.

From this you will see that it was known where the later form of Buddhism, or rather of the Buddha, was to be sought. In hidden worlds the union has meanwhile taken place between Buddhism and Christianity. Barlaam is the mysterious figure who brings Christianity to the knowledge of the Bodhisattva. Consequently if we trace the course of Buddhism as an enduring stream in the sense indicated in the legend, we can accept it only in the changed form in which it now appears. If through clairvoyant insight we understand the inspirations of the Buddha, we must speak of him as he actually exists to-day. Just as Arabism was not Judaism and the Jahve-Moon-religion did not reappear in Arabism in its original form, neither will Buddhism—to the extent to which it can enrich Western culture—appear in its old form. It will appear in an altered form, because what comes later never appears as a mere replica of the earlier.

These are brief, disconnected remarks intended to stimulate thought about the evolution of humanity, and you can elaborate them for yourselves. If you will take everything you can discover in the way of historical knowledge and follow the development of Europe from the spiritual-scientific point of view you will see clearly that we have now reached the point where a fusion of Christianity and Buddhism will take place, just as in the case of the Jahve-religion and Christianity. Test this by whatever European historians can tell you: but test it by taking all the facts into consideration. You will then find confirmation of everything I have said, although it would be necessary to talk for weeks if we were to speak of all that the Rosicrucian Movement in Europe can contribute.

Nor is it only in history that you can find proof of these things. If you set about it rightly you will find proof in modern natural science and allied fields. If you seek in the right way you will find that everywhere the new ideas are thrusting their way into the present; old ideas are becoming useless and are disappearing. In a certain respect our thinkers and investigators are working with outworn concepts because the great majority of them are incapable of assimilating ideas and concepts contributed by the new cultural side-stream, particularly on the subject of Reincarnation and Karma, as well as all the other contributions which Spiritual Science can make. Our scientists are working with concepts that have become useless. If you look through the literature of any field of science you will realise how heart-breaking it often is for scholars that current concepts are quite unable to elucidate the innumerable facts that are constantly coming to light.

There is one concept—I can only touch on these things to-day—which still plays an important part in the whole range of science: it is the concept of heredity. The concept of heredity as it figures in the different sciences and in common usage is simply useless. Facts themselves will force people to recognise the need for concepts other than the useless one of heredity as currently accepted in many fields of science. It will become evident that certain facts already known to-day in regard to the heredity of man and related creatures, can be understood only when quite different concepts are available. When speaking to-day of heredity in successive generations we seem to believe that all a man's faculties can be traced back in a direct line through his immediate ancestors. But it is the concept of Reincarnation and Karma alone that will make it possible for clarity to replace the present confusion in this field of thought. Again I cannot go into detail, but it will become evident that a great deal in human nature as we know it to-day is entirely unconnected with the influence of the sexes; nevertheless a confused science still teaches that everything in the human being originates at the time of conception, through the union of male and female. But it is simply not true that everything in the human being is in some way connected with what takes place in direct physical manifestation in the union of the sexes. You will have to think this out more closely for yourselves; I only want what I have said to be a suggestion.

Man's physical body, as you know, has a long history. It has passed through a Saturn period, a Sun period, a Moon period, and is now passing through the Earth period. The influence of the astral body began only during the Moon period but naturally produced a change in the physical body. Hence the physical body does not appear to us to-day in the form imparted to it by the forces of the Saturn epoch and the Sun epoch, but in the form resulting from those forces combined with the forces of the astral body and the ‘I’. It is only those components of the physical body which are connected with the influence of the astral body on the physical body which can be inherited as the result of the union of the sexes whereas whatever in the physical body is subject to laws going back to the Saturn and Sun periods has nothing to do with the sexes. One part of man's nature is received directly from the Macrocosm and not from the union of the sexes. This means that what we bear within us does not all spring from the union of the sexes; only that which depends upon the astral body springs from that union. A large part therefore of our human nature is received—for example by way of the mother—directly from the Macrocosm and not by the roundabout way of union with the other sex.

We must therefore distinguish in man's nature one part that originates from the union of the sexes and another part that is received by way of the mother directly from the Macrocosm. There can be no clarity in these matters until a definite and precise distinction is made between the individual members of man's nature, whereas to-day everything is mingled together in confusion. The physical body is not a self-contained, isolated entity; it is formed through the combined workings of the etheric body, the astral body and the `I’; and again we must distinguish between the forces that are due to the direct influence of the Macrocosm and others that are to be ascribed to the union of the sexes.

But from the paternal organism too, something is received that again has nothing whatever to do with the union of the sexes. Certain laws and organs in no way based upon heredity are implanted direct from the Macrocosm through the maternal organism; others come from the Macrocosm by spiritual channels through the paternal organism. Of what is received by way of the maternal organism we may say that this organism is the focus through which it is transmitted; but this combines with something that again is not derived from sexual union but from the father. A macrocosmic process thus takes place and comes to expression in the bodily members and forms. Consequently when speaking of the development of the human embryo it is completely misleading to base everything upon heredity, when in actual fact certain elements are received direct from the Macrocosm.

Here, then, we have a case in our own times where the facts themselves far outstrip the concepts at the disposal of science, for these concepts originated in an earlier epoch. You may ask: Is there any evidence to confirm this? Popular literature has little to say, but occultism is absolutely clear about it. And here I should like to draw your attention to something, of which, however, I can give no more than a hint.—A remarkable contrast between two naturalists of the modern age has attracted widespread attention and has influenced other thinkers to a very considerable extent. The characters of the two naturalists are very relevant here. On the one side there is Haeckel. Because Haeckel applies ancient concepts to his really wonderful collection of facts and data, he traces everything to heredity and bases the whole development of the embryo upon it. On the other side there is His, [Wilhelm His (1831–1904).] the zoologist and scientist, who keeps very closely to the facts as such and because of this might possibly be accused, with a certain justification, of doing too little thinking. Because of the particular way in which he investigated his facts he was bound to oppose the concept of heredity as propounded by Haeckel and he pointed out that certain organs and organic structures in the human being can be explained only if the view that they originate from the union of the sexes, is discarded. To this Haeckel mockingly retorted that His was attributing the origin of the human being to a virginal influence independent of any sexual union! But as a matter of fact this is quite correct. Scientific facts more or less compel us to-day to admit that what can be attributed to the union of the sexes must be distinguished from what comes direct from the Macrocosm—which wide circles of people nowadays naturally regard as absurd. So you can see that even in the field of natural science we are being driven towards new concepts. The present phase of evolution makes it evident that to have a genuine grasp of the facts presented by science we must acquire many new concepts and that those inherited from past ages no longer suffice.

From what I have said you will realise that a tributary stream must flow into our present culture. This is the Mercury-stream, the existence of which proclaims itself in the fact that those undergoing occult development as described in many of our lectures, grow into the spiritual world and in so doing experience new facts and realities. This penetration into another world may be compared with the way in which a fish is transferred from water into the air but must first have prepared itself by turning its gills into lungs. Similarly, a man whose faculty of sense-perception is developing into spiritual perception will have made his soul capable of using certain forces in a different element. The very atmosphere nowadays is saturated with thoughts which make it necessary for us to have a genuine grasp of the new facts of science becoming evident on the physical plane. The spiritual investigator can penetrate into the real nature of the facts that press in upon him from all sides. This is due to the appearance of the new stream of which I have been speaking. Thus wherever we look, we find that we are living in an extraordinarily important epoch, in times when it will be impossible for life to progress unless revolutionary changes take place in men's thinking and perception.

I said that man must learn to live in a new element in the same way that a fish, accustomed to living in water, would have to find its way into the new element of air. But men must be able, in their thinking too, to penetrate to the real nature of the facts produced on the physical plane. If they stand out against this new thinking they will be in the same position as fish taken out of the water; later on they will literally be gasping for spiritual concepts. Those who want to retain the monism of to-day are like fish who might prefer to exchange their watery for an airy habitation, but at the same time want to keep their gills. Only those human souls who so transform their faculties that a new conception of present facts is within their reach will grasp what the future has in store.

So we find ourselves living, but now with full understanding, at a point where two streams converge. The first stream should give us a deeper understanding of the Christ-problem and the Mystery of Golgotha; the other should inaugurate new ideas and concepts of reality. The two streams must converge in our time. But this will not happen without great hindrances being encountered; for in periods when two such streams of thought and outlook converge, all kinds of obstructions arise. And in a certain sense it is the adherents of Spiritual Science who will find it particularly necessary to understand these facts.

Some of our members might counter the exposition I have been giving here, by saying: What you have told us is very difficult to understand and we shall have to work at it for a long time. Why do you not give us something more readily digested, which convinces us of the spirituality of the world and makes a greater appeal? Why do you expect so much of our understanding of the world? How much pleasanter it would be if we could believe what a Buddhism transmitted exactly as it was at the beginning, can tell us: that we need not think of the Christ Event as the single point on which the scales of world-evolution hinge and that there can be no repetition of it. It would be so much easier to think that a Being such as the Christ incarnates again and again like other men. Why do you not say that here or there this Being will come again in the flesh—instead of saying that men must make themselves capable of experiencing a renewal of what happened to St. Paul at the gate of Damascus? For if you told us that there will be an incarnation of the Christ Being in the flesh, we could say: ‘Behold, he is here! We can see him with physical eyes!’—That would be so very much easier to understand.

Plenty of people will see to it that this kind of thing is said. But it is the mission of Western Spiritual Science to make known the truth—the truth which takes full account of all the factors responsible for the progress of evolution to this day. Those who look for comfort and ease in the spiritual world will have to seek for spirituality along other paths. The truth needed for our times is that to which we must apply all the intellectual capacity acquired since the fading of the old clairvoyance; this must carry us on until the dawn of the new clairvoyance. And I am sure that those who understand the nature of this intellectual capacity in the form necessary for to-day will follow the path indicated in the words I have spoken here now, and so often before. It is not a matter of saying in what form we wish to have the truth but of knowing from the whole course of human evolution in a given epoch, how, at a particular point of time, the truth must be proclaimed. You may be sure that plenty of other things will be said, and you must not be unprepared for them. Consequently in Rosicrucian Spiritual Science we shall not fail to draw attention again and again to the highest spiritual knowledge attainable in our time. You need never accept blindly on trust anything said here or elsewhere, for in our Movement we never appeal to blind credulity. In your own intelligence and the use of your own reason you have adequate means of testing what you hear. And remember, as you have been told so often, that you must bring the whole of life, the whole of science and the whole of your experience, to bear upon what you hear in Rosicrucian Spiritual Science. Do not fail to put everything to the test. It is precisely where you come across incongruities or perhaps where the truth seems to be the very opposite of what is stated, that on the ground of true spirituality blind faith cannot be allowed. Everything based on blind faith is bound to be sterile and stillborn. It would be easy enough to build on credulity: but those who belong to the stream of Western spiritual life refuse to do this. They build instead upon what can be tested by human reason, understanding and intellect. Those in touch with the source of our Rosicrucian Spiritual Science know that whatever is said has been carefully tested. The edifice of Spiritual Science is built upon the ground of truth, not upon that of easy faith; it is upon the foundation of a thoroughly tested, though perhaps difficult truth, that we establish our Spiritual Science; and prophets of a blind and comfortable faith will not shake that foundation.

Today I would like to request you once again, without exception, to refrain from taking notes. This applies to all three days.

Most of you were present last Thursday at our discussion in Basel. I now want to bring to your attention once more quite a short extract of what we talked about then, as I consider it not unimportant for these thoughts to become known to us.

I described how the wisdom about Christ was destroyed root and branch by dogmatism, namely, that wisdom which was present in Gnosis which itself was rooted out, since what remains of it now is no more than a fairly good number of fragments. Gnosis was a remnant of ancient wisdom arising out of an atavistic knowledge of the spiritual worlds in the days of early mankind. Those who possessed this ancient wisdom, which was still understood by the Gnostics at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, knew that it contained a view—the names were different then—of the hierarchies which underlie the creation of the world, and they were thus able to conceive of the significance of Christ. Together with Gnosis there disappeared the possibility of comprehending the Christ-Being as a cosmic being. Instead there remains dogma which has perpetuated certain incomprehensible concepts—the Credo and so on—about the Christ-Being.

What was important in centuries now gone by was not so much the wisdom about Christ as the fact itself, the fact that Christ turned towards the earth and fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. A true understanding of the Christ-Being will first have to be won through the new Gnosis, which is something entirely different from the old Gnosis, for it is anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

More important for our point of departure today is something else I introduced last Thursday, namely that in the North in very early pre-Christian times—I said 3000 years BC—there was a certain custom among peoples whom Tacitus called the Ingaevones. This custom was guided by Mystery priests in a Mystery centre focused on what is today Jutland, part of Denmark. This Mystery centre was able to work at that time and in those parts because all the climatic conditions in those colder regions differed from any in the southern, warmer regions—for all material conditions also have their own spiritual background. While the warmer regions were more suited to developing an understanding of the Christ-Being in Gnosis, the colder parts lent themselves more to evolving feelings about Jesus because of ideas still prevalent about ancient customs.

