The Rudolf Steiner Archive

During our last meeting here some time ago we spoke of the deeper currents of Christianity with particular reference to the Gospel of St. John and of the great images and ideas accessible to man when he reflects deeply upon this unique text.¹ More than once it has been emphasized that the very depths of Christianity are illuminated by that Gospel and some of those who have heard lecture-courses on the same subject might feel inclined to ask: If the viewpoint reached through studying the Gospel of St. John may truly be called the most profound, can it be widened or enriched in any way by study of the other three Gospels of St. Luke, St. Matthew and St. Mark? Again, those who tend to be mentally lazy might ask: If the deepest depths of Christianity are to be found in the Gospel of St. John, is it still necessary to study Christianity as presented in the other Gospels, especially in the apparently less profound Gospel of St. Luke?

Anyone who might put this question believing such an attitude to be worthy of consideration would be labouring under a complete misapprehension. The scope of Christianity itself is infinite and light can be shed upon it from the most diverse standpoints. Furthermore, as the present course of lectures will show, although the Gospel of St. John is a document of untold profundity, there are facts which can be learnt from the Gospel of St. Luke and not from that of St. John. The ideas which in the lectures on the Gospel of St. John we came to recognize as among the most profound in Christianity, do not by any means comprise all its depths. It is possible to penetrate these depths from another starting-point altogether, basing our studies on the Gospel of St. Luke viewed in the light of Anthroposophy.

Let us once again recall facts in support of the statement that there is something to be gained from the Gospel of St. Luke even if the depths of the Gospel of St. John have been exhaustively studied. A fact revealed to the student of Anthroposophy by every line of the Gospel of St. John is that records such as the Gospels were composed by individuals who, as initiates and clairvoyants, possessed deeper insight than other men into the nature of existence. In everyday parlance the terms ‘initiate’ and ‘clairvoyant’ may be synonymous. But if our studies of Anthroposophy are to lead us into the deeper strata of spiritual life, we must distinguish between one who is an ‘initiate’ and one who is a ‘clairvoyant’, for they represent two distinct categories of human beings who have found their way into the spheres of super-sensible existence. There is a difference between an initiate and a clairvoyant, although an initiate may at the same time be a clairvoyant, and a clairvoyant an initiate of a certain grade. To distinguish with exactitude between these two categories of human beings you must recall the facts described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment,² remembering that strictly speaking there are three stages on the path leading beyond ordinary perception of the world.

The first kind of knowledge accessible to man can be described by saying: he beholds the world through his senses and assimilates what he perceives by means of his intellect and the other faculties of his soul. Beyond this, there are three further stages of knowledge, of cognition: the first is the stage of Imagination, Imaginative Cognition, the second is the stage of Inspiration, and the third is the stage of Intuition—but the term ‘Intuition’ must be understood in its true sense.

The faculty of Imaginative Cognition is possessed by one before whose eye of spirit all that lies behind the world of the senses is unfolded in mighty, cosmic pictures—but these pictures do not in the least resemble anything we call by this name in everyday life. Apart from the difference that the pictures revealed by Imaginative Cognition are independent of the laws of three-dimensional space, other characteristics make it impossible for them to be compared with anything in the world of the senses.

An idea of the world of Imagination may be gained in the following way. Suppose someone were able to extract from a plant in front of him everything perceptible to the sense of sight as ‘colour’, so that this hovered freely in the air. If he were to do nothing more than draw out the colour from the plant, a lifeless colour-form would hover before him. But to the clairvoyant such a colour-form is anything but a lifeless picture, for when he extracts the colour from the objects, then, through the preparation he has undergone and the exercises he has practised, this colour-picture begins to be animated by spirit just as in the physical world it was filled by the living substance of the plant. He then has before him, not a lifeless colour-form but freely moving coloured light, glistening, sparkling, full of inner life; each colour is the expression of the particular nature of a spiritual being imperceptible in the world of the physical senses. That is to say, the colour in the physical plant becomes for the clairvoyant the expression of spiritual beings. Now imagine a world filled with such colour-forms, reflected in manifold ways and in perpetual metamorphosis; your vision must not be confined to the colours, as it might be when confronting a painting of glimmering colour-reflections, but you must imagine it all as the expression of beings of soul-and-spirit, so that you can say to yourselves: ‘When a green colour-picture flashes up it expresses to me the fact that an intellectual being is behind it; or when a reddish colour-picture flashes up it is to me the expression of a being with a fiery, violent nature.’ Now imagine this whole sea of interweaving colours I might equally well say a sea of interplaying sensations of tone, taste, or smell, for all these are the expressions of beings of soul-and-spirit behind them—and you have what is called the ‘Imaginative’ world, the world of Imagination. It is nothing to which the word ‘imagination’ (fancy) in its ordinary sense could be applied; it is a real world, requiring a mode of comprehension different from that derived from the senses.

Within this world of Imagination you encounter everything that is behind the sense-world and is imperceptible to the physical senses—for instance, the etheric and astral bodies. A man whose knowledge of the world is derived from this clairvoyant, Imaginative perception, becomes acquainted with the outward aspect of higher beings, just as you become acquainted with the outward, physical aspect of a man in the physical world who, let us say, passes in front of you in the street. You know more about him when there is an opportunity of talking with him. His words then give you an impression differing from the one he makes upon you when you look at him in the street. In the case of many a man whom you pass by (to mention this one example only) you cannot observe whether his soul is moved by inner joy or grief, sorrow or delight. But you can discover this if you converse with him. In the one case his outward aspect is conveyed to you through everything you can perceive without his assistance; in the other case he expresses his very self to you. The same applies to the beings of the super-sensible world. A clairvoyant who comes to recognize these beings through Imaginative Cognition knows only their outward aspect. But he hears them give expression to their very selves when he rises from Imaginative Knowledge to Knowledge through Inspiration. He then has actual intercourse with these beings. They communicate to him from their inmost selves what and who they are. Inspiration is therefore a higher stage of knowledge than Imagination, and more is learnt about the beings of the world of soul-and-spirit at the stage of Inspiration than can be learnt through Imagination.

A still higher stage of knowledge is that of Intuition—but the word must be taken in its spiritual-scientific sense, not in that of day-to-day parlance, when anything that occurs to one, however hazy and nebulous, may be called ‘intuition’. In our sense, Intuition is a form of knowledge thanks to which we not only listen spiritually to what the beings communicate to us, but we become one with the very beings themselves. This is a very lofty stage of spiritual knowledge for it requires, at the outset, that there shall be in the human being that quality of universal love which causes him to make no distinction between himself and the other beings in his spiritual environment, but to pour forth his very self into the environment; thus he no longer remains outside but lives within the beings with whom he has spiritual communion. Because this can take place only in a spiritual world, the expression ‘Intuition’, i.e. ‘to dwell in the God’ is entirely appropriate. Thus there are three stages of knowledge of the super-sensible worlds: Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition.

It is possible, of course, to attain all these three stages of super-sensible knowledge, but it may also be that in some one incarnation the stage of Imagination only is reached. Then the spheres of the spiritual world attainable through Inspiration and Intuition remain hidden from the clairvoyant concerned. In our present age it is not usual for a person to be led to the higher stages of spiritual experience before having passed through the stage of Imagination; it is hardly possible for anyone to omit the stage of Imagination and be led at once to the stages of Inspiration and Intuition. But what would not be appropriate to-day, could happen and actually did happen in certain other periods of the evolution of man.