Thus it was that, in the South, Gnosis had more of an understanding of the Easter Mystery, the Christ Mystery. But the understanding, as I have said, was destroyed root and branch by dogma. In the North, in contrast, there was more of a comprehension of the Jesus Mystery, a feeling for the child who comes into the world to save mankind. This was based not so much on actual ideas, which had died out, but on feelings which live longer than ideas. The feeling of these ancient customs made comprehension possible. So it came about that in the South it was the task of the church to root out the Christ Mystery, whereas in the North it was its task to root out the Christmas Mystery, to transform it into something innocuous. Thus later, in the Middle Ages, the idea of Christmas came into being which, one might say, reckoned with the rise of bourgeois values of more recent times, which appeared increasingly as the age of materialism dawned. For bourgeois values in the widest sense are a concomitant of materialism. We have to be clear, though, that greater, more significant ideas, in the form of feelings, lived in Central Europe right into the eighth, ninth and even the tenth centuries, for these feelings originated from prevalent usages, such as processions and other folk customs.

Let me briefly sketch these ancient customs once again. Among the Ingaevones the life of the people was firmly guided by the Mystery centre which laid down the season when provision could be made for procreation. The union of man with woman was permitted only in the days of spring, around the first full moon after the spring equinox. It was approximately the time we now call Easter time. The remainder of the year was taboo as far as human reproduction was concerned, and those born at a time which showed that their conception had been out of season were regarded, in a way, as not quite proper people.

So the births of people conceived at the correct time all came together in the middle of winter, just after our present Christmas time. All those regarded by the Ingaevones as fully human had to be born at this time. The births had to fall at the time of the darkest winter days, when the trees were covered in snow and the people confined to their primitive homesteads. To use the language of today, every child was in a way a Christmas child, a child of the winter solstice.

This affected people's frame of mind and soul. Because nothing to do with procreation occurred at other times of the year, the old dream-conscious clairvoyance was preserved. And when the time of conception approached as the permitted spring days drew near, conditions of unconsciousness took over. Conception was brought about in a state of unconsciousness, not in waking consciousness. The woman who was conceiving was truly conscious, however, of the visionary appearance of a spiritual being descending from spiritual worlds to announce the coming child. These women even foresaw the face of the coming child. And this annunciation, as we saw, is echoed in the time of the Luke gospel in the annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel. We saw that there even exists a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon rune song which tells of what existed in the old consciousness and that on the Jutland peninsula there really was a Mystery centre which then migrated eastwards.

Now mankind is, of course, developing, and development is a part of mankind. So this Mystery centre could only exist in most ancient times, for, had it persisted, there would have been no development of the type of consciousness needed as the task of the fourth, and then of the fifth post-Atlantean period. To clairvoyant consciousness the custom is hardly to be found anywhere in northern regions, where it flourished, even in the second millennium BC, and it is seen to have disappeared fully by the first millennium BC. By then, human conception and birth were spread more or less over the whole year and there is no more knowledge of a coming-down out of cosmic worlds via the starry constellations, nor of how much depends for a person's destiny on earth on the constellation under which he is born. Human conception and birth are spread over the whole year.

Parallel with this development is the rise of a new consciousness, the rise of the possibility of freedom for the human being and so on.

One last thing remained, however. Something had existed in the region where Denmark is today; it migrated from tribe to tribe until it reached the East, where the Christ-Being was to be incarnated in one last body still seen in connection with the constellations. The first-born of many brothers became the last-born of those who were seen in connection with the starry constellations. In evolution the last remnant of the old always links up with what is new.

Because in northern regions the feeling had evolved that the human being appears on the earth during the consecrated season, it came about that here, too, surrounded by the echo of those atavistic feelings, the feeling for Jesus could evolve. Thus you will find in these northern regions that the paramount feeling and better understanding was for the Luke gospel, and that the Christmas Mystery worked more strongly than the Easter Mystery, which was imprisoned among the secrets of the church, whereas the Christmas Mystery became quite general.

I hinted last Thursday, and shall perhaps be able to follow through in more detail during these three days, that every three years special attention was paid to the one born first after the twelfth hour of the night that we now call Christmas Eve, the first-born of every fourth year, the first to be born after three years. This first-born was destined to undergo certain procedures until his thirtieth year. Until his thirtieth year he was kept apart and brought up by the Mystery priests. His soul was given a distinct direction. His soul was destined to undergo experiences in a quite special way during the first thirty years of his life. These experiences and procedures were to lead him—this is barely comprehensible today—in his thirtieth year to an inner understanding of the link between the human being and the surrounding spiritual world. Certain quite specific inner experiences during these thirty years were to lead him gradually to this point.

First of all this first-born was to understand, even as a tiny child, how the human being is linked to the spiritual world through his angel. Separated from the rest of the world, undisturbed by the concepts which usually enter a child's soul from his environment, he was to remain close to spiritual workings and spiritual events and, to start with, develop a profound awareness of his links with the angel-being who was his guide—his angelos. In this way this child was equipped with a soul which was taught something very special, about which we may perhaps speak during the next few days. This special learning was expressed by saying that the child had become a ‘raven’. This was a stage of initiation which was disseminated over wide regions and was contained particularly in the Persian Mithras initiation, of which I have spoken in past years. Then this soul was to ascend to an even more intense feeling for its connection with the spiritual worlds; this first-born was to relive in his soul the secrets of the spiritual worlds.

This would not be possible today, for our consciousness develops under different conditions. But, in those ancient times, when it was possible to develop a dream consciousness this was still perfectly possible. When the child had grown into a youth—it was always a boy, a girl did not count—he was given the leadership over individual districts, smaller sections of the tribe. Finally, he had to serve in the administration and government of smaller communities. But it is important to remember that these affairs of government were always conducted in such a way that the youth was ever protected from external influences, especially shielded from the influences of various egoisms; he was most carefully shielded from the influences of egoisms, from influences which came about on the basis of external experiences.

Thus it was achieved that, towards the end of these thirty years, he could take on the role of representative of the whole tribe. When he reached the age of thirty he was ready to absorb consciously the connections of man with the whole cosmos. He became what is called in the Mystery centres a ‘sun hero’. Now he was destined to rule the tribe for three years. None but a ‘sun hero’ could rule the tribe. He was permitted to rule for only three years. At the end of the three years something else, about which I shall speak, was done with him under the guidance of the Mysteries. In particular, in all the arrangements that emanated from the tribe of the Ingaevones, nobody was allowed to be king for longer than three years, and none was allowed to become king who had not undergone what I have described.

You see, forming in these tribes, as it were the skeleton, out of which the gospels later created the life of Christ Jesus. These communities lived in very ancient times. Only symbols of what had gone before come down to later ages. Thus the vision of the annunciation of the child to the mother came down to later ages as the worship of Nerthus, of Ertha. And the fact that the act of conception had to take place unconsciously in olden times is still hinted at in the Nerthus myth told by Tacitus a hundred years after the birth of Jesus. He describes how Ertha—who is male-female, not only female, for she is the same as the god Nerthus—arrives in her chariot; in other words, she is none other than the angel of the annunciation. Then those who have served her have to be drowned in the sea—slain. This is an echo of the submergence into unconsciousness of the act of conception in those ancient days.

In this myth of Ertha in her chariot and the slaves who accompany her but are drowned as soon as their service is concluded, in this myth of Nerthus, we have in the feeling-life an echo of something that was formerly an astral reality, something that had been experienced astrally. Nerthus processions were held in some districts until quite recently in history, right into the early Christian centuries. There were Ertha processions even in Swabia. These were echoes of ancient days. Those who in olden times, through certain rites which still existed as an echo of ancient heathen times, knew something about these earlier millennia, felt and thought about these processions of Ertha in her chariot: This is what our ancestors did. And when that single event then occurred which was the life of Jesus, it was brought into connection with what had been more general in ancient times. This was then better understood in the feelings, at the level of the feelings.

Therefore the monks and priests made every effort to root out anything which might remind their flocks of these things. Such things were rooted out just as carefully in the North as was Gnosis in the South. Otherwise people would have known, by bringing together these ancient customs with the Mystery of Golgotha, that this Mystery, in so far as it is a Christmas Mystery, was not an ancient, natural custom brought into the present but rather that it was replaced in the feeling for the Christmas Mystery by something at a higher level of consciousness. But this was not to be known consciously. This was to be suppressed into the subconscious, for there are always certain powers who reckon with the unconscious. A great part of what happens in history comes about because things conscious and things unconscious are brought together by those who know how to bring such things together.

We rightly speak of what happens in going from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period. But even in the transition from the third to the fourth there was a step forward in human consciousness towards increased ego-consciousness, increased waking consciousness. The ancient dream visions of the spiritual world have disappeared. In the North this was expressed by saying that the Vanir, who were connected with what is given in visions, had been replaced by the Aesir, who are indeed gods for a well-developed day consciousness. This is what was said in the North during the fourth post-Atlantean period, until all such memories had been rooted out by the priests. In the fifth post-Atlantean period, when materialism, or rather ‘Christianityism’, appeared, these things had already disappeared. While in the South the Greeks had their gods: Zeus, Apollo and the others, the people of the North had the Aesir, a word which is connected with esse, to be, which in turn is connected with being seen, being seen with the eyes. But during the third post-Atlantean period the ancient peoples who inhabited the North of Europe had the Vanir. These Vanir were far closer to the people. Nerthus, which became Nört in the North, is one of the Vanir, who announced every conception or birth. Now I said that what had existed earlier was always preserved in later times in symbols. Thus something that I have so far only sketchily described to you and which we may be able to go into more deeply in the next day or two, namely, the knowledge bound up with becoming ‘king’, becoming the ‘sun hero’, was carried over first into the cult-myth and then into the myth. We have to distinguish between the cult-myth and the myth as such. The cult-myth is something that is still performed in external customs like a ‘dream performance’ of what reminds people of the ancient clairvoyant visions.

Thus, at a time when what I described to you no longer worked, we have in the Baldur myth, the myth of the god Baldur which was performed in many tribes as a mystery play, an echo of what was involved in ‘becoming king’. First it existed as a reality. Later it was performed as a mystery play. Then it became a myth that was merely recounted. And finally it was rooted out by the monks and priests. Baldur is one of the Aesir, that is, he was one of the ruling spiritual powers at a time when man had already awakened to ego-consciousness. The Vanir had already faded, and yet Baldur remains as a representative of that being who was to become king, the first-born who came every three years.

It is told that, at a certain time in his life, Baldur had dreams announcing his death. Later these dreams came true. But this did not mean merely that he had felt the approach of his physical death. It meant that, having accomplished three years of service as king, he was raised from the consciousness appropriate for that, to a higher level of consciousness. Until then he had been shielded from contact with the outer materialistic world. A king such as this was to live within the priesthood so that all egoism should depart from his soul and none could enter in. He was not permitted to be king for more than three years. Towards the end of the three years Baldur sensed the approach of the end of his time of kingly dignity. This meant, according to the ancient beliefs, that he was ready for contact with the outside world. First he had to rule, but he had to do this solely in accordance with the wishes of the spiritual world. After that he was to become something else; he was to enter the outside world.

For someone who had never had such contact before this was, in truth, a kind of death. This is what was expressed in his dreams. The myth describes how the gods heard about these dreams and became uneasy. We must always think of the human element in relation to the divine element in the way that the two are united in the ancient Mysteries. When, towards the end of his time as king, Baldur felt the moment approaching, the gods—that is the Mystery priests—became uneasy and made all the creatures and all the conditions of the earth swear that they would not harm Baldur. They forgot only one insignificant little plant—mistletoe, the Christmas plant. Loki, the enemy of the Aesir, found the mistletoe. And he made use of it at the festival of the gods, that is, at the event of the god Baldur's first contact with the outside world.

Here we have an ancient Christmas festival, and the mistletoe custom linked with Christmas is still today a memory of this ancient custom which had to do with establishing a new king in place of the old. The contact of the old king with the material world is depicted in the mystery play and the myth. All created things have sworn not to harm Baldur. They are now used by the gods who throw them at Baldur and shoot them at him. Nothing—no plant, no animal, no illness, no poison—can harm him. Only Loki has discovered the mistletoe, which he has brought amongst the community of gods—that is, the priests—and given to the blind god Hödr. Hödr says: What shall I do with the mistletoe? I am blind and cannot see where Baldur is standing, I cannot shoot at him as the other gods do. But Loki showed him the direction and he shot at Baldur with the mistletoe twig. Baldur was wounded and died.

So Hödr is the one who appears as the representative of the outside, material world, in so far as this material world is not comprehended in its connection with the spiritual world but lives like a parasite. ‘Höd’ is the ancient name for battle or war, while ‘Baldur’, as it still exists today, can be traced back to another designation of which the best, still preserved, appears in Anglo-Saxon. As I showed recently, ‘Tag’ appears at an earlier stage of the sound shift as ‘day’. ‘Bal day’ is a possible name, even though Anglo-Saxon. It means ‘shining day’, which expresses Baldur's connection with daytime consciousness, that consciousness which did not come to mankind until the fourth post-Atlantean period. Hödr is a representative of matter, of darkness, but also of battle and conflict. Baldur is the representative of understanding, of knowledge, of light—namely, that light which shines in the human soul in the state of consciousness which has developed since the fourth post-Atlantean period.

So in the Baldur myth we have a special version of the Christmas Mystery. Awareness of the connection between the Baldur myth and the Christmas Mystery was also rooted out by the monks and priests. For Baldur has some of the good qualities of Lucifer, and Hödr has some of the good qualities of the later Mephistopheles-Ahriman. I do not mean ‘good’ in the moral sense but rather in the sense of what is necessary for evolution. Such things, too, are connected with evolution as a whole. During the fourth post-Atlantean period it was still possible for a human being to be guided into the spiritual world in the ancient way as was the case in the old northern Mysteries. This had to be changed as time went on, for the tentative way, later only present in an atavistic form, the tentative, clairvoyant way—still with a certain echo of dream consciousness, which was fitting for the fourth post-Atlantean period—could not resist the more robust demands of the materialistic age. This relationship of ancient clairvoyance from the fourth post-Atlantean period to what came later is expressed in the myth depicting the contrast between Baldur and Hödr. What is working here, what is behind the fact that Baldur—the representative of human consciousness, which can be illuminated by the divine—can be killed through the influence of the evil power of Loki over Hödr, the god of battle, of war and of darkness? Behind all this lies the fact that in our age, as it has been for a long time and as it will still be for some time to come, there must always be a working together of light and darkness. To try and make people believe that anything in the physical world, the world of maya, can be totally good, is nothing but religious egoism. Every light has its shadow, and a thorough comprehension of this fact is extremely important and significant.

Let us take an example. Under the influence of the Christmas Mystery it will be possible for us to go more deeply into a number of matters we have discussed recently. So let us take an example. I have often suggested that if Spiritual Science comes to be taken up more fully by people then, for instance, it will influence medicine, the art of healing. Certain more physical methods of healing will be found for sicknesses of the soul, and more spiritual methods for bodily illnesses. I told you why this is not yet possible: It is simply because the sins have been created by the law and not the law by the sins. So long as the laws work in such a way that materialistic medicine is considered to represent them—and that is the case today—so long will individuals, however thorough their insight, be unable to do anything and, indeed, they ought not to do anything. But a time will come in the not too distant future when medicine, the art of healing, will incorporate the impulses which come from spiritual knowledge. I merely want to point this out for the moment, since I am actually leading up to something else. Knowledge of the healing forces is inseparable from knowledge of the forces of sickness. One cannot be taught without the other. No one in the world can gain knowledge of the healing forces, without at the same time learning about the forces of sickness. So you can see how important it is for people to be morally good through and through as regards such serious matters. For someone who can heal a person's soul can also make a person's soul sick in the same degree. Therefore such truths may not be imparted by the gods to man until a stage of morality has been reached at which the healing medicine cannot be transformed into poison.

This applies not only to the situation in which we are dealing with abnormal states of body or soul but also to what goes on in social life. In what has been said in recent lectures you will have seen quite clearly that impulses work in the social life of human beings, good and bad impulses, which can be guided by those who understand such things, and are indeed often guided in rather extraordinary ways. You will realize that it is simply necessary for this to be so, for mankind must learn on its own account how to achieve the good. I know very well how little these things are taken seriously, even in our circles, and how narrow-minded are the excuses and objections. But this also has to be so at present.

As with the individual, so is it also in social life: Certain impulses can be steered and guided to one side or the other. In social life, in particular, it is still possible nowadays to make use to a considerable extent of the unconscious, for every age has its unconscious aspect. As soon as you start to reckon with the unconscious or the subconscious it is possible to achieve effects which differ considerably from what can be done consciously, for today's consciousness will not achieve its natural connection with the cosmos until the sixth post-Atlantean epoch. Today, those who reckon with the unconscious bring things over from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in either a mephistophelean or a luciferic way. Now, it fits in well with our present endeavours in these grave times to apply general truths of this kind to specific situations, for it is appropriate not just to play theosophical games but to gather serious knowledge which affects reality, even though this serious knowledge might make demands as to the degree of prejudice existing in our feelings. Also, we are in accord with a feeling for Christmas if we make the decision to approach the earnestness of life. Nowadays we cannot allow ourselves to indulge luxuriously in sentimental Christmas-tree feelings, for a true Christmas mood involves feeling one's way to its connection with the grave and shattering experiences of the present time.

You can see, particularly in people's everyday lives, what happens if they are being influenced at a subconscious level. You can hypnotize an individual person, so that once he is hypnotized he is in your power, and you can make him do things he would never even consider doing in a waking state. You can hypnotize him, which means putting him into a state of consciousness belonging to ages long past, and you may have all sorts of intentions for doing so. In the same way it is possible to hypnotize whole communities. An individual person is stronger in the physical world than is a group, and it is therefore necessary to lower his consciousness considerably more in order to work through him while he is in this other consciousness. In the case of a community or group of people the lowering of consciousness need not even be noticeable, for it can be far more slight. Yet certain things would not be achieved by continuing to speak, for instance, in the way we speak with one another. Therefore I must stress again and again: I shall never consider speaking other than in difficult concepts which require intellectual understanding, so that each person is forced to follow the line of thought and form concepts of what is being said. If we take the fifth post-Atlantean period and its requirements seriously, there can be no question of wishing to bring about any kind of intoxication, or of intending to work on anything other than the intellect. Even someone who knows nothing of Spiritual Science, but has a certain awareness of what it means to be in the fifth post-Atlantean period, will respect the inner freedom of the human being and speak in a way which does not dupe the feelings or create disturbances in the soul.

It would be different with a person who wanted to achieve effects different from those I have described, that is, if someone wanted to make use of a lowered consciousness, which can be achieved far more easily with a crowd than with an individual, since for a crowd no hypnosis is needed. You know how a crowd, a group, can be seized by a certain intoxication if it is handled in a suitable way. I have said on earlier occasions that I have met orators who knew by instinct how to speak in a way which does not directly address the intellect but uses slogans and telling images to speak to a consciousness that is somewhat askew, somewhat delirious. As I said, the approach has to be stronger in the case of an individual, but for a crowd no more is needed. I have given you examples of this.

It is entirely fitting to contemplate these things in a mood of inwardness which befits these days, for they are deeply bound up with the Christmas and Easter Mysteries. I described some time ago how I was moved in my youth when I met with such an effect in a certain situation. I have recounted this example quite often: My karma led me at the right time to hear the sermons of a very important Jesuit father. I could watch as a certain image was intensified in the people by means of particular words; I saw them being convinced in a manner that did not involve their intellect but brought about a certain kind of delirious mood. Let us look at the example. The Jesuit was preaching about the necessity of believing in the Easter confession and he said, in effect, the following: Well, of course non-believers think that the Easter confession was instituted by the Pope or the college of cardinals. What an idea, my dear Christians! Someone who maintains that the Easter confession has been established by the Pope and the priests might be compared with somebody watching a trooper standing beside his cannon, with an officer next to him giving orders. The trooper only has to light the fuse and the cannon goes off. My dear Christians, compare the trooper with the Pope in Rome and the officer giving the orders with God! Just imagine the officer standing there shouting ‘Fire’, and the trooper lighting the fuse without any will of his own. The cannon goes off. This is what the Pope does. He listens to God's commandments. God commanded—the Pope was like the trooper who lit the fuse—and there was the Easter confession. Would you say that the trooper standing by the cannon and lighting the fuse had also invented the gunpowder? It is as unlikely that you would say the trooper invented the gunpowder as it is that you would maintain that the Pope invented the Easter confession! And all the people were convinced, of course! It was perfectly obvious.

In certain communities these things have to be learned, namely, how to describe things in pictures, how to use images, bring about intensifications, and employ comparisons. This is a special art which is diligently practised in the grey brotherhoods. But there is no need to belong to a grey brotherhood in order to practise such an art. One can be dependent in one way or another on the grey brotherhoods, perhaps without even knowing how dependent one is, and then one can use these methods.

What is all this based on? It is based on the fact that a different kind of soul life is present when we speak with one another in a manner suited to the fifth post-Atlantean period, for then we direct ourselves to the intellect and not to a kind of delirium which would be brought about if we used some of the means I have just sketched. In the fifth post-Atlantean period we have to learn to withstand Hödr, we have to learn to withstand the remnants of an earlier time that resemble the mistletoe which has become a parasite in the plant world. We have to learn to withstand Hödr, the unconscious one, the blind one, the passionate one, the delirious one.

We can only win this capacity by making our understanding such that we feel quite isolated from the world, whereas those who develop a delirious type of consciousness immediately attract to themselves cosmic effects; they draw cosmic effects down into the present. With the consciousness of the fifth post-Atlantean period we stand in isolation on the earth. In a delirious consciousness, cosmic effects are drawn into the soul. And these, of course, have to be utilized in an appropriate way. Let us take an actual case.

Someone who today wants to work on others, on those whose consciousness is delirious, with the aim of achieving a particular end, can do the following: He can remember when something similar existed in an earlier age when the starry constellations were also similar. Now since everything goes in waves in the world, so that a particular wave returns to the surface after a certain time, in order to achieve certain effects he can make use of an event which under similar cosmic conditions is like a copy of an earlier event; he can make it a copy of an earlier event. Let us assume that someone wants to achieve something by influencing others in their delirious consciousness, by carrying out certain procedures involving certain facts. He goes back in history and recalls something which happened at an earlier date under a similar starry constellation.

Assume someone wants to bring something about on a day in the spring of a particular year. Having established that it is Whitsuntide, he goes back through time until he finds an event that is similar to the one he wants to bring about. And it must fall in a year when the date of Whitsun fell approximately on similar days of the month. Then the starry constellation will also be roughly the same. By utilizing all this it will then be possible to work on those in a delirious state of consciousness. In a sense it will be possible, by bringing about a state of delirious consciousness under a particular starry constellation, to hit the target of a group of people who are always a kind of Baldur in the fifth post-Atlantean period; in other words, to play Loki with blind Hödr, or through blind Hödr.

Now let us take an actual case: In an earlier age Whitsuntide fell on 20 May 1347. At this time on a particular day the heralds, flourishing their trumpets, marched with a crowd—it does not matter that their relationship to the Whitsun Mystery differed from ours today—leading Cola di Rienzi, who made the proclamation, from that important place in Rome under that very starry constellation which fell on 20 May, which was to give him the title of tribune of Rome. The impression he made was comparable to the impression made on a group or crowd in a state of delirious consciousness. For the crowd believed that Cola di Rienzi had brought the Holy Ghost; and utilization of the starry constellation of the time made it possible, though for a very short time only, for him to achieve what he intended.

A remarkable copy of this event took place under the same starry constellation in 1915 when, not Cola di Rienzi, but Signor d'Annunzio called together a crowd on the same spot in a very similar way! Again a delirious consciousness was affected by ideas and symbols which conjured up pictures that were eminently suitable for speaking to this delirious consciousness. I am not criticizing anybody's consciousness but merely reporting facts—facts which, if you like, have been pushed as far as possible down into the unconscious. But this does not alter their effectiveness. On Whitsun-day 1915 the same happened in Rome as had happened on Whitsun-day 1347, which also fell on 20, 21 May. One day makes no difference. On the contrary, the constellation was all the more identical. At Whitsun 1915 there was a repeat performance of what had happened under Cola di Rienzi in 1347. The new event was thus particularly effective, for it was borne on the same vibrations, the same waves, the same conditions.

History will only be understood when such facts are known, when it is known what can be achieved with the help of such facts. Regardless of what the influences were, Signor d'Annunzio, through the life he had led so far, had the potential of succumbing to all sorts of influences, and he had the strength to put these influences to use. Let me remark merely that, because of his earlier poetry, this poet was called by a number of critics representing the healthy side of Italy ‘The singer of all shameful degeneracy’. In ordinary life his name was Rapagnetta, which I am told means ‘little turnip’, but he called himself d'Annunzio.

Under this starry constellation Signor d'Annunzio gave a speech which you may judge for yourselves because I am going to read it aloud to you to the best of my ability. To put you in the picture: There were two parties in Italy at that time, the Neutralists and the Interventionists, and Signor d'Annunzio set himself the task of transforming all the Neutralists into Interventionists. The Neutralists wanted to preserve neutrality, and Giolitti, a man who had been very active in Italian political life for a long time, was for neutrality. That speech by d'Annunzio, which was like a repetition of the one made long ago by Cola di Rienzi under the same starry constellation, went as follows:

‘Romans!

Yesterday you presented a noble show to the world! Your never-ending, well-ordered procession resembled those solemn processions of ancient days which gathered here in the temple of Jupiter Maximus; and every street through which such power marches, such power coupled with such dignity, becomes a Via Sacra. Invisible in your midst you drew, on an invisible carriage, the statue of our great mother.