There were times when Imagination on the one hand and Inspiration and Intuition on the other were apportioned to different individuals. In certain Mystery-centres there were men whose eyes of spirit were open in such a way that they were clairvoyant in the sphere of Imagination and that world of symbolical pictures was accessible to them. Because with this grade of clairvoyance, such men said: ‘For this incarnation I renounce the attainment of the higher stages of Inspiration and Intuition’, they made themselves capable of seeing clearly and with exactitude in the world of Imagination. They underwent much training in order to develop vision of that world. But one thing was essential for them. Anyone who wants to confine his vision to the world of Imagination and gives up any attempt to advance to Inspiration and Intuition, lives in a world of uncertainty. This world of flowing Imaginations is, so to say, boundless, and if left to its own resources the soul floats hither and thither without being really aware of its direction or goal. In those times, therefore, and among peoples where certain human beings renounced the higher stages of knowledge, it was necessary for those whose clairvoyance had reached the stage of Imagination to attach themselves with utter devotion to leaders whose capacities of spiritual perception were open to Inspiration and Intuition. For Inspiration and Intuition alone can give such certainty in regard to the spiritual world that a man knows with full assurance: Thither leads the path—towards a definite goal! Without Inspiration it is not possible to say: There is the path; I must follow it in order to reach a goal! Whoever, therefore, cannot say this must entrust himself to the wise guidance of someone who says it to him. Hence in so many quarters it is constantly emphasized, and rightly so, that whoever rises, to begin with, to the stage of Imagination, must attach himself inwardly to a Guru—a leader who gives both direction and aim to his experiences. It was also advisable in certain epochs—but this is no longer the case to-day—to allow other individuals to omit the stage of Imagination and to lead them at once to Inspiration or, if possible, to Intuition. Such men renounced the possibility of perceiving the Imaginative pictures of the spiritual world around them; they lent themselves only to such impressions from the spiritual world as issue from the inner life of the beings there. They listened with their ears of spirit to the utterances of the beings of the spiritual world. Suppose there is a screen between you and another man whom you do not see but only hear him speaking behind the screen. It is certainly possible to renounce pictorial vision of the spiritual world in order to be led more quickly to the stage of hearing the utterances of the spiritual beings. No matter whether a person sees the pictures of the world of Imagination or not—if he is able to apprehend with spiritual ears what the beings in the spiritual world communicate regarding themselves, we say of him that he is endowed with the power to hear the ‘inner word’—in contrast to the outer word used in the physical world between man and man.

We can thus conceive that there are people who, without beholding the world of Imaginations, are endowed with the power to apprehend the inner word and can hear and communicate the utterances of spiritual beings. There were periods in the evolution of humanity when, within the Mysteries, these two forms of super-sensible cognition worked in co-operation. Each individual who had renounced the faculty of perception possessed by another, could develop greater clarity and definition in his own faculty and at certain periods this resulted in a truly wonderful co-operation within the Mysteries. There were clairvoyants who had specially trained themselves to see the world of Imaginative pictures, and there were others who, having passed over the world of Imagination, had trained themselves to receive the inner word into their souls through Inspiration. And so the one could communicate to the other the experiences made possible by his particular training. This was possible in times when some degree of confidence reigned between one man and another; to-day it is out of the question, simply because of the character of our age. Nowadays one man has not such strong belief in another that he would listen to his descriptions of the pictures of the world of Imagination and then, honestly believing those descriptions to be accurate, supplement them with what he himself knows through Inspiration. Nowadays, everyone wants to see it all himself—and that is natural in our age. Very few people would be satisfied with a one-sided development of Imagination such as was taken for granted in certain epochs. In our present time, therefore, it is necessary for a man to be led through the three stages of higher knowledge without omitting any one of them.

At each stage of super-sensible knowledge we encounter the great mysteries connected with the Christ Event, about which all three forms of cognition—Imaginative, Inspirational, Intuitive—have infinitely much to say.

If with this in mind we turn our attention to the four Gospels, we may say that the Gospel of St. John is written from the vantage-point of one who in the fullest sense was an Initiate, cognisant at the stage of Intuition of the mysteries of the super-sensible world, and who therefore describes the Christ Event as revealed by the vision of Intuition. But if close attention is paid to the distinctive characteristics of St. John's Gospel it will have to be admitted that the features standing out most clearly are presented from the standpoint of Inspiration and Intuition, while everything originating from the pictures of Imagination is shadowy and lacks definition. Thus if we disregard what was still revealed to him through Imagination, we may call the writer of St. John's Gospel the messenger of everything relating to the Christ Event that is vouchsafed to one endowed with the power of apprehending the inner word at the stage of Intuition. Hence he describes the mysteries of Christ's Kingdom as receiving their character through the inner Word, or Logos. Knowledge through Inspiration and Intuition is the source of the Gospel of St. John.

It is different in the case of the other three Gospels, and not one of their writers expressed his message as clearly as did the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke. In a short but remarkable preface it is said, in effect, that many others had previously attempted to collect and set forth the stories in circulation concerning the events in Palestine; but that for the sake of accuracy and order the writer of this Gospel is now undertaking to present the things which ... and now come significant words ... could be understood by those who from the beginning were ‘eye-witnesses and servants (ministers) of the Word’—that is the usual rendering. The aim of the writer of this Gospel is therefore to communicate what eye-witnesses—it would be better to say ‘seers’ (Selbstseher)—and servants of the Word had to say. In the sense of St. Luke's Gospel, ‘seers’ are men who through Imaginative Cognition can penetrate into the world of pictures and there behold the Christ Event; people specially trained to perceive these Imaginations are seers with accurate and clear vision at the same time as being ‘servants of the Word’—a significant phrase—and the writer of St. Luke's Gospel uses their communications as a foundation. He does not say ‘possessors’ of the Word, because such persons would have reached the stage of Inspiration in the fullest sense; he says ‘servants’ of the Word—people who could count less upon Inspirations than upon Imaginations in their own knowledge but for whom communications from the world of Inspiration were nevertheless available. The results of Inspirational Cognition were communicated to them and they could proclaim what their inspired teachers had made known to them. They were ‘servants’, not ‘possessors’ of the Word.

Thus the Gospel of St. Luke is founded upon the communications of seers, themselves knowers of the world of Imagination; they are those who, having learnt to express their visions of that world through means made possible by their inspired teachers, had themselves become ‘servants of the Word’.

Here again is an example of the exactitude of the Gospel records and of the need to understand the words in the strictly literal sense. In texts based upon spiritual knowledge, everything is exact to a degree often undreamed of by modern man.

But we must now again remember—as always when such matters are considered from the anthroposophical standpoint—that, for spiritual science, the Gospels themselves are not original sources of knowledge in the actual sense. One who stands strictly on the ground of spiritual science will not necessarily take a statement to be the truth simply because it stands in the Gospels. The spiritual scientist does not draw his knowledge from written documents but from the yields of spiritual investigation. Communications made by beings of the spiritual world to the initiate and the clairvoyant in the present age—these are the sources of knowledge for spiritual science. And in a certain respect these sources are the same in our age as in the times just described to you. Hence in our age too, those who have insight into the world of Imagination may be called clairvoyants, but only those who can rise to the stages of Inspiration and Intuition can be called ‘Initiates’. In our present age the expressions ‘clairvoyant’ and ‘initiate’ are not necessarily synonymous.