Blessed be the Roman mothers I saw in the procession yesterday, the mothers who bore their sons in their arms and wore on their foreheads the mark of resigned courage and silent sacrifice.

Is there any need for exhortations when the very stones are eloquent? The people of Rome were prepared to tear up the paving stones trampled by the horses which ought long since to be standing firm at the borders of Istria, instead of remaining here, humbled by shame, to defend the nests of poisonous creatures, the houses of traitors! What must have been the sadness of our young soldiers!—What a show of discipline and self-denial they gave, when they protected, against the just anger of the people, those very men who denigrate and slander them, humiliating them before their brothers and before the enemy. Let us cry: “Long live the army!” That is the call of this hour! Of all the vile actions committed by Giolitti and his pack this is the vilest: the denigration of our arms and of our national defence. Until yesterday they got away with the dissemination of doubt, suspicion, and disregard for our soldiers—our handsome, good, strong, brave, impetuous soldiers, the flower of our people, the reliable heroes of tomorrow. With what heavy hearts did they fix their bayonets in order to repulse the very people whose only purpose was to avenge them!

O my admirable comrades! Today every good citizen is a soldier for the freedom of Italy! Through you and with you we are victorious, we have brought confusion to the ranks of the traitors. Hear, O hear! The crime of high treason has been declared and proved, and publicly announced. The dishonourable names are known; punishment is needed!

Do not be taken in, do not be moved to pity. A rabble like that has no twinges of conscience, no remorse. Who can teach another taste to the beast who is accustomed to the filth in which he rolls and the trough from which he gorges?

On the twentieth of May in the solemn gathering of our union, we shall not tolerate the shameless presence of those who, for months, have been negotiating the sale of Italy with the enemy. Clowns may not be permitted to clothe themselves in the tri-coloured mantle, and bellow from unclean throats the holy name of the fatherland. Write out your list of proscription without pity. It is your right, it is your duty! Who saved Italy in her hour of darkness, who but you, her people, pure and profound?

Never forget that! The others may escape punishment only by flight! Let them go! This is the only leniency permitted towards them. Was not a certain one, even this morning, still inclined to join in the plots whose net is being spun among the blossoming rosebeds of the villa on the Pincio—now to be confiscated—by the fat German spider who lives there? We never believed for one minute, of course, that a ministry formed by Herr Bülow could have received the approval of the King—or rather, that the King could have become an accomplice to such a thing.

In his great heart the King has heard the exhortation of Camillo Cavour: The hour of the House of Savoy has come!

The hour has come. It tolls under the high heavens which arch over your Pantheon, O Romans, and over this eternal Capitol! Here, where the plebeians held the meetings of their council; here, where every increase in the empire of Rome was consecrated, where the consuls exacted the levies and received the oaths of the soldiers; whence the magistrates of the republic departed to take over command of the armies and control the provinces; where Germanicus set up the trophies of his victory over the Germans; where the triumphant Octavian solemnly confirmed Roman dominance over the whole of the Mediterranean basin; here, at this place, the starting point and the goal of all our victories, we celebrate the voluntary sacrifice, we cry the words of consecration and desire: Long live the war, long live Rome, long live Italy, long live the army and the fleet, long live the King! Glory and victory!’

Thus spoke the new Cola di Rienzi. Then he received the #8224 presented to him as a special souvenir of Nino Bixio. This #8224 stemmed from ancient days and had been treasured by the Podrecca family. The #8224 is presented—pardon me, but this is really true—by the editor of Asino! Asino is a particularly obscene satirical journal. But d'Annunzio takes hold of the #8224, kisses it solemnly, strides through the crowd and enters—not, like Cola di Rienzi, a horse-drawn triumphal chariot, for times have changed—he enters a motor car, having first commanded all the church bells to be rung. The delirious consciousness must not be allowed to fade too soon. All the bells are rung to keep it going a little longer. Then d'Annunzio halts his car at the telegraph office and sends a telegram to the editor of Le Gaulois who answers—I am sorry I do not know how to pronounce this in French so I shall have to say it in the German way—who answers to the name of Meier:

‘Rome, 1 p.m., great battle fought. Have just spoken on the Capitol to an enormous, delirious crowd. The bells are sounding the alarm, the cries of the people rise up to the most beautiful sky in the world. I am drunk with joy. After the French miracle I have now witnessed the Italian miracle.’

Without making any comments or taking sides I simply wanted to point out certain facts in order to show, by the way in which they are connected, how things happen that are hardly noticed by our unobservant contemporaries. I wanted to show that although the ‘singer of all shameful degeneracy’, as he was called in Italy, probably did not believe very strongly in the miracle of Whitsun, he nevertheless succeeded very well in working on certain unconscious impulses by using a repetition of an event which made available considerable forces within a delirious consciousness. This man, who in his own country is called ‘the singer of all shameful degeneracy’ and who has succeeded in writing a novel which trumpets forth his relationship with a famous woman in the most contemptible way—this man found another whole series of effective images in another long speech, this time in the Constanzi theatre. The image of the cannon, which I have already mentioned, is rather less significant. I cannot read the whole speech to you as this would take too long. Let me give you a passage from the beginning and another from the end. It begins:

‘Romans, Italians, brothers in faith and in yearning, my new friends, and my companions of old!’

Well, so he says ‘of old’!

‘Your greetings of warm kindness, of generous recognition, are not intended for me. It is not the homecomer in me you are welcoming, I know, it is the spirit that leads me, the love that fills me, the idea that I serve.

Your welcome goes through me and beyond me to a higher goal. I bring you the tidings of Quarto, Roman tidings to the Rome of the Villa Spada and of Vascello.

This evening the daylight has not gone from the Aurelian walls and it will not go: the glimmer remains on San Pancratio.

Let us this evening confront cowardice with heroism and remember that sixty-six years ago today the leader of men led his legion, already destined to become the June miracle, from Palestrina back to Rome. Let us this evening confront shame with fame and remember that fifty-five years ago at this very hour the thousand on the march from Marsala to Salemi were bivouacking, their muskets stacked together, eating their bread or sleeping quietly. In their hearts they carried the stars and the words of their leader which still sound vital and commanding to this day: “If we unite, our task will be easy. To arms!” It was the call of Marsala, which continued with the robust threat: “Those who do not arm are cowards or traitors!” If he, the saviour, could but descend from the Janiculus into the plain, would he not brand with one or the other of these signs and charge with shame all those who secretly or publicly work towards disarming Italy, shaming our fatherland, returning it to a state of servitude, nailing it back on its cross or leaving it to die in a bed that has sometimes seemed to us a grave without a cover?

Some need fifty years to die in their beds, some need fifty years to complete their disintegration in their beds. Is it possible we would allow strangers in our midst or from without, enemies who live in our house or who have entered it forcibly, to impose this kind of death on a people who yesterday raised with a shudder of power an image of their highest myth upon their shore, a monument of their true will, their Roman will, O citizens? For three days now an indefinable stink of treachery has been seeking to suffocate us.’

And so it goes on. Then, at the end we find a new, warmed-up version of something we know so well from the gospels. D'Annunzio of all people dares to speak the following words:

‘Blessed are they who have more, for all the more shall they give, all the more shall their enthusiasm be inflamed! Blessed are they who have for twenty years a pure spirit, a hardened physique, a courageous mother!

Blessed are they who refrained, waiting and trusting, from squandering their strength, preserving it instead with a warrior's discipline!

Blessed are they who scorned unfruitful dalliance, saving their virginity for this first and last love!’

D'Annunzio of all people says: ‘Blessed are they who scorned unfruitful dalliance, saving their virginity for this first and last love!’

‘Blessed are they who shall tear out the hate rooted in their breast with their own hands and then offer their sacrifice!

Blessed are they who yesterday still resisted the event, yet today silently accept it as a profound necessity, desiring now to be no longer the last but the first!

Blessed are the young men who hunger and thirst for glory, for they shall be satisfied!

Blessed are the compassionate, for they shall wipe away the shining blood and bind up the lustrous pain!

Blessed are the pure in heart, blessed those who return victorious; for they shall see the new countenance of Rome, the re-crowned head of Dante, the triumphant beauty of Italy.’

So even in our own time such things are sometimes said! And it is so important, my dear friends, not to pass by these things. For not all people act in accord with the One Whose birth we celebrate in the holy night—not those who scream out such beatitudes into the world. To belong, not to the darkness, but to the light which has entered into the world: This is a feeling with which to fill our souls at the time of this holy feast. To dedicate ourselves to the light, instead of to that inattentiveness which brings us only darkness: This, too, can be something in these grave times which it is important for us to inscribe in our souls on Christmas Eve.

[ 1 ] We can find an interesting parallel between what is revealed in the life of the individual and what rules in the development of humanity as a whole if we consider, for example, what the teachers and leaders of ancient Egypt told the Greeks about the guidance and direction of Egyptian spiritual life. The story is told that when an Egyptian was asked who had guided and led his people since ancient times, he answered that in remote antiquity gods had ruled and taught them and that only later did human beings become their leaders. He added that the first leader they acknowledged on the physical plane as a human-like being rather than a god was called Menes.¹ In other words, according to Greek accounts, the Egyptian leaders asserted that the gods themselves had guided and directed their people in earlier times.

We must always take care to understand in the right way reports that have been handed down to us from ancient times. We need to think carefully about what the ancient Egyptians meant when they said that the gods had been their kings and great teachers. They meant that in ancient times those people who felt in their souls a kind of higher consciousness, a wisdom from higher worlds, had to put themselves into a clairvoyant state before they could find their true inspirer and teacher, for their true teacher would approach them only when their spiritual eyes were opened. Such a person when asked, “Who is your teacher?” would not have pointed to this or that individual, but would have entered a clairvoyant state—and we know from spiritual science that it was easier to achieve a clairvoyant state in ancient times than it is today. In that clairvoyant state, a person would have met his teacher, for in those days beings came down from the spiritual worlds who did not become incarnate in human bodies. Thus, in the remote past of ancient Egypt, the gods still ruled and taught, using human beings as their channels. At that time, however, the term “gods” referred to beings who had preceded human beings in their development.

[ 2 ] Spiritual science teaches us that before becoming the “earth” as we know it today, the earth passed through an earlier planetary state or condition called the “moon state.”² During this moon state, human beings were not yet human in our sense of the word. Nevertheless, there were other beings on the old Moon who had evolved to the same level as humans have now reached on the earth, though they looked very different from us. In other words, on the old Moon, which perished and later developed into our earth, there were beings we can consider as our forerunners. In Christian esoteric ism these beings are called angeloi (angels), while those beings above them, who reached the human stage of their development even earlier than the angels, are called archangeloi (archangels).

The angeloi, known as dhyanic beings or dhyani in oriental mysticism, reached the human level of their development during the Moon stage. Consequently, if they completed their evolution on the old Moon, they are now one level above us. At the end of earthly evolution, we will arrive at the level they reached at the end of the moon stage.

[ 1 ] When the earth state of our planet began and human beings appeared on it, the angels could not manifest in outer human form because the human flesh body is essentially an earthly product appropriate only for beings now at the human stage of development. Since the angels are a level above the human, they could not incarnate in human bodies; they could participate in the government of the earth only by enlightening and inspiring human beings who had achieved a state of clairvoyance. These higher, angelic beings used clairvoyant individuals to intervene in the guidance of the earth's destiny. [ 3 ] Thus the ancient Egyptians still remembered a time when their leaders were vividly conscious of their connection with these higher beings, called variously gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. These beings who influenced humanity without incarnating in human bodies, without taking on fleshly human form, were our forerunners; they had already outgrown the level of development we have reached only now.

[ 4 ] The word “superhuman”³ is often misused these days, but in this case we can use it correctly and apply it to those beings who had already achieved the human level of development during the moon period—the planetary stage preliminary to our earth—and have now grown beyond it. Such beings could appear on earth only in an etheric body and thus could be perceived only by clairvoyant individuals.⁴ That is how they came down to earth from the spiritual worlds and ruled on the earth even in post-Atlantean times.⁵

[ 5 ] These beings had the remarkable characteristic indeed—they still have it today—that they did not need to think. In fact, it may be said that they cannot think at all the way we do. After all, how do we think? Well, usually we start from a particular point, and once we have understood it, we try to comprehend other things on the basis of this understanding. If our thinking did not follow this pattern, many people would have an easier time learning in school. Mathematics, for example, cannot be learned in a day because we must begin at one point and proceed slowly from there. This takes a long time. An entire world of ideas cannot be taken in at a glance because human thinking takes its course over time. A complex thought structure cannot be present in the mind all at once; rather, we must make an effort to follow it step by step.

The higher beings I have described are not encumbered by this peculiar characteristic of human thinking. Instead, they realize an extensive train of thought as quickly as animals know to grab something the moment their instinct tells them it is edible. In higher beings, then, instinct and reflective consciousness are one and the same. What instincts are for animals at their evolutionary level, in their kingdom, direct spiritual thinking, or direct spiritual conceptualization, is for these dhyanic beings or angels. And this instinctive, conceptualizing inner life is what makes these higher beings so essentially different from us.

[ 6 ] Obviously, the angeloi cannot possibly use the kind of brain or physical body we have. They must use an etheric body because the human body and brain can process thoughts only over time. The angeloi do not form their thoughts over time; they feel their wisdom flash up in them by itself, as it were. They cannot possibly make mistakes in their thinking the way we can. Their thinking is a direct inspiration. The individuals who were able to approach these superhuman or angelic beings were therefore aware of being in the presence of sure and reliable wisdom.

In ancient Egypt, then, those who were teachers or rulers knew that the commandments which their spiritual guides gave them and the truths they uttered were immediately right and could not be wrong. And the people to whom these truths were then imparted felt the same way. [ 7 ] The clairvoyant leaders of ancient times could speak in such a way that the people believed that their words came from the spiritual world. In short, there was a direct current flowing down from the higher, guiding spiritual hierarchies.

[ 8 ] Thus, the next higher world of the spiritual hierarchies guides the entire evolution of humanity; it works both on the individual in childhood and on humanity as a whole. The angeloi or superhuman beings of this realm are one level above us and reach directly up into the spiritual spheres. From these spheres they bring to earth what works into human culture. In the individual, this higher wisdom leaves its imprint on the formation of the body during childhood, and it formed the culture of ancient humanity in a similar way.

[ 9 ] This is how the Egyptians, who reported that they were in contact with the divine realm, experienced the openness of the human soul to the spiritual hierarchies. Just as the child's soul opens its aura to the hierarchies until the moment indicated in the previous lecture, so, through its work, humanity as a whole opened its world to the hierarchies with which it was connected.

[ 10 ] This connection to the higher hierarchies was particularly significant in the case of the holy teachers of India. These were the great teachers of the first post-Atlantean epoch, of the first Indian culture that spread in the south of Asia. After the end of the Atlantean catastrophe, when the physiognomy of the earth had changed and Asia, Europe, and Africa had developed in the eastern hemisphere in their new form, but before the time documented in ancient records, the culture of the ancient teachers of India flourished.

People today generally have a completely false picture of these great Indian teachers. If, for example, an educated person of our time were to meet one of the great teachers of India, he or she would look puzzled and probably say, “This is supposed to be a wise man? That is not how I imagined a wise man.” According to our current definition of the terms “clever” and “intelligent,” the ancient holy teachers of India would not have been able to say anything intelligent. By today's standards, these teachers were simple and very plain people who would have given the simplest answers to questions, even to questions pertaining to everyday life. Often, it was scarcely possible to elicit anything from them other than some sparse utterance that would seem quite insignificant to the educated classes of our day.

However, at certain times, these holy teachers proved to be more than merely simple people. At these times they had to gather in groups of seven, because what each could sense individually had to harmonize as if in a seven-tone harmony with what the other six experienced. Each wise man was able to perceive this or that, depending on his particular faculties and development. And out of the harmony of the individual perceptions of these seven individuals, there emerged the primeval wisdom that resounds through ancient times. Its reverberation can be heard even today if we decipher the occult records correctly. The records I am referring to are not the revelations of the Vedas, though the Vedas are certainly marvelous in their own right.⁶ The teachings of these holy men of ancient India precede the writing of the Vedas by a long time. The Vedas, those tremendous works, are only a faint echo of those earlier teachings.

When these wise teachers faced one of the angeloi or superhuman forerunners of humanity, and looked clairvoyantly into the higher worlds, listening all the while clairaudiently to this being, their eyes shone like the sun. And what they were able to impart then had an awe inspiring effect on the people around them; all who heard them knew that they were not speaking out of human wisdom or human experience, but that gods, superhuman beings, were intervening in human culture.

[ 11 ] The ancient cultures originated from this influx of divine wisdom. The gate to the divine-spiritual world was completely open for the human soul during Atlantean times. In the course of the post-Atlantean periods, however, gradually the gate closed. Little by little, people in many countries felt that human beings had to rely more and more on themselves. Here we can see again that the development of humanity as a whole parallels that of the child. At first the divine-spiritual world still extends into the child's unconscious soul, which is active in the formation of the body. Then comes the moment when each person begins to perceive himself or herself as an I, the first moment one can remember. Before this lies a time we cannot in any ordinary way usually recall. This is why it is said that even the wisest among us can still learn something from the soul of the child as it is in the time before memory develops. Thereafter, the individual is left to his or her own devices; I-consciousness appears, and we become able to remember our experiences.

In the same way there came a time when nations began to feel themselves cut off from the divine inspiration of their forefathers. For just as we are separated more and more from the aura guiding us during our early childhood years, so in the life of nations the divine forebearers gradually and increasingly withdrew. As a result, human beings were left to their own research and their own knowledge. In historical records that describe this development, we can feel the intervention of the guides of humanity.

The ancient Egyptians called the first founder of culture, who was human rather than divine, “Menes.” And they dated the human possibility of error from the same moment, because from then on human beings had to rely on the instrument of the brain. The ancient Orientals likewise gave the name “Manes” to the human being as thinker and called the first bearer of human thinking “Manu.” The Greeks called the first developer of the principle of human thought “Minos” with whom the legend of the labyrinth is associated. The fact that human I beings can fall into error is symbolized by the labyrinth. Labyrinths were first built at the time when the gods withdrew from human beings. They are, of course, images of the convolutions of the brain, in which the thinker can get lost. At the time of Minos people sensed that they had gradually moved away from being guided directly by the gods and were developing a new form of guidance in which the I experienced the influence of the higher spiritual world.

[ 12 ] To summarize: Besides the forerunners of the human race, who completed their human stage on the Moon and have now become angels, there are other beings who did not complete their development at that time. While the angeloi or dhyanic beings advanced one level above ours at the moment when human evolution began on earth, these other beings, like the higher categories of luciferic beings, did not complete their human evolution on the old Moon, and thus remain somehow incomplete.

Thus when the earthly condition of our planet began these early human beings were not alone; they received inspiration from divine-spiritual beings. Without their inspiration, like children without guidance, these early human beings would have been unable to progress. Therefore the beings who had completed their evolution on the old Moon were indirectly present on the earth with them. Between these angelic beings and early, childlike humankind, however, there lived beings who had not completed their evolution on the old Moon. These beings, of course, were on a higher level than we are because they could have become angels during the old Moon period. But they had not reached full maturity then and thus remained below the angels, although they are still far superior to us in terms of typically human attributes. Indeed, these beings who stand between us and the angels occupy the lowest level among the multitudes of luciferic spirits—the realm of the luciferic beings begins with them.

[ 13 ] It is extraordinarily easy to misunderstand these beings. We could ask why the divine spirits, the rulers of the good, permitted such beings to remain behind, thus allowing the luciferic principle to enter humanity. While we may object that the good gods will certainly turn everything to the good, this question nevertheless suggests itself. Another misunderstanding arises if we consider these beings as simply “evil.” To think that these beings are “evil,” however, is to misunderstand them because, although they are the source of evil in human evolution, they are not “evil” at all. Rather, they just stand midway between us and the superhuman beings. In a certain way, indeed, these beings are more perfect than we are. They have already achieved a high level of mastery in all the capacities we still have to acquire. At the same time, unlike the angelic forerunners of the human race, these luciferic beings, because they did not complete their human stage of development on the old Moon, are still able to incarnate in human bodies during earthly evolution. The angeloi, on the other hand, the great inspirers of humanity upon whom the ancient Egyptians still relied, cannot appear in human bodies but can only reveal themselves through human beings. Thus, in the remote past, besides human beings and angels, there existed beings who were neither angels nor humans and were able to incarnate in human bodies. Indeed, in Lemurian and Atlantean times a number of individuals bore such “retarded” angelic beings within them as their innermost core. During those periods ordinary human beings, who were to develop through successive incarnations to an appropriate level of the human ideal, coexisted with beings who looked outwardly like ordinary people. These luciferic beings had to clothe themselves in human bodies because earthly conditions require the outward form of a physical body. Thus, particularly in ancient times, humanity lived side by side with these other beings who belong to the lowest category of luciferic individualities.

While the angels worked on human culture through human individuals, the luciferic beings incarnated and founded cultures in various places. The legends of ancient peoples often talk about great persons who established cultures in this or that particular place. These were embodied luciferic beings. However, it would be wrong to assume that because such an individual was an incarnation of a luciferic being he or she was therefore necessarily evil. In fact, human culture has received countless blessings from these beings.

[ 14 ] According to spiritual science, in ancient times, specifically in the Atlantean period, there existed a kind of human primal or root language that was the same over all the earth because speech in those times came much more out of the innermost core of the soul than it does today. The following will make this clear. In Atlantean times people experienced outer impressions in such a way that to give expression to something external the soul was compelled to use a consonant. Thus, what was present in space—the universe and everything in it—induced people to imitate everything around them with consonants. People felt the wind blowing, the sound of waves, the shelter a house provides, and imitated these experiences by means of consonants. On the other hand, people's inner experiences, such as pain or joy, were imitated by vowels. Thus, one can see that in speech the soul became one with external events or beings.

[ 15 ] The Akashic chronicle reveals, for example, that when people in the past approached a hut arching over a family, sheltering and protecting the people, they observed primarily its shape curving around the inhabitants.⁷ This protective curving of the hut was expressed through a consonant, but the fact that there were ensouled bodies in the hut—people could feel this sympathetically was expressed through a vowel. Gradually, the concept of protection emerged: “I have protection, protection for human bodies.” This concept was expressed in consonants and vowels, which were not arbitrary, but an unambiguous and direct expression of the experience. [ 16 ] This was the case everywhere on earth. The existence of a “primal language” common to all people is not a figment of the imagination. To a certain extent, the initiates of every nation are still able to understand this original language. Every language contains certain sounds reminiscent of it; in fact, our modern languages are the relics of the primeval, universal human language.

[ 17 ] This original language was inspired by the superhuman beings, our true forerunners, who completed their development on the Moon. If there had been no other influence than this, the entire human race would basically have remained unified; there would have been one universal way of speaking and thinking everywhere on earth. Individuality and diversity could not have developed, and human freedom likewise could not have been established. Divisions and splits in humanity were necessary for the development of human individuality. Languages became different in each region of the earth because of the work of those teachers who were an incarnation of a luciferic being. These luciferic or “retarded” angelic beings used the language of the nation in which they incarnated for their teaching. Thus, we owe the fact that every nation speaks a particular, non-universal language to the presence of such great, enlightening teachers, who were, in fact, “retarded” angelic beings who had reached a far higher level than the human beings around them. Beings like the early heroes celebrated by the ancient Greeks who worked in human form, for example, as well as beings who worked in human form in other nations, were such incarnations of angelic beings who had not completed their development.

Clearly, then, these beings cannot be dismissed as completely “evil.” On the contrary, they have provided what has destined the human race to be free by introducing diversity into what would otherwise have remained universally uniform over the whole earth. This is true for many other aspects of life as well as for languages. Individualization, differentiation, and freedom are due to the beings who remained behind on the Moon.

To be sure, it may be said that the wise leadership of the world intended to guide all beings to their goal in the planetary evolution. However, if this had been done directly, certain other things would not have been achieved. Certain beings are held back in their development because they have a special task in the evolution of humanity. The beings who had completely fulfilled their task on the Moon would have created only a uniform humanity and, therefore, they had to be opposed by the luciferic beings. And this in turn gave these luciferic beings the possibility of changing something that was actually a defect into something good.

[ 18 ] On this basis we can consider the question of why evil, imperfection, and disease exist in the world from a wider perspective. We can look at “evil” in exactly the same way we have just looked at the imperfect, “retarded” angelic beings. Everything that is at one time imperfect or retarded in its development is changed into something good in the course of evolution. This is, of course, no justification of our evil deeds.

[ 19 ] This also tells us why the wise government of the world holds back the development of certain beings and prevents them from reaching their goal. The reason is that the holding back will serve a good purpose in subsequent evolutionary periods. In ancient times, when the nations were not yet able to direct themselves, teachers guided particular eras and particular individuals. In a sense, all the teachers of the nations—Kadmos, Kekrops, Pelops, Theseus, and so on—bore an angelic being in the innermost depths of their soul.⁸ This is a clear indication that humanity is in fact subject to guidance and direction in this respect as well.

[ 20 ] Thus, at each stage of evolution there are beings who fail to reach the goal they should have attained. In ancient Egyptian civilization, which flourished several thousand years ago on the banks of the Nile, superhuman teachers revealed themselves to the people and were considered by them to be divine guides. At the same time, however, other beings were active who had not yet completely reached the level of angels.

The ancient Egyptians had attained a certain level of development—that is, the souls of people today had developed to a certain level during the Egyptian period. Thus the guidance I am talking about here has a twofold benefit: it helps the person who is guided to achieve something, and it also helps the guiding beings to advance in their development. For example, an angel is more after having guided people for a while than it was before taking this guiding role. In other words, angels advance through their guiding work—“full” angels as well as those who have not yet completed their development. All beings can advance at all times; everything is in continuous development. Nevertheless, at each stage some beings remain behind and fail to complete their development.