The content of the Gospel of St. John could be based only upon knowledge possessed by an Initiate capable of rising to the stages of Inspiration and Intuition. The contents of the other three Gospels could be based upon the communications of persons endowed with Imaginative clairvoyance but not yet able themselves to rise to the stages of Inspiration and Intuition. If therefore we adhere strictly to this distinction, St. John's Gospel is based upon Initiation, and the other three, especially that of St. Luke—according to what the writer himself says—upon Clairvoyance. Because this is the case, and because everything that is revealed to the vision of a highly trained clairvoyant is introduced, this Gospel gives us well-defined pictures of what is contained in the Gospel of St. John in faint impressions only. In order to make the difference even more obvious, let me say the following.

Although it would hardly ever be the case to-day, let us suppose a man were initiated in such a way that the worlds of Inspiration and of Intuition were open to him but that he was not clairvoyant in the world of Imagination. Suppose such a man met another, perhaps not initiated but to whom the whole world of Imaginations was open. This man would be able to communicate a great deal to the first who might possibly only be able to explain it through Inspiration but could not himself see it, having no faculty of clairvoyance. There are many to-day who are clairvoyant without being initiates; the reverse is hardly ever the case. Nevertheless it might conceivably happen that someone who had been initiated, could not, although possessing the gift of clairvoyance, for some reason or other perceive the Imaginations in a particular instance. A clairvoyant would then be able to tell such a man a great deal as yet unknown to him.

It must be strongly emphasized that Anthroposophy relies upon no other source than that of the Initiates, and that the texts of the Gospels are not the actual sources of its knowledge. The fount of anthroposophical knowledge is investigated to-day independently of any historical records. But then we turn to the records and compare the findings of spiritual-scientific research with them. What Anthroposophy can at all times discover about the Christ Event without the help of any documentary record is found again in the Gospel of St. John, presented in a most sublime way. Hence its supreme value, for it shows us that at the time when it was composed a man was living who wrote as one initiated into the spiritual world can write to-day. The same voice, as it were, that can be heard to-day, sounds across to us from the depths of the centuries.

The same can be said of the other Gospels, including that of St. Luke. It is not the pictures delineated by the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke that are for us the source of knowledge of the higher worlds; the source for us lies in the results of ascent into the super-sensible world. When we speak of the Christ Event, a source for us is also that great tableau of pictures and Imaginations appearing when we direct our gaze to the beginning of our era. We compare what thus reveals itself with the pictures and Imaginations described in the Gospel of St. Luke; and this course of lectures will show how the Imaginative pictures accessible to man to-day compare with the descriptions given in that Gospel.

The truth is that there is only one source for spiritual investigation when directed to the events of the past. This source does not lie in external records; no stones dug out of the earth, no documents preserved in archives, no treatises written by historians either with or without insight—none of these things is the source of spiritual science. What we are able to read in the imperishable Akashic Chronicle—that is the source of spiritual science. The possibility exists of knowing what has happened in the past without reference to external records. Modern man has thus two ways of acquiring information about the past. He can take the documents and the historical records when he wants to learn something about outer events, or the religious scripts when he wants to learn something about the conditions of spiritual life. Or else he can ask: What have those men to say before whose spiritual vision lies that imperishable Chronicle known as the ‘Akashic Chronicle’—that mighty tableau in which there is registered whatever has at any time come to pass in the evolution of the world, of the earth and of humanity?

Whoever raises his consciousness into the spiritual world learns gradually to read this chronicle. It is no ordinary script. Think of the course of events, just as they happened, presented to your spiritual vision; think, let us say, of the Emperor Augustus and all his deeds standing before you in a cloud-like picture. The picture stands there before the spiritual-scientific investigator and he can at any time evoke the experience anew. He requires no external evidence. He need only direct his gaze to a definite point in cosmic or human happenings and the events will present themselves to him in a spiritual picture. In this way the spiritual gaze can survey the ages of the past, and what is there perceived is recorded as the findings of spiritual investigation.

What happened at the beginning of our era can be perceived by spiritual vision and compared, for example, with what is related in the Gospel of St. Luke. Then the spiritual investigator recognizes that at that time too there were seers able to behold the past; and moreover the accounts they give of happenings in their own times can be compared with what is revealed to-day by spiritual investigation of the Akashic Chronicle.

Again and again it must be realized that we do not have recourse to outer records but to the actual findings of spiritual investigation and that we then try to rediscover these results in the outer records. The value of the records themselves is thereby enhanced and we can come to a decision about the truth of their contents on the strength of our own investigations. They lie before us as, even more faithful expression of the truth because we ourselves are able to recognize the truth. But a statement such as this must not be made without at the same time affirming that this ‘reading in the Akashic Chronicle’ is by no means as easy as observation of events in the physical world! With the help of an example I should like to give you an idea of certain difficulties that may arise.

We know from elementary Anthroposophy that man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. The moment we are no longer observing man on the physical plane but rise into the spiritual world, the difficulties begin. When we have a human being physically before us, we see a unity formed by physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. Whoever observes a human being during waking life has all this before him as unity, but if it is necessary for some reason to rise into the higher worlds in order to observe a human being, the difficulties at once begin. Suppose, for example, we wish to observe a human being in his totality while he is asleep during the night, and rise into the world of Imagination in order, let us say, to perceive his astral body—which is now outside the physical body. The human being is now divided into two. What I am describing will seldom occur in this particular form, for observation of the human being is comparatively easy, but it will help to convey an idea of the difficulties in question.

Suppose someone goes into a room where a number of people are asleep. He sees their physical bodies lying there and, if he is clairvoyant, their etheric bodies too; at a higher stage of clairvoyance he sees their astral bodies. But in the astral world everything interpenetrates—including, of course, the astral bodies of human beings. Although it would not often happen to a trained clairvoyant, when looking at a number of sleeping people he might mistake which astral body belonged to some particular physical body below. As I said, it is an unlikely occurrence because this is one of the first stages of actual vision and because anyone who attains it is well trained in how to distinguish in such a case. But the difficulties become very considerable when spiritual beings—not human beings—are observed in the spiritual world. As a matter of fact the difficulties are already great if a human being is to be observed, not as he is at present, but in his totality, as he passes through incarnations. Thus if you observe a human being now living and ask yourself: Where was his Ego in his previous incarnation? you have to go through the Devachanic world to reach his former incarnation. You must be able to establish which Ego has always belonged to the preceding incarnations of the person in question. You must hold together, in an intricate way, the continuous Ego and the various stages down on the Earth. Mistakes are very possible here and error can very easily occur when looking for an Ego in its earlier bodies. In the higher worlds, therefore, it is not easy to maintain the connection between everything belonging to a human personality and his former incarnations as inscribed in the Akashic Chronicle.