Ancient Egyptian culture, therefore, was influenced by three categories of beings: divine leaders or angels, semi-divine leaders who had not yet fully reached the level of angels, and human beings. Now while the human beings on earth progressed in their evolution during the ancient Egyptian period, some superhuman beings or angels were held back, that is, they did not fulfill their guiding role in a way that would have allowed them to bring all of their powers to expression. Consequently, these beings remained behind as angels and did not develop further. Similarly, the imperfect, “retarded” angelic beings, who had not yet developed to the level of the “full” angels, were also arrested in their development. Thus, when the Egypto-Chaldean cultural period drew to a close and the Greco-Latin period began, guiding beings from the earlier cultural epoch who had not finished their development were still present. However, they could now no longer use their powers because their place in guiding humanity had been taken over by other angels or semi-angelic beings. As a result, these beings who were left over, so to speak, were unable to continue their own evolution. [ 21 ] Thus we have a category of beings who could have used their powers during the Egyptian period, but did not do so to the full extent possible and so were unable in the subsequent Greco-Latin period to use their own forces because other guiding beings had taken their place. In addition, the nature and character of the Greco-Latin epoch also made their intervention impossible.

Earlier we saw that the beings who had not evolved to the level of angels on the old Moon later had the task of actively participating in the earthly evolution of humanity. By the same token, those guiding beings who did not complete their development in the Egypto-Chaldean period are similarly meant to intervene in human development in a later epoch. This is to say that, in a given later cultural epoch, the normal progress of human evolution is to be directed by beings whose turn it is to take on a guiding role; but, at the same time, other beings will be active who did not develop fully in earlier times, for instance, those who failed to complete their development in the ancient Egyptian epoch. This characterization applies to our own period as well; that is, we live in a time when, besides the normal leaders of humanity, the incompletely developed beings from the ancient Egypto-Chaldean cultural period actively intervene.

[ 22 ] To understand the unfolding of events and beings, we must see events in the physical world as effects (revelations) of causes or archetypes that lie in the spiritual world. Our culture, by and large, is characterized by a trend toward spirituality. The urgent striving for spirituality we see in many people is the result of the work of those spiritual guides who have attained the developmental level appropriate to them. These normally developed spiritual guides of our evolution are at work in everything that can lead us to the great treasures of spiritual wisdom that theosophy [ anthroposophy] can impart to us.

However, the beings who did not develop properly during the Egypto-Chaldean period are also shaping the cultural trends of our time. They are at work in much that is thought and done in the present and the near future. In particular, these beings are active in everything that gives our culture a materialistic cast, but often their influence can be felt even in the trend toward the spiritual. Indeed, we are experiencing what amounts to a resurrection of Egyptian culture in our time.

The beings invisibly guiding events in the physical world thus belong to one of two classes. The first comprises those spiritual individualities who developed properly and normally up to our time. These were able to help in the guidance of our culture at the time when the leaders of the Greco-Latin period preceding our own gradually completed their mission of guiding humanity through the first Christian millennium. The second class works together with the first and consists of those spiritual individualities who did not complete their development in the Egypto-Chaldean period. These had to remain inactive during the Greco-Latin period, but they can actively participate in guiding us now, because our time is very similar to the Egypto-Chaldean period.

That is why much in contemporary culture seems to be a resurrection of ancient Egyptian forces. However, the forces that worked spiritually in ancient Egypt now frequently appear recast in materialistic form. Let us look, for example, at the way ancient Egyptian knowledge is being revived today. In this connection, we may think of Kepler, who was imbued with a sense of the harmony of the structure of the cosmos and expressed this harmony in the important mathematical laws of celestial mechanics called Kepler's laws.⁹ These laws may appear to us now rather dry and abstract, but they grew directly out of Kepler's perception of the harmony of the universe. Kepler himself wrote that to be able to make his discoveries he had to penetrate the holy mysteries of the Egyptians and steal the holy vessels from their temples.¹⁰ What he thus brought the world will not be understood in its full significance for humanity until much later.

Kepler's words are not mere phrases; rather, they indicate that he vaguely sensed that he was re-experiencing what he had learned in Egyptian times during his incarnation in that epoch. Indeed, we can assume that, in a past life, Kepler had deeply studied and penetrated ancient Egyptian wisdom which then reappeared in his soul in a new form appropriate to modern times. Understandably, the Egyptian spirit brings a materialistic trend into our culture since a strong element of materialism existed in Egyptian spirituality. For example, the Egyptians embalmed corpses, that is, they attached great importance to the preservation of the physical body. Our funerary customs, though with appropriate modifications, derive from this Egyptian tradition.

The same forces that failed to develop properly at that time are now again actively participating in human evolution—though, of course, in a different way. The modern worship of mere matter grew out of the outlook that made the embalming of bodies important. The Egyptians embalmed the bodies of their dead and thus preserved something they considered very important. They believed that the further development of the soul after death was linked to the preservation of the physical body. In the same way, modern anatomists dissect the physical body and think that they are learning something about the laws of the human organism.

Today, the forces of the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean worlds that were progressive then have become regressive and are at work in modern science. To fully appreciate the character of our present time, we must come to know these forces. If we remain ignorant of their significance, these forces will harm us. Only if we are aware of their activity and can find a right relationship to them will they not be harmful. Only through knowing them will we be able to guide these forces to good ends. They must be put to use, for without them we would not have the great achievements of technology, industry, and so on. These forces belong to the lowest rank of luciferic beings. We must see them for what they are. Otherwise, we begin to believe that no other impulses than the modern materialistic ones exist, and we fail to see other forces that can guide us upward to the spiritual realm. For this reason, we must clearly distinguish two spiritual streams in our time.

[ 23 ] If the wise powers guiding the world had not retarded the development of these luciferic beings during the Egypto-Chaldean period, our era would lack a certain necessary gravity. Only the forces that would bring us at all costs into the spiritual realm would then be working on us. Of course, we would be only too inclined to give in to them and would become dreamers and visionaries; we would be interested in life only if it became spiritualized as quickly as possible. A certain contempt for the physical-material world would then be our typical attitude. However, to fulfill its mission, our present cultural epoch has to bring the forces of the material world fully to fruition, so that their sphere can be conquered for spirituality.

We can be tempted and seduced by the most beautiful things if we pursue them one-sidedly, and this one-sidedness, if it takes hold, can also turn every good endeavor and striving into fanaticism. It is true that humanity advances through its noble impulses, but it is also true that the impassioned and fanatic advocacy of the noblest impulses can bring about the worst results for our development. Only when we strive toward the highest goals with humility and clarity, and not out of impassioned enthusiasm, will wholesome and healthy developments for the progress of humanity result.

Therefore, the wisdom at work in guiding the world arrested the development of those forces that should have fully evolved during the Egyptian cultural epoch. This was done to give the achievements of our era a certain necessary weight, thereby enabling us to understand the material world, the things on the physical plane. These same forces now direct our attention toward physical life.

[ 24 ] Thus, humanity develops under the guidance of beings that have progressed properly and of other beings that failed to do so. People with clairvoyant vision can observe the cooperation of the two classes of beings in the supersensible world. They can understand the spiritual processes of which the physical events around us are the manifestation.

[ 25 ] Of course, opening our spiritual eye or spiritual ear to the spiritual world through exercises of some kind is not sufficient to enable us to understand what is happening in the world process. It only allows us to see what is there, to recognize that there are spiritual beings of the soul or the spiritual realm. In addition to this, we must also be able to distinguish, to cognize the different kinds of spiritual beings involved in the world process. We cannot tell just by looking whether a being of the soul or spiritual realm is developing appropriately or whether its development has been arrested. We do not know whether it advances or hinders our evolution. If we develop clairvoyant abilities but do not also gain a full understanding of the conditions of human development as we have described them, we will never be able to tell what type of being we are encountering. Thus, clairvoyance must always be accompanied by a clear assessment of what we perceive in the supersensible world.

This is particularly necessary in our own time. It was not always so. In very ancient cultures, things were quite different. In ancient Egypt, for example, clairvoyants could identify to what group a being of the supersensible world belonged, because that information was as if written on its forehead. Therefore, clairvoyants could not mistake one being for another. Nowadays, however, the danger of misunderstanding and mistaking one being for another is very great. In ancient times, people were still close to the realm of the spiritual hierarchies and could recognize the beings they encountered. Now, however, errors are easily possible, and the only way to protect ourselves against serious harm is to make an effort to grasp concepts and ideas such as those presented here.

[ 26 ] In esotericism, a person who is able to see into the spiritual world is called a “clairvoyant.” But, as I have said, just being a clairvoyant is not enough, because clairvoyants, though they can see in the supersensible world, cannot distinguish. Therefore, people who have developed the ability to distinguish between the beings and events of the higher worlds are called “initiates.” Initiation is what enables us to distinguish between various types of beings. People can be clairvoyant and see into the higher worlds without also being initiates. In ancient times, being able to distinguish between these beings was not especially important, for once the ancient mystery schools had brought their students to the point of clairvoyance, there was no great danger of making mistakes. Now, however, the danger of falling into error is very great. Therefore, in all esoteric schooling the development of clairvoyance must always be accompanied by initiation. As people become clairvoyant, they must also become able to distinguish between the particular types of supersensible beings and occurrences they perceive.

[ 27 ] In modern times, the powers guiding humanity are faced with the special task of creating a balance between the principles of clairvoyance and initiation. At the beginning of the modern period, the leading spiritual teachers necessarily had to consider what I have just explained. As a matter of principle, therefore, the esoteric spiritual movement that is suited to our time works to establish the right relationship between clairvoyance and initiation. This balanced relationship became necessary when, in the thirteenth century, humanity underwent a crisis in regard to its faculty of higher cognition. Around the year 1250, in fact, we find the period in which people felt most cut off from the spiritual world.

Clairvoyant exploration of this time reveals that even the outstanding minds striving for higher cognition had to admit that their ability to know the physical world was limited by their reason, intellect, and spiritual knowledge. They felt that human research and the human capacity to know would never enable them to reach the spiritual world. In fact, they only knew of the existence of a spiritual world because reports of it had been handed down from previous generations. In the thirteenth century, then, direct spiritual perception of the higher worlds had become darkened and more difficult. It was with good reason, therefore, that at the height of scholasticism people believed that human knowledge was restricted to the physical world.¹¹

[ 28 ] By about 1250, people had to draw the boundary between what they believed on the basis of the traditions handed down to them and what they could perceive and understand on their own. The latter was limited to the physical, sensory world. Later, a new era dawned when it began to be possible again to gain direct insight into the spiritual world. However, this new clairvoyance is different from the old one that had more or less disappeared by the year 1250.

For this new form of clairvoyance, Western esotericism had to lay down the strict principle that initiation must always guide our spiritual ears and eyes. This characterizes the special task that the esoteric stream, then introduced into Europe, had taken upon itself. As the year 1250 approached, a new way of guiding human beings toward the supersensible worlds began to take hold.

[ 29 ] This new guidance was prepared by the spirits that worked in that time behind the outer events of history. Already centuries earlier, they had prepared what would be necessary for esoteric schooling under the conditions that would prevail after 1250. If the term “modern esotericism” is not a misnomer, we can apply it to the spiritual work of these more highly developed individuals. Conventional history, focusing only on outer events, knows nothing of them. But their deeds have affected all cultural developments in the West since the thirteenth century.

[ 30 ] The significance of the year 1250 for the spiritual development of humanity becomes especially clear if we consider the following result of clairvoyant research. Even individualities who had already reached high levels of spiritual development in their previous incarnations and incarnated again around 1250 had to experience a complete, though temporary, obscuring of their direct vision of the spiritual world. Even completely enlightened individuals were as though cut off from the spiritual world and knew about it only from their memories of earlier incarnations. From this we can see that a new element obviously had to appear in the spiritual guidance of humanity. This new element is true modern esotericism. It enables us to fully understand how what we call the Christ-impulse can take part in guiding humanity as well as each individual in all activities and aspects of life.

[ 31 ] The Christ-principle was first assimilated by human souls in the period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the advent of modern esotericism. During this period, people accepted Christ unconsciously as far as their higher spiritual forces were concerned. Later, when people had to accept Christ consciously, they made all sorts of mistakes. In their understanding of Christ they were led into a labyrinth. In those first years of Christianity, the Christ-principle took root in lower, subordinate soul forces. This was followed by a time, one in which we are still living, in which people began to understand the Christ-principle with their higher soul capacities. In fact, even today, we are only at the beginning of this understanding. Indeed, as I will explain in the next chapter, the decline of supersensible cognition up to the thirteenth century and its slow revival in a new and different form since then coincide with the intervention of the Christ-impulse in human history. Modern esotericism, therefore, may be understood as the elevation of the Christ-impulse into the leading element in the guidance of those souls who want to work on gaining a knowledge of the higher worlds that is appropriate to current developmental conditions.

[ 32 missing ]

• 1. Menes, c.3400 B.C., Egyptian king. First king of the first dynasty.
• 2. For a description of the planetary stages, see Steiner, Occult Science, 108–254.
• 3. riedrich Wilhelm Nietzche, 1844–1900, elaborated his idea of the “superhuman” in the character of Zarathustra in his Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883). He portrays a future wherein humanity attains dominance and the realization of its earthly purpose through the free exercise of creative power. Nietzche believed that modern spirituality is a symptom of decadence, and that the “superhuman” would triumph over declining Western culture.
• 4. Etheric body. See note 3, Lecture One
• 5. or a description of earth evolution during the post-Atlantean epochs, see Occult Science, 229–254.
• 6. The Vedas are the most ancient of Hindu sacred texts. Steiner speaks of them in Occult Science, 231. Also The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul (lecture 3 and lecture 4) (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1945) and The East in the Light of the West (Blauvelt, NY: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1986) 161ff.
• 7. The Akashic Chronicle refers to a pictorial record of every thought, feeling, and deed occurring since the world began. Accessible to psychic vision.
• 8. Kadmos, founder of the ancient Greek city of Thebes and its first ruler. Kekrops, legendary king of Athens. Pelops, son of Tantalus. King in Elis, father of Atreus and Thyestes. Theseus, king of Athens. Conquered the Minotaur.
• 9. Johannes Kepler, 1571–1630, German astronomer, physicist, and mathematician.
• 10. Steiner here refers to a passage in Kepler's foreword to the fifth volume of his work Harmonices Mundi (1619), which reads as follows: “Yes, I am the one; I have stolen the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a shrine to my God out of them far beyond the boundaries of Egypt. If you can forgive me, I will be glad; if you will be angry with me, I will bear your anger. Here I cast the die and write this book for today's readers as well as for those of the future—what does it matter? Even if it has to wait a hundred years for its reader: God Himself has waited for six thousand years for him who looks at His creation with understanding.”
• 11. Scholastic thought was dominant in medieval Christian Europe from the 9th–17th centuries. Steiner describes the characteristics of scholasticism in Eleven European Mystics, (Blauvelt, NY: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1971), 168–174. Also The Redemption of Thinking, (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1983).

Cologne, Easter Sunday, April 11, 1909

One immediate advantage of significant time symbols such as Easter is that this festival makes our hearts and souls more amenable to the process of looking more and more deeply into the human riddles and into human nature. Therefore, let us once more place before our spiritual eye the oriental legend that illumined our souls yesterday since it has already given us a notion that it can disclose something of the human riddles and the nature of the human being. This is the legend of the great sage Kashyapa, the inspired disciple of Shakyamuni. Kashyapa had encompassed all the wisdom of the Orient with great purview and with an enormous impulse of activity. Of him it was rightly said that none of his successors were even faintly capable of preserving what he had recovered from Shakyamuni's deep well of wisdom or of preserving what he, Kashyapa—the last one to do so—had given mankind from the primordial wisdom of the world.

Let us continue the legend. When death approached, Kashyapa felt that he was close to Nirvana and went to a cave of the mountain. After he had died there in full consciousness, his physical body remained in an imperishable state but could be discovered only by those who had become mature enough to penetrate such secrets. While Kashyapa's imperishable body lay mysteriously concealed in that mountain cave, it was prophesied that a new great proclaimer of the primordial world wisdom would appear in the form of the Maitreya-Buddha who, upon reaching the summit of his earthly existence, was to go to the cave that contained Kashyapa's corpse. He would touch Kashyapa with his right hand, and then a wondrous fire was to come down from the universe, envelop the imperishable body of Kashyapa, and carry him into the higher spiritual worlds.

The oriental who understands such wisdom expects the reappearance of Maitreya-Buddha and his action on the imperishable body of Kashyapa. Will these two events really occur? Will the Maitreya-Buddha appear? And if he does, will the imperishable remains be moved upward through the wondrous heavenly fire? We will be able to get a presentiment of the deep wisdom that is embedded in this legend if we dwell in our true Easter feelings and visit the wondrous fire that is to absorb Kashyapa's remains.

Yesterday we saw how the godhead reveals Himself in our time through two poles: on the one hand through the macrocosmic lightning fire, and on the other hand through the microcosmic fire of the blood. We have seen that the Christ announced Himself to Moses in the burning bramble-bush and in the thunder and lightning fire on Sinai. No other force but Christ spoke to Moses, announced Himself as the I am the I am, and from the lightning fire at Sinai gave the Ten Commandments to him. After He had manifested Himself in this way, He appeared in the microcosmic pole in Palestine. The fire that lives in our blood contains the same God who announced Himself in the celestial fire and who then incarnated in a human body in the Mystery of Palestine so that he could imbue with His force the blood that contains the human fire. And if we follow the consequences this event has for earthly existence, we will be able to find through this event the blazing fire that will accept the remains of Kashyapa.

All developments in the course of the world are such that material things become spiritualized little by little. An external sign of God's power appeared to Moses in the material fire of the burning bramblebush and on Mt. Sinai. However, this fire was spiritualized through the Christ-Event, and who is able to perceive the burning spiritual fire after the Christ-Force infused itself into the earth? Only the spiritual eye that has been opened and awakened through the Christ-Impulse can see this fire because it sees this sensuous fire of the bramblebush in an etherealized and spiritualized form. And after the Christ-Impulse awakened the spiritual eye of human beings, this fire has also had a spiritual effect on our world.

When was this fire again perceived? It was perceived again when Saul opened his eyes on his way to Damascus, found that they had become illumined and clairvoyant, and recognized in the heavenly fire the One who had accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha. Both Saul, who became Paul, and Moses saw the Christ. Moses saw Him in the material fire—in the burning thornbush and in the lightning fire on Sinai—and only his inner being could tell him that the Christ spoke to him. On the other hand, Christ appeared to the enlightened eye of Paul from the spiritual and etherealized fire. Just as matter and spirit stand in a relationship to one another in the evolution of the world, there exists also in the course of the world a relationship between the mysterious fire of the bramblebush and of Sinai on the one hand, and the wondrous apparition of Saul on the other—that is, the fire that shines brightly to him from the clouds and transforms him into Paul. And what has this event done for the evolution of the world as a whole?

Let us look back to the large numbers of great personalities who were destined to beatify and save humanity. They were the external expression of the avatars, the divine spiritual forces who descended from spiritual heights in various epochs and assumed a human form, such as Krishna, Vishnu, and others. These benefactors and saviors of mankind had to make their appearances so that humanity could find its way back into the spiritual worlds, and in ancient times it took the intercession of divine power to do so. However, when the Mystery of Golgotha happened, human beings received the ability to muster from within the strength necessary to elevate themselves and lead themselves upward into the spiritual worlds. The Christ descended much deeper than had those previous leaders of the world and of mankind: not only did He bring heavenly forces into the earthly body, but also He spiritualized this earthly body in such a way that it now became possible for human beings to find the way back into the spiritual world with the help of these very forces. Although the pre-Christian saviors had used divine powers, the Christ used human powers to save mankind. And with this act human forces have been placed before our souls in their primordial potential. What would have happened on our earth if the Christ had not appeared? This serious and deeply incisive question is the one we want to pursue today.

It doesn't matter how many world saviors might have descended from the spiritual worlds; in the final analysis, they all would have found down here only human beings who were so deeply struck in the material world and so entrenched in matter that the pure, divine-spiritual forces would have been unable to lift them upward out of this unholy, impure matter. The oriental sages were deeply distressed and looked sadly into the future, which they viewed this way: the Maitreya-Buddha will appear in order to renew the primeval wisdom of the world, but there will not be a disciple present to absorb such wisdom. If the course of the world had continued in such a fashion, the Maitreya-Buddha would have preached to deaf ears and would not have been understood by human beings who were completely immersed in material things. The earth might well have become sufficiently materialistic to wither Kashyapa's body so that the Maitreya-Buddha would not have been capable of carrying Kashyapa's remains upward to divine-spiritual heights. The most knowledgeable individuals of oriental wisdom, then, were deeply saddened especially when they looked into the future and wondered whether the earth would still be capable of generating some understanding and feeling for the appearance of Maitreya-Buddha.

A strong heavenly force had to radiate into physical matter and sacrifice itself into this matter. What was required was more than just a God wearing the mask of human appearance; what was needed was a true human being with human powers who was carrying the God within himself. The Event of Golgotha had to happen so that the matter into which the human being was placed could be readied, cleansed, and ennobled. When components of matter are cleansed and sanctified, this will make the comprehension of primordial wisdom possible again in future incarnations. Mankind must be led to a true understanding of how the Event of Golgotha has really worked in this sense. How important has this event been to mankind, and how incisively has it affected the essence and the being of mankind?

Let us take a look at a period of twelve centuries: the six centuries before and the six centuries after the Event of Golgotha. And let us consider certain happenings that took place in human souls during that period of time. Truly, nothing more momentous and significant can be placed before the sensitive human soul than those powerful moments in the illumination of the Buddha, as they are related in the Buddha legend. He was not born in a stable, among poor shepherds, but left a royal environment in which he grew up. That fact alone is not what should be stressed, but rather the fact that he found he was unable to experience life in its various manifestations in such a royal environment.

He found a weak and wretched child whose birth into this existence had created nothing but suffering for the child, and so Buddha felt that birth is suffering. Then Buddha saw with his sensitive soul a sick person and so realized that this is what happens to a human being when he is carried into the earthly world because of his or her thirst for existence. He concluded that sickness was suffering. When he found an old man whose advanced age had made him an invalid, he asked himself: “What is this gift of life man has received that gradually makes him lose control over his limbs?” Old age was suffering. Upon seeing a corpse, Buddha confronted the powers of death to destroy and extinguish life, and he concluded that death, too, was suffering. As Buddha continued to look into the manifestations of life, he found that the separation from what one loved created suffering; to be united with what one did not love also created suffering; and, finally, suffering was caused by not receiving what one desired.

Buddha's doctrine of suffering had a mighty and vivid effect on the hearts of human beings. Countless people learned the great truth of being liberated from suffering through the extinction of the thirst for being, and they also learned how to strive outward from their earthly incarnations. Truly, the highest peak of human evolution is placed before our souls by such an endeavor.

Let us now view the period that comprises twelve centuries—six hundred years each before and after the birth of Christ. We need to stress that the Mystery of Golgotha took place in the middle of that period. From the age of Buddha, six hundred years before Golgotha, let us now call special attention only to what the Buddha felt at the sight of a corpse and what he taught in relation to this. Now that we have done this, let us immediately consider the time six hundred years after the Mystery of Golgotha, when countless souls and eyes turned to the cross on which a corpse was hanging. It is from this corpse that the impulses emanated that spiritualized life and signaled the glad tidings that death can be conquered by life. That, then, is the exact opposite of what Buddha felt when he saw a dead body.

Buddha saw in a corpse an indication of the insignificance and the futility of life. By contrast, the human beings six hundred years after the Event of Golgotha looked up to the corpse on the cross in a spirit of devout fervor. It was to them a sign of life, and their souls came to be imbued with the certainty that existence is not suffering, but that it carries over beyond death into a state of bliss. The crucified cross of the Christ Jesus six hundred years after the Event of Golgotha came to be a memorial symbol of life, of the resurrection of life, and of the victory over death and all suffering; six hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha a corpse was the memorial symbol for the fact that human beings are subjected to misery and suffering because their thirst for being causes them to enter the physical world. Never has there been a more momentous reversal in the entire evolution of the human race.

If the human being's entry into the physical world had been considered as suffering six hundred years before the Event of Golgotha, how does the soul perceive the great truth of the misery of life after this event? How is this former truth perceived by people who look up to the cross of Golgotha with a high degree of understanding? Is birth suffering, as Buddha had said? Those who look up to the cross of Golgotha with a knowledgeable soul and who feel united with it will say to themselves: “This birth leads a human being into a world that had the opportunity to invest the Christ with its own elements.” They were glad to enter this earth on which Christ had walked. And through the connection with Christ, the soul had gained the strength to find its way up to the spiritual worlds, as well as the knowledge that birth is not suffering; birth is rather the gate through which one must pass to find the Savior—the Savior who has wrapped Himself into the same earthly materials that constitute the human physical sheath.

Is sickness suffering? Those who understood the Impulse of Golgotha in the true sense said: “No, it is not!” Even though mankind today cannot yet understand what the true spiritual life is that streams into them with Christ, people in the future will learn to understand it. They will know that a person whose innermost being is pervaded by the power of Christ, that an individual who allows himself or herself to become imbued with the Christ-Impulse will be able to overcome all illness with the help of the strong and healthy powers that he or she develops from within. This is so because Christ is the great healer of mankind. His power comprises everything that emanates from a spiritual well and is really able to develop the strong, healing power that can conquer illness. No, illness is not suffering, but rather an opportunity to overcome an impediment or a handicap by the development of the Christ-Force within us.