Suppose someone has before him a man—let us call him John Smith—and as a clairvoyant or initiate he asks: ‘Who were the physical ancestors of this man?’—Let us assume that all external records have been lost and there is only the Akashic Chronicle upon which to rely. It would be a matter of having to discover from the Akashic Chronicle the physical ancestors of the man—the father, mother, grandfather, and so on, in order to see how the physical body evolved in the line of physical descent. But then there might be the further question: ‘What were the earlier incarnations of this man?’ To answer that question an entirely different path must be taken than when looking for the physical ancestors. It may be necessary to go back through long, long ages in order to arrive at the previous incarnations of the Ego.

Already you have two streams: the physical body as it stands before you is not a completely new creation, for it springs from the ancestors in the line of physical heredity; nor is the Ego a completely new creation, for it is linked with its previous incarnations. The same holds good for the intermediate members, the etheric and astral bodies. Most of you know that the etheric body is not a completely new creation but that it too may have taken a path leading through the most diverse forms. The etheric body of Zarathustra reappeared in Moses.³ It was the same etheric body. If we were to seek out the physical ancestors of Moses this would give us one line; if we were to seek out the ancestors of the etheric body of Moses we should get another, quite different line; here we should come to the etheric body of Zarathustra and to other etheric bodies. Just as we have to trace quite different lines for the physical body and the etheric body, the same applies to the astral body. Each separate member of the human being might lead to very diverse streams. Thus the etheric body may be the etheric re-embodiment of an etheric body that belonged to a different individuality altogether—not by any means the same in which the Ego was formerly incarnated. And the same can be said of the astral body.

When we rise into the higher worlds in order to investigate the several members of a human being, the individual streams all take different directions, and in following them we come to very intricate processes in the spiritual world. Whoever wishes to understand a human being from the vantage-point of spiritual investigation, must describe him not merely as a descendant of his ancestors, not merely as having derived his etheric body or his astral body from this or that being, but he must describe the paths taken by all these four members until they unite in the present individual. This cannot be done all at once. For instance, we may trace the path followed by the etheric body and reach important conclusions. Someone else may trace the path of the astral body. The one may lay more stress on the etheric body, the other on the astral body, and frame his descriptions accordingly. To those who do not notice everything said about an individual by men who are clairvoyant, it will make no difference whether one says this and another that; it will seem to them that the same entity is being described. In their eyes the one who describes the physical personality only and the other who describes the etheric body are both speaking of the same being—John Smith.

All this can give you an idea of the complexity of circumstances and conditions encountered when it is a question of describing the nature of any phenomenon in the world—whether a human or any other being—from the standpoint of clairvoyant research or Initiation-knowledge. I was obliged to say the foregoing because it will help you to understand that only the most extensive investigation in the Akashic Chronicle can present any being in full clarity to the eyes of spirit.

The Being who stands before us as the Gospel of St. John describes Him—no matter whether we speak of Him as Jesus of Nazareth before the Baptism by John or as Christ after the Baptism—that Being stands before us with an Ego, an astral body, an etheric body and physical body. To give a full description according to the Akashic Chronicle of the Being who was Christ Jesus, we must trace the paths traversed by the four members of His nature in the course of the evolution of humanity. Only then can we rightly understand Him. It is here a question of grasping the meaning of the information regarding the Christ Event given by modern spiritual-scientific investigation, for light must be shed on apparent contradictions in the four Gospels.

I have often pointed out why purely materialistic research cannot recognize the supreme value and profundity of the Gospel of St. John: it is because those who carry out this research cannot understand that a higher Initiate sees differently, more deeply, than the others. Those who have doubts about the Gospel of St. John attempt to establish a kind of conformity between the three synoptic Gospels. But conformity will be difficult to establish and sustain if it is based only upon the external, material happenings. What will be of particular importance in tomorrow's lecture, namely the life of Jesus of Nazareth before the Baptism by John, is described by two Evangelists, by the writers of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and external, materialistic observation will find differences there that are in no way less than those which must be assumed to exist between the Gospel of St. John and the other three Gospels.

Let us take the facts: The writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew relates how the birth of the Creator of Christianity was announced beforehand, how the birth took place, how Magi, having seen the ‘star’, came from the East, being led by the star to the place where the Redeemer was born; he describes how Herod's attention was aroused and how, in order to escape the massacre of the babes in Bethlehem, the parents of the Redeemer fled with the child to Egypt; when Herod was dead it was made known to Joseph, the father of Jesus, that they might return, but for fear of Herod's successor they went to Nazareth instead of returning to Bethlehem.

To-day I will leave aside the Baptist's proclamation, but I want to draw attention to the fact that if we compare the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew we find the annunciation of Jesus of Nazareth described quite differently; the one Gospel relates that it was made to Mary, the other that it was made to Joseph. From the Gospel of St. Luke we learn that the parents of Jesus of Nazareth lived at that place and went to Bethlehem on the occasion of the enrolling. While they were there, Jesus was born. Then came the circumcision, after eight days—nothing is said about a flight into Egypt—and a short time afterwards the child was presented in the temple; the customary offering having been made, the parents returned with the child to Nazareth. A remarkable incident is then described—how on the occasion of a visit with his parents to Jerusalem the twelve-year-old Jesus remained behind in the temple, how his parents sought and found him there among those who expounded the scriptures, how among the learned doctors of the Law he gave evidence of profound knowledge of the scriptures. Then it is related how the parents took the child home with them again, how he grew up ... and we hear nothing particular about him from that time until the Baptism by John.

Here we have two accounts of Jesus of Nazareth before the Christ descended into him. Whoever wishes to reconcile the accounts must consider how, according to the ordinary materialistic view, he can reconcile the story in the Gospel of St. Matthew that directly after the birth of Jesus his parents, Joseph and Mary, fled with the child into Egypt and subsequently returned, with the other story of the presentation in the temple narrated by St. Luke.

In these lectures we shall find that what seems a complete contradiction to the ordinary mind will be revealed as truth in the light of spiritual investigation. Both accounts are true!—although presented as accounts of events in the physical world they are in apparent contradiction. Precisely the three synoptic Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke ought to compel people to adopt a spiritual conception of events in the history of humanity. For it is surely obvious that nothing is attained by ignoring apparent contradictions in such records or by speaking of ‘fiction’ when realities prove too great an obstacle.

We shall have opportunity here to speak of things of which there was no occasion to speak in detail when we were studying the Gospel of St. John namely, the events that took place before the Baptism by John and the descent of the Christ into the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. Many riddles of vital significance concerning the essence of Christianity will find their solution when—as the outcome of research into the Akashic Chronicle—we hear of the being and nature of Jesus of Nazareth before the Christ took possession of his three bodies.

Tomorrow we shall begin by considering the nature and the life of Jesus of Nazareth as revealed in the Akashic Chronicle, and then ask ourselves: How does the knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth compare with what is described in the Gospel of St. Luke as imparted by those who at that time were ‘seers’ or ‘servants’ of the Word, of the Logos?

• 1. This lecture-course was given by Dr. Steiner in Basle, November 1907. It has not been published in English. Other lecture-courses on the same subject, published in English, were given by him in Hamburg, May 1908, and in Cassel, June–July 1909. (See list of publications at the end of this volume.)
• 2. Revised edition, 1963. (Rudolf Steiner Press, London.)
• 3. See also Lectures Four and Five.

The phase of evolution beginning in our own time has a very special character. The same may, of course, be said of each epoch but in every case it is a matter of defining the particular characteristics. The present phase of evolution may be characterised in a general way by saying that all the experiences confronting mankind in the physical world during the earth's further existence will represent a decline, a retrogression. The time when human progress was made possible through the constant refinement of the physical forces, is already over. In the future, too, mankind will progress, but only through spiritual development, through development on a higher level than that of the processes of the physical plane. Men who rely entirely on the processes of the physical plane will find in them no source of satisfaction. An indication given in spiritual science a long time ago, in the Lecture-Course on the Apocalypse,¹ namely that we are heading for the “War of All against All”, must from now onwards be grasped in all its significance and gravity; its implications must not remain in the realm of theory but also come to expression in the actions, the whole behaviour of men.

The fact that—to use a colloquialism—people in the future are not going to get much fun out of developments on the physical plane, will bring home to them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.

This can be understood only by surveying a lengthy period of evolution and applying what is discovered to experiences that will become more and more general in the future. The trend of forces that will manifest in the well nigh rhythmical onset of war and destruction—processes of which the present catastrophe is but the beginning—will become only too evident. It is childish to believe that anything connected with this war can bring about a permanent era of peace for humanity on the physical plane. That will not be so. What must come about on the earth is spiritual development. Its direction and purport will be clear to us if, after surveying a comparatively lengthy epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, we bear in mind something of the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha and then try to envisage the impulse of that Event working in the future evolution of mankind.

We have studied the Mystery of Golgotha from many different points of view and will do so again to-day by characterising, very briefly, the civilisation which preceded it—let us say as far back as the third millennium B.C.—and then continued for a time as Pagan culture in the period of Christian development itself.

Within this Pagan culture, the utterly different Hebraic-Jewish culture took root, having Christianity as its offspring.

The nature of Pagan culture can best be understood if we realise that it was the outcome of knowledge, vision and action born of forces much wider in range than those belonging to present earthly existence. It was actually through Hebraic culture that the moral element was first inculcated into humanity. In Paganism the moral element did not occupy a place separate and apart; this Pagan culture was such that man felt himself a member of the whole cosmos.

This is something we must particularly bear in mind.—The human being living on earth within the old Pagan world felt himself membered into the whole cosmos. He felt how the forces at work in the movements of the stars extend into his own actions, or, better said, into the forces taking effect in his actions. What later passed for astrology, and does so still, is but a reflection—and a very misleading one at that—of the ancient wisdom gleaned from contemplation of the stars in their courses and then used as the basis for precepts governing human action.

These ancient civilisations can be understood only if light is thrown by spiritual science upon human evolution in its outer aspect some four or five thousand years before Christ.

We are apt to speak in rather a matter-of-fact way of the second or the first Post-Atlantean epochs, but we err if we picture man's existence on the earth in the fifth, sixth or seventh millennia B.C. as having been similar to our present existence. It is quite correct that men living on the earth in those ancient times had a kind of instinctive soul-life, in a certain respect more akin to the soul-life of animals than to that of present-day man. But it is a very one-sided conception of human life to say that in those ancient times men were more like animals. In tenor of soul, the human being then moving about the earth was, it is true, more like the animal; but those human-animal bodies were used by beings of soul-and-spirit who felt themselves members of the super-sensible worlds, above all of the cosmic worlds. And provided we go back far enough, say to the fifth pre-Christian millennium, it may be said that men made use of animal bodies as instruments rather than feeling themselves within those bodies. To characterise these men accurately, one would have to say that when they were awake, they moved about with an instinctive life of soul like that of animals, but into this instinctive life of soul there shone something like dreams from their sleeping state, waking dreams. And in these waking dreams they perceived how they had descended, to use animal bodies merely as instruments. This inner, fundamental tenor of the human soul then came to expression as a religious rite, in the Mithras cult with its main symbol of the God Mithras riding on a bull, above him the starry heavens to which he belongs, and below him the earth to which the bull belongs. This symbol was not, strictly speaking, a symbol to these men of old; it was a vision of reality. Man's whole tenor of soul made him say to himself: When I am outside my body at night I belong to the forces of the cosmos, of the starry heavens; when I wake in the morning, I make use of animal instincts in an animal body.

Then human evolution passed, figuratively speaking, into a period of twilight. A certain dimness, a certain lethargy, spread over the life of humanity; the cosmic dreams receded and instinct gained the upper hand.

The attitude of soul formerly prevailing in men was preserved through the Mysteries, mainly through the Asiatic Mysteries. But in the fourth millennium B.C. and until the beginning of the third, humanity in general—when uninfluenced by the Mystery wisdom—lived an existence pervaded by a more or less dim, twilight consciousness. In Asia and the then known world, it may be said that during the fourth and at the beginning of the third millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, man's life of soul was dim and instinctive. But the Mysteries were there, into which, through the powerful rites and ceremonies, the spiritual worlds were able to penetrate. And it was from these centres that men received illumination.

At the beginning of the third millennium a momentous event took place.—The root-cause of this dim, more instinctive life may be characterised by saying that as a being of spirit-and-soul, man was still unable at that time to make use of the human organs of intellect. These organs were already within him, they had taken shape in his physical constitution, but the being of spirit-and-soul could not make use of them. Thus men could not acquire knowledge through their own thinking, through their own powers of intellectual discernment. They were dependent upon what was imparted to them from the Mysteries. And then, about the beginning of the third millennium, a momentous event took place in the east of Asia.

A child of a distinguished Asiatic family of the time was allowed to grow up in the precincts of the Mystery-ceremonies. Circumstances were such that this child was actually permitted to take part in the ceremonies, undoubtedly because the priests conducting the rites in the Mysteries felt it as an inspiration that such a child must be allowed to participate. And when the being incarnate in that child had reached the age of about 40—approximately that age—something very remarkable came to light. It became evident and there is no doubt at all that the priests of the Mysteries had foreseen the event prophetically—it became evident that this man who had been allowed to grow up in the precincts of one of the Mystery-centres in East Asia, began suddenly, at the age of about 4o, to grasp through the faculty of human intellect itself what had formerly come into the Mysteries through revelation, and only through revelation. He was as it were the first to make use of the organs of human intellect, but still in association with the Mysteries.

Translating into terms of our present language how the priests of the Mysteries spoke of this matter, we must say: In this man, Lucifer himself was incarnated—no more and no less than that!—It is a significant, momentous fact that in the third millennium before Christ an incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh actually took place in the east of Asia. And from this incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh—for this Being became a Teacher—there went forth what is described as the pre-Christian, Pagan culture which still survived in the Gnosis of the earliest Christian centuries.

It would be wrong to pass derogatory judgment on this Lucifer-culture. For all the beauty produced by Greek civilisation, even the insight that is still alive in ancient Greek philosophy and in the tragedies of Aeschylus would have been impossible without this Lucifer-incarnation.

The influence of the Lucifer-incarnation was still powerful in the south of Europe, in the north of Africa and in Asia Minor during the first centuries of Christendom. And when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on earth, it was essentially the Luciferic wisdom through which it could be understood. The Gnosis, which set about the task of grasping the import of the Mystery of Golgotha, was impregnated through and through with Luciferic wisdom. It must therefore be emphasised, firstly, that at the beginning of the third Millennium B.C. there was a Chinese incarnation of Lucifer; at the beginning of our own era the incarnation of Christ took place. And to begin with, the significance of the incarnation of Christ was grasped because the power of the old Lucifer-incarnation still survived. This power did not actually fade from man's faculty of comprehension until the fourth century A.D.; and even then, it had its aftermath, its ramifications.

To these two incarnations, the Lucifer-incarnation in ancient times and the incarnation of the Christ which gives the earth its meaning, a third incarnation will be added in a future not so very far distant. And the events of the present time are already moving in such a way as to prepare for it.

Of the incarnation of Lucifer at the beginning of the third millennium B.C., we must say: through Lucifer, man has acquired the faculty of using the organs of his intellect, of his power of intellectual discernment. It was Lucifer himself, in a human body, who was the first to grasp through the power of intellect, what formerly could be imparted to man only through revelation, namely, the content of the Mysteries.

What is now in preparation and will quite definitely come to pass on earth in a none too distant future, is an actual incarnation of Ahriman.

As you know, since the middle of the fifteenth century we have been living in an era in which it behoves mankind to come more and more into possession of the full power of consciousness. It is of the very greatest importance that men should approach the coming incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness of this event. The incarnation of Lucifer could be recognised only by the prophetic insight of the priests of the Mysteries. Men were also very unconscious of what the incarnation of Christ and the Event of Golgotha really signified. But they must live on towards the incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness amid the shattering events which will occur on the physical plane. Amid the perpetual stresses of war and other tribulations of the immediate future, the human mind will become very inventive in the domain of physical life. And through this very growth of inventiveness in physical life—which cannot be averted in any way or by any means—the bodily existence of a human individuality in whom Ahriman can incarnate, will become possible and inevitable.

From the spiritual world this Ahrimanic power is preparing for incarnation on the earth, is endeavouring in every conceivable way to make such preparation that the incarnation of Ahriman in human form may be able to mislead and corrupt mankind on earth to the uttermost. A task of mankind during the next phase of civilisation will be to live towards the incarnation of Ahriman with such alert consciousness that this incarnation can actually serve to promote a higher, spiritual development, inasmuch as through Ahriman himself man will become aware of what can, or shall we say, can not be achieved by physical life alone. But men must go forward with full consciousness towards this incarnation of Ahriman and become more and more alert in every domain, in order to recognise with greater and greater clarity those trends in life which are leading towards this Ahrimanic incarnation. Men must learn from spiritual science to find the key to life and so be able to recognise and learn to control the currents leading towards the incarnation of Ahriman. It must be realised that Ahriman will live among men on the earth, but that in confronting him men will themselves determine what they may learn from him, what they may receive from him. This, however, they will not be able to do unless, from now onwards, they take control of certain spiritual and also unspiritual currents which otherwise are used by Ahriman for the purpose of leaving mankind as deeply unconscious as possible of his coming; then, one day, he will be able to appear on earth and overwhelm men, tempting and luring them to repudiate earth-evolution, thus preventing it from reaching its goal. To understand the whole process of which I have been speaking, it is essential to recognise the character of certain currents and influences—spiritual or the reverse.

Do you not see the continually growing number of people at the present time who do not want any science of the spirit, any knowledge of the spiritual? Do you not see how numerous are the people to whom the old forces of religion no longer give any inner stimulus?—Whether they go to church or not is a matter of complete indifference to large numbers of human beings nowadays. The old religious impulses mean nothing to them. But neither will they bring themselves to give a thought to what can stream into our civilisation as new spiritual life. They resist it, reject it, regard it as folly, as something inconvenient; they will not allow themselves to have anything to do with it. But, you see, man as he lives on earth is veritably a unity. His spiritual nature cannot be separated from his physical nature; both work together as a unity between birth and death. And even if man does not receive the spiritual through his faculties of soul, the spiritual takes effect, nevertheless. Since the last third of the nineteenth century the spiritual has been streaming around us; it is streaming into earthly evolution. The spiritual is there in very truth—only men are not willing to receive it.

But even if they do not accept the spiritual, it is there! And what becomes of it? Paradoxical as it may seem—for much that is true seems paradoxical to the modern mind—in those people who refuse the spiritual and like eating and drinking best of all things in life, the spiritual streams, unconsciously to them, into the processes of eating and digestion. This is the secret of that march into materialism which began about the year 184o, or rather was then in active preparation. Those who do not receive the spiritual through their souls, receive it to-day none the less: in eating and drinking they eat and drink the spirit. They are “eaters” of the soul-and-spirit. And in this way the spirit that is streaming into earth-evolution passes over into the Luciferic element, is conveyed to Lucifer. Thereby the Luciferic power which can then be of help to the Ahrimanic power for its later incarnation, is constantly strengthened. This must come to the knowledge of those who admit the fact that in the future men will either receive spiritual knowledge consciously or consume the spirit unconsciously, thereby delivering it into the hands of the Luciferic powers.

This stream of spirit-and-soul-consumption is particularly encouraged by Ahriman because in this way he can lull mankind into greater and greater drowsiness, so that then, through his incarnation, he will be able to come among men and fall upon them unawares because they do not confront him consciously.

But Ahriman can also make direct preparation for his incarnation, and he does so. Certainly, men of our day also have a spiritual life, but it is purely intellectual, unconnected with the spiritual world. This purely intellectual life is becoming more and more widespread; at first it took effect mainly in the sciences, but now it is leading to mischiefs of every kind in social life as well. What is the essential character of this intellectual life?

This intellectual life has very little to do with the true interests of men! I ask you: how many teachers do you not see to-day, passing in and out of higher and lower educational institutions without bringing any inner enthusiasm to their science but pursuing it merely as a means of livelihood—In such cases the interest of the soul is not directly linked with the actual pursuit. The same thing happens even at school. Think how much is learnt at the various stages of life without any real enthusiasm or interest, how external the intellectual life is becoming for many people who devote themselves to it! And how many there are to-day who are forced to produce a mass of intellectual material which is then preserved in libraries and, as spiritual life, is not truly alive!

Everything that is developing as intellectual life without being suffused by warmth of soul, without being quickened by enthusiasm, directly furthers the incarnation of Ahriman in a way that is after his own heart. It lulls men to sleep in the way I have described, so that its results are advantageous to Ahriman.

There are numerous other currents in the spiritual or unspiritual life which Ahriman can turn to his advantage. You have lately heard—and you are still hearing it—that national states, national empires must be founded. A great deal is said about “freedom of the individual peoples”. But the time for founding empires based on relationships of blood and race is past and over in the evolution of mankind. If an appeal is made to-day to national, racial and similar relationships, to relationships arising out of the intellect and not out of the spirit, then disharmony among mankind will be intensified. And it is this disharmony among mankind which the Ahrimanic power can put to special use. Chauvinism, perverted patriotism in every form—this is the material from which Ahriman will build just what he needs.

But there are other things as well. Everywhere to-day we see parties being formed for one object or another. People nowadays have no discernment, nor do they desire to have it where party opinions and party programmes are concerned. With intellectual ingenuity, proof can be furnished in support of the most radically opposing theories. Very clever arguments can be used to prove the soundness of Leninism—but the same applies to directly contrary principles and also to what lies between the two extremes. An excellent case can be made out for every party programme: but the one who establishes the validity of the opposite programme is equally right. The intellectualism prevailing among men to-day is not capable of demonstrating the inner potentialities and values of anything. It can furnish proofs; but what is intellectually proved should not be regarded as of real value or efficacy in life. Men oppose one another in parties because the soundness of every party opinion—at any rate the main party opinions—can be proved with equal justification. Our intellect remains at the surface-layer of understanding and does not penetrate to the deeper layer where the truth actually lies. This, too, must be fundamentally and thoroughly understood.

People to-day prefer to let their intellect remain on the surface and not to penetrate with deeper forces to those levels where the essential nature of things is disclosed. It is only necessary to look around a little, for even where it takes its most external form, life often reveals the pitfalls of current predilections. People love numbers and figures in science, but they also love figures in the social sphere as well. Social science consists almost entirely of statistics. And from statistics, that is to say from figures, the weightiest conclusions are reached. Well, with figures too, anything can be proved and anything believed; for figures are not a means whereby the essential reality of things can be proved—they are simply a means of deception! Whenever one fails to look beyond figures to the qualitative, they can be utterly deceptive.

The following is an obvious example.—There is, or at least there used to be, a great deal of argument about the nationality of the Macedonians. In the political life of the Balkan peninsula, much depended upon the statistics compiled there. The figures are of just as much value as those contained in other statistics. Whether statistics are compiled of wheat and rye production, or of the numbers of Greek, Serbian or Bulgarian nationals in Macedonia—in regard to what can be proved by these means it is all the same. From the figures quoted for the Greeks, for the Bulgarians, for the Serbians, very plausible conclusions can be drawn. But one can also have an eye for the qualitative element, and then one often finds it recorded that the father was Greek, one son was Bulgarian, another was Serbian.—What is at the back of it you can puzzle out for yourselves!—These statistics are taken as authoritative, whereas in this case they were compiled solely in support of party aims. It stands to reason that if the father is really a Greek, the two sons are also Greeks. But the procedure adopted there is just an example of many other things that are done with figures. Ahriman can achieve a great deal through figures and numbers used in this way as evidence of proof.

A further means of which Ahriman can avail himself is again one that will seem paradoxical. As you know, we have been concerned in our movement to study the Gospels in the light of spiritual science. But these deeper interpretations of the Gospels which are becoming more and more necessary in our time, are rejected on all sides, just as spiritual science as a whole is rejected.

The people who often profess humility in these matters—and they are insistent about it—are actually the most arrogant of all. More and more generally it is being said that people should steep themselves in the very simplicity of the Gospels and not attempt to understand the Mystery of Golgotha by entering into the complexities of spiritual science. Those who feign unpretentiousness in their study of the Gospels are the most arrogant of all, for they despise the honest search for knowledge demanded in spiritual science. So arrogant are they that they believe the highest revelations of the spiritual world can be garnered without effort, simply by browsing on the simplicity of the Gospels. What claims to be “humble” or “simple” to-day is often supreme arrogance. In sects, in religious confessions—it is there that the most arrogant of men are to be found.

It must be remembered that the Gospels came into existence at a time when the Luciferic wisdom still survived. In the first centuries of Christendom, men's understanding of the Gospels was quite different from what it came to be in later times. To-day, people who cannot deepen their minds through spiritual science merely pretend to understand the Gospels. In reality they have no idea even of the original meaning of the words; for the translations that have been made into the different languages are not faithful reproductions of the Gospels; often they are scarcely even reminiscent of the original meaning of the words in which the Gospels were composed.

Real understanding of the intervention of the Christ Being in earthly evolution is possible to-day only through spiritual science. Those who want to study, or actually do study the Gospels “without pretention”—as the saying goes—cannot come to any inner realisation of the Christ Being as He truly is, but only to an illusory picture, or, at very most, a vision or hallucination of the Christ Being. No real connection with the Christ Impulse can be achieved to-day merely through reading the Gospels—but only an hallucinatory picture of the Christ. Hence the prevalence of the theological view that the Christ was not present in the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was simply an historical figure like Socrates or Plato or others, although possibly more exalted. The “simple man of Nazareth” is an ideal even to the theologians. And very few of them indeed can make anything of an event like Paul's vision at the gate of Damascus, because without the deepened knowledge yielded by spiritual science the Gospels can give rise only to an hallucination of the Christ, not to vision of the Real Christ. And so Paul's vision at Damascus is also regarded as an hallucination.

Deeper understanding of the Gospels in the light of spiritual science is essential to-day, for the apathy that takes hold of people who are content to live merely within the arms of the denominations will be used to the utmost by Ahriman in order to achieve his goal—which is that his incarnation shall catch men unawares. And those who believe they are being most truly Christian by rejecting any development of the conception of the Christ Mystery, are, in their arrogance, the ones who do most to promote Ahriman's aims. The denominations and sects are positively spheres of encouragement, breeding-grounds for Ahriman. It is futile to gloss these things over with illusions. Just as the materialistic attitude, rejecting the spiritual altogether and contending that man is a product of what he eats and drinks, furthers Ahriman's aims, so are these aims furthered by the stubborn rejection of everything spiritual and adherence to the literal, “simple” conception of the Gospels.

You see, a barrier which prevents the single Gospels from unduly circumscribing the human mind, has been erected through the fact that the Event of Golgotha is described in the Gospels from four—seemingly contradictory—sides. Only a little reflection will show that this is a protection from too literal a conception. In sects, however, where one Gospel only is taken as the basis of the teaching—and such sects are quite numerous—pitfalls, stupefaction and hallucination are generated. In their day, the Gospels were given as a necessary counterweight to the Luciferic Gnosis; but if no attempt is made to develop understanding of their content, the aims of Ahriman are furthered, not the progress of mankind. In the absolute sense, nothing is good in itself, but is always good or bad according to the use to which it is put. The best can be the worst if wrongly used. Sublime though they are, the Gospels can also have the opposite effect if men are too lazy to search for a deeper understanding based on spiritual science.

Hence there is a great deal in the spiritual and unspiritual currents of the present time of which men should be acutely aware, and determine their attitude of soul accordingly. Upon the ability and willingness to penetrate to the roots of such matters will depend the effect which the incarnation of Ahriman can have upon men, whether this incarnation will lead them to prevent the earth from reaching its goal, or bring home to them the very limited significance of intellectual, unspiritual life. If men rightly take in hand the currents leading towards Ahriman, then simply through his incarnation in earthly life they will recognise the Ahrimanic influence on the one side, and on the other its polar opposite—the Luciferic influence. And then the very contrast between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic will enable them to perceive the third reality. Men must consciously wrestle through to an understanding of this trinity of the Christian impulse, the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic influences; for without this consciousness they will not be able to go forward into the future with the prospect of achieving the goal of earth-existence.

Spiritual science must be taken in deep earnestness, for only so can it be rightly understood. It is not the outcome of any sectarian whim but something that has proceeded from the fundamental needs of human evolution. Those who recognise these needs cannot choose between whether they will or will not endeavour to foster spiritual science. On the contrary they will say to themselves: The whole physical and spiritual life of men must be illumined and pervaded by the conceptions of spiritual science!

Just as once in the East there was a Lucifer-incarnation, and then, at the mid-point, as it were, of world-evolution, the incarnation of Christ, so in the West there will be an incarnation of Ahriman.

This Ahrimanic incarnation cannot be averted; it is inevitable, for men must confront Ahriman face to face. He will be the individuality by whom it will be made clear to men what indescribable cleverness can be developed if they call to their help all that earthly forces can do to enhance cleverness and ingenuity. In the catastrophes that will befall humanity in the near future, men will become extremely inventive; many things discovered in the forces and substances of the universe will be used to provide nourishment for man. But these very discoveries will at the same time make it apparent that matter is connected with the organs of intellect, not with the organs of the spirit but of the intellect. People will learn what to eat and drink in order to become really clever. Eating and drinking cannot make them spiritual, but clever and astute, yes. Men have no knowledge of these things as yet; but not only will they be striven for, they will be the inevitable outcome of catastrophes looming in the near future. And certain secret societies—where preparations are already in train—will apply these things in such a way that the necessary conditions can be established for an actual incarnation of Ahriman on the earth. This incarnation cannot be averted, for men must realise during the time of the earth's existence just how much can proceed from purely material processes! He must learn to bring under his control those spiritual or unspiritual currents which are leading to Ahriman.

Once it is realised that conflicting party programmes can be proved equally correct, our attitude of soul will be that we do not set out to prove things, but rather to experience them. For to experience a thing is a very different matter from attempting to prove it intellectually.

Equally we shall be convinced that deeper and deeper penetration of the Gospels is necessary through spiritual science. The literal, word-for-word acceptance of the Gospels that is still so prevalent to-day, promotes Ahrimanic culture. Even on external grounds it is obvious that a strictly literal acceptance of the Gospels is unjustified. For as you know, what is good and right for one time is not right for every other time. What is right for one epoch becomes Luciferic or Ahrimanic when practised in a later one. The mere reading of the Gospel texts has had its day. What is essential now is to acquire a spiritual understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha in the light of the truths enshrined in the Gospels. Many people, of course, find these things disquieting; but those whose interest is attracted by Anthroposophy must learn to realise that the levels of culture, gradually piling one above the other, have created chaos, and that light must penetrate again into this chaos.

It is interesting nowadays to listen to someone whose views have become very extreme, or to read about some burning question of the day, and then to listen to sermons on the same subject given by a priest of some denomination who is still steeped in the form of thought current in bye gone times. There you face two worlds which you cannot possibly confuse unless you avoid all attempts to get at the root of these things. Listen to a modern socialist speaking about social questions and then, immediately afterwards, to a Catholic preacher speaking about the same questions. It is very interesting to find two levels of culture existing side by side but using the words in an entirely different sense. The same word has quite a different meaning in each case.

These things should be seen in the light that will dawn if they are taken in the earnest spirit we have been trying to convey. People belonging to definite religions do also come, in the end, to long in their own way for spiritual deepening. It is by no means without significance that a man as eminently spiritual as Cardinal Newman, ardent Catholic though he was, should say at his investiture as Cardinal in Rome that he could see no salvation for Christianity other than a new revelation.

In effect, what Cardinal Newman said was that he could see no salvation for Christianity other than a new revelation! But he had not the courage to take a new spiritual revelation seriously. And so it is with many others. You can read countless treatises to-day about what is needed in social life.—Another book has recently appeared: Socialism, by Robert Wilbrandt, the son of the poet. In it the social question is discussed on the foundation of accurate and detailed knowledge. And finally it is stated that without the spirit nothing is achieved? That the very course of events shows that the spirit is necessary. Yes, but what does such a man really achieve? He gets as far as to utter the word “spirit”, to pronounce the abstract word “spirit”; but he refuses to accept, indeed he rejects, anything that endeavours to make the spirit really take effect.

For that it is essential above all to realise that wallowing in abstractions, however loud the cry for the spirit, is not yet spiritual, not yet spirit! Vague, abstract chattering about the spirit must never be confused with the active search for the content of the spiritual world pursued in anthroposophical science.

Nowadays there is much talk about the spirit. But you who accept spiritual science should not be deluded by such chattering; you should perceive the difference between it and the descriptions of the spiritual world attempted in Anthroposophy, where the spiritual world is described as objectively as the physical world. You should probe into these differences, reminding yourselves repeatedly that abstract talk of the spirit is a deviation from sincere striving for the spirit and that, by their very talk, people are actually removing themselves from the spirit. Purely intellectual allusion to the spirit leads nowhere.—What, then, is “intelligence”? What is the content of our human intelligence? I can best explain this in the following way.—Imagine—and this will be better understood by the many ladies present!—imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and looking into it. The picture presented to you by the mirror is you, but it has no reality at all. It is nothing but a reflection. All the intelligence within your soul, all the intellectual content, is only a mirror-image; it has no reality. And just as your reflected image is called into existence through the mirror, so what mirrors itself as intelligence is called into existence through the physical apparatus of your body, through the brain. Man is intelligent only because his body is there. And as little as you can touch yourself by stretching your hand towards your reflected image, as little can you lay hold of the spirit if you turn only to the intellectual—for the spirit is not there! What is grasped through the intellect, ingenious as it may be, never contains the spirit itself, but only a picture of the spirit. You cannot truly experience the spirit if you get no further than mere intelligence. The reason why intelligence is so seductive is that it yields a picture, a reflected picture of the spirit—but not the spirit itself. It seems unnecessary to go to the inconvenience of penetrating to the spirit, because it is there—or so, at least, one imagines. In reality it is only a reflected picture—but for all that, it is not difficult to talk about the spirit.

To distinguish the mere picture from the reality—that is the task of the tenor of soul which does not merely theorise about spiritual science but has actual perception of the spirit.

That is what I wanted to say to you to-day in order to intensify the earnestness which should pervade our whole attitude to the spiritual life as conceived by Anthroposophy. For the evolution of humanity in the future will depend upon how truly this attitude is adopted by men of the present day. If what I have characterised in this lecture continues to be offered the reception that is still offered to it to-day by the vast majority of people on the earth, then Ahriman will be an evil guest when he comes. But if men are able to rouse themselves to take into their consciousness what we have been studying, if they are able so to guide it that humanity can freely confront the Ahrimanic influence, then, when Ahriman appears, men will acquire, precisely through him, the power to realise that although the earth must enter inevitably into its decline, mankind is lifted above earthly existence through this very fact. When a man has reached a certain age in physical life, his body begins to decline, but if he is sensible he makes no complaint, knowing that together with his soul he is approaching a life that does not run parallel with this physical decline. There lives in mankind something that is not bound up with the already prevailing decline of the physical earth but becomes more and more spiritual just because of this physical decline.

Let us learn to say frankly: Yes, the earth is in its decline, and human life, too, in respect of its physical manifestation; but just because it is so, let us muster the strength to draw into our civilisation that element which, springing from mankind itself, will live on while the earth is in decline, as the immortal fruit of earth-evolution.

• 1. Twelve lectures given at Nuremberg, 1908.

The phase of evolution beginning in our own time has a very special character. The same may, of course, be said of each epoch but in every case it is a matter of defining the particular characteristics. The present phase of evolution may be characterized in a general way by saying that all the experiences confronting humankind in the physical world during the earth's further existence will represent a decline, a retrogression. The time when human progress was made possible through the constant refinement of the physical forces is already over. In the future, too, humankind will progress, but only through spiritual development, through development on a higher level than that of the processes of the physical plane. People who rely entirely on the processes