In the same way we must gain a clear understanding about the difficulties of old age. The weaker our limbs become, the greater the opportunity for us to grow in spirit and to master our infirmity through the power of Christ within us. Old age is not suffering because with every day we grow further into the spiritual world. And neither is death suffering because it is conquered in the resurrection. Death has been conquered through the Event of Golgotha.

Moreover, can we say that being separated from what we love constitutes suffering? No! The souls that imbue themselves with the Christ-Force know that love can forge indestructible spiritual bonds beyond all material hindrances. And there is nothing in life between birth and death and between death and rebirth to which we cannot spiritually find the way through the Christ-Impulse. If we imbue ourselves with the Christ-Impulse, it is unthinkable that we could possibly be separated from what we love in the long run. The Christ brings us together with what we love.

By the same token, “to be united with what we do not love” cannot be suffering because the Christ-Impulse teaches us that once we have accepted it into our souls, we must love everything in its own measure. The Christ-Impulse shows us the way, and when we have found this way, “to be united with what we do not love” can never cause suffering for then there will no longer be anything that we do not embrace lovingly. And “not to attain what one desires” can no longer be suffering either if one embraces Christ, for the human sensibilities, feelings, and desires are purified and ennobled by the Christ-Impulse in such a way that human beings desire only what they are meant to receive. They no longer suffer from the lack of things, for if they are meant to do without something or someone, such lack is for their ennoblement; and the Christ-Power gives them the strength to perceive it as a purification. When this happens, the feeling of lacking things no longer evokes suffering.

So what is the Event of Golgotha? It is the gradual abolition of the teaching by the great Buddha that life is suffering. No other event has had a greater impact on the evolution and the nature of life in this world than the Event of Golgotha, and that is why we can understand that it will continue to work for mankind and have tremendous positive consequences for humanity in the future. Christ was the greatest avatar that ever descended to earth; and when such a being comes down into our existence, just as Christ descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, something mysterious and greatly significant happens. Let us look at the microcosmic world. When we put a grain of wheat into the ground, it germinates, grows a stalk, and many ears of wheat, and the many, many grains of wheat harvested are copies of the one grain originally planted in the ground. This process also takes place in the macrocosmic, spiritual world. For “all that is destructible is but a parable,”³⁸ and we can see in the multiplication of the wheat grain an image of, and a parable for, the spiritual worlds. And with this, we conclude our comparison. When the Event of Golgotha took place, something happened to the etheric body and the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth: they were multiplied through the power of the Christ that lived within Him, and many copies of the two bodies were henceforth present in the spiritual world and continued to be at work.

When a human individuality descends from spiritual heights into a physical existence, it envelops itself with an etheric body and with an astral body. But when something like the copies of the etheric and astral bodies of Jesus of Nazareth is present in the spiritual worlds, then something very special happens to human beings whose karma provides for this. After the Mystery of Golgotha had been accomplished, an individual whose karma permitted this received a copy of the etheric or the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into himself or herself. This was the case in the first centuries of the Christian era, for example with St. Augustine. When such an individuality descended from spiritual heights and enveloped itself in an etheric body, it received a copy of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into its own etheric body, but it had its own astral body and ego.

And thus, what had enveloped the God incarnate of Palestine now was carried over onto other human beings who were supposed to transfer the impetus of this great impulse to the rest of humanity. Since Augustine had to depend on his own ego and on his own astral body, he was subjected to doubts, ups and downs, and erroneous behavior; and since these shortcomings originated in the as-yet-imperfect parts of his being, it was difficult for him to overcome them. What he had to go through was caused by errors in his judgment and by an erring ego. But after he had struggled through these problems and his etheric body began to be activated, he encountered forces within himself that had been woven into this etheric body from a copy of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth. And now he became the individual who was able to proclaim to the people in the West a part of the lofty mystery truths.

Thus many of the individuals whom we in the West know as the important pillars of Christianity were called upon to promote the active continuance of Christianity in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, and on to the tenth century. These exemplary people were able to absorb the great ideas because their etheric bodies were interwoven with the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth. It is for this reason that they were able to fathom the sublime visions and exemplary ideas that would later be put into artistic form by renowned painters and sculptors.

How did these exemplary types originate for the paintings that give us joy even today? They came into being when the human beings of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries after Christ received the great illuminations about Christianity that they did not have to comprehend with the help of historical accounts. Because of the copy of the sanctified etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth interwoven within them, these human beings were able to absorb the content of Christ's teaching without knowing the historically transmitted facts of Christianity. Because they bore a part of Jesus of Nazareth within themselves, they knew from a feeling of inner illumination that the Christ was alive. They knew it as well as Paul did when he saw the Christ-Apparition in the blazing spiritualized fire of the heavens. Was Paul before that occasion willing to be converted by force of the stories that circulated about the events in Palestine? None of the events anyone could have told him would have had the power of making a Paul out of Saul, and yet the most important impulse for the dissemination of Christianity emanated from Paul. He remained skeptical of the stories about Christ on the physical plane and became a believer only through an occult event that took place in the spiritual world. Strange indeed are those people who want to have Christianity without spiritual illumination! The external expansion of Christianity was due to a supersensory event; it would never have taken place without Paul's spiritual illumination.

In later times, Christianity continued to grow through the activities of those who were able to experience the Christ, as described above, as a result of inner illumination, and these individuals were also capable of experiencing the historical Christ because they bore within themselves what had remained of the historical Christ and his bodies. During the time from the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries other individuals received copies of the astral, rather than the etheric, body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into themselves when they were mature enough and when their karma called for this. Francis of Assisi and Elisabeth of Thüringen, among others, were such human beings whose lives would remain incomprehensible to us unless we knew about this fact. Everything in the life of Francis of Assisi that appears to us strange stems from the fact that his ego was the human ego of this human individuality, but the humility, the devotion, and the fervor that we so admire in Francis of Assisi came from his having woven into his astral body a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. Many other personalities of this time had such a copy woven into their own being; and when we know this, they become models for us to emulate. If a person were to get to the bottom of this matter without knowing that Elisabeth of Thuringen had a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into herself, how could he or she fully understand the life of this saintly woman? Many, many individuals were called upon through this continuing Christ-Force to carry its mighty impulse into future ages.

In addition to copies of the etheric and of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth, countless copies of His ego were preserved for posterity as well. His ego had disappeared from the three sheaths when Christ moved into them, but a copy of this ego—heightened through the Christ-Event—remained and was multiplied into an infinite number of copies. We have in this copy of the ego of Jesus of Nazareth something that is still present today in the spiritual world, and human beings who have made themselves mature enough can find it and, with it, the splendor of the Christ-Force and of the Christ-Impulse that it carries within it.

The external expression for the ego is the blood. That is a great secret, but there have always been human beings who were acquainted with it and who were aware of the fact that copies of the ego of Jesus of Nazareth are present in the spiritual world. And since the Event of Golgotha, there have always been human beings through the centuries who had to see to it that humanity matured slowly to the point where some individuals could accept copies of the ego of Jesus Christ, just as some human beings received copies of His etheric or astral body. A secret way had to be found to preserve this ego in a silent, deep Mystery until the time when a suitable moment for its use would be at hand. To preserve this secret, a brotherhood of initiates was formed: The Brotherhood of the Holy Grail. This brotherhood goes back to the time when, as is reported, its founder took the chalice that Christ Jesus had used at the Last Supper and collected in it the blood that dripped from the wounds of the Savior when He was hanging on the cross. This founder of the brotherhood collected the blood of Christ Jesus, the expression and copy of His ego, in the chalice that is called the Holy Grail. It was kept in a holy place—in the brotherhood—that through its institution and initiation rites comprised the Brothers of the Holy Grail.

Today the time has come when these secrets can be revealed because the hearts of human beings can become ripened through spiritual life to an extent where they elevate themselves to an understanding of this great mystery. If Spiritual Science can kindle souls so that they warm up to an engaged and lively understanding of such mysteries, these very souls will become mature enough, through casting a glance at that Holy Grail, to get to know the mystery of the Christ-Ego—the eternal ego into which any human ego can be transformed. This mystery is a reality. All that people have to do is to follow the call by Spiritual Science to understand this mystery as a given fact so that they can receive the Christ-Ego at the mere sight of the Holy Grail. To accomplish this, it is necessary only that one understand and accept these happenings as fact.

At a future time when people will be increasingly well-prepared to receive the Christ-Ego, it will imbue the souls of human beings to an ever increasing degree so that they can strive upward to approach the position where their great model Christ Jesus used to be. Only through this process will human beings learn to understand in what respect Christ Jesus is the great model of humanity, and only then will they begin to understand that the certainty and the truth of the life everlasting emanates from the corpse on the wooden cross at Golgotha. Those Christians of the future who are inspired and imbued by the Christ-Ego will also understand something that was formerly known to no one but the illuminates. Not only will they understand the Christ who has gone through death, but they will also understand the triumphant Christ of the Apocalypse, whose coming was previously prophesied and who arose from the dead into the spiritual fire. And Easter can always be to us a symbol of the risen Christ, a connecting link from the Christ on the cross to the triumphant, risen, elevated Christ who draws all human beings upward as He sits at the right side of the Father.

The Easter symbol opens a perspective not only on the future of the entire earth but also on that of human evolution. Easter is our assurance that some day the human beings inspired by Christ will increasingly change from Saul to Paul individuals and become more and more capable of seeing a spiritual fire. To be sure, just as Christ appeared to Moses and to those who had declared their faith in Him in the physical fire of the bramblebush and in the lightning on Sinai as a prophecy of His own coming, so will He appear to us in the spiritualized fire of the future. “He is with us every day to the end of the world,” and to those who allowed their perception to be illuminated by the Event of Golgotha, to those He will appear in the spiritual fire even if at first they had seen Him in a different form.

Since Christ exerted such a profound influence on all aspects of earthly life, as far down as the human skeleton, that which formed His mortal body out of the elements of the earth also cleansed and sanctified all substances on the earth to such an extent that the world can never again become what the Wise Men of the East sadly feared it would forever be. They believed that the illuminate of the future, the Maitreya-Buddha, would be unable to find people on earth who could rise to an understanding of him because they would have sunk too deeply into the material world.

Christ was led to Golgotha to sublimate matter and redirect it to spiritual heights and to prevent fire on earth from becoming slag instead of spiritualized essence. When human beings themselves are spiritualized, they will again understand the primeval wisdom of the spiritual world from which they have formerly come. And thus, after human beings have gone through an even deeper understanding, the Maitreya-Buddha will find on earth an appreciation that otherwise he would have been unable to encounter. We understand everything that we learned in our youth better after we have become more mature through our trials and after we can look back upon the experiences of our youth. Similarly, mankind will understand the primeval wisdom of the world by looking back at it in the light of Christ and through the Event of Golgotha.

And now, how can the imperishable remains of Kashyapa be saved, and for what destination are they being saved? It is written that the Maitreya-Buddha will appear and touch him with the right hand, and then the corpse will be removed in a fire. The fire that Paul saw on the way to Damascus was the same wonderful, spiritualized fire within which the body of Kashyapa will be safely transported upward; and in this fire everything great and noble of ancient times will be saved. We will see the forces of the past that were sublime, magnificent, and full of wisdom stream and flow into what humanity has gained as a result of the Mystery of Golgotha.

In the Easter bells, we encounter a symbol for the resurrection of the Earth Spirit itself and for the salvation of mankind. In the past, there has been no one with a proper understanding of this symbol who did not know how to elevate himself or herself to spiritual heights through the Easter mystery. It is not without significance that Faust, when he is near death, is tolled back into a new life by the Easter bells. This leads to the great moment in his old age when he ultimately becomes blind in the face of death and is able to say, “Yet inside me there shines a brilliant light.”³⁹ Now he is ready to penetrate the spiritual worlds above where all noble members of mankind fmd salvation.

Everything that has once been alive in the past has been saved, purified, and sheltered in the etherealized spirituality that the Mystery of Golgotha diffused onto earth and into mankind. Some day when Maitreya-Buddha appears, the imperishable body of the great sage Kashyapa will undergo a similar purification in the wonderful fire, in the great light of Christ, that appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus.

• 38. Faust II, lines 12104–12111:
  
  CHORUS MYSTCUS
  

  What is destructible
  Is but a parable;
  What fails ineluctably,
  The undeclarable,
  Here it was seen,
  Here it was action;
  The Eternal-Feminine
  Lures to perfection.
  (Translation by Walter Kaufmann)
  
  These are the very last lines of Goethe's Faust, indicating that the things of this material world are but a symbolic expression of the spiritual world. Love, through its embodiment in women, remains the guiding force for the striving human being.

• 39. Faust has been blinded by Care (Sorge), an allegorical figure, and exclaims:
  
  Deep night now seems to fall more deeply still,
  Yet inside me there shines a brilliant light;
  What I have thought, I hasten to fulfill:
  The master's word alone has real might.
  (Faust II, lines 11499–11502. Trsl. by Walter Kaufmann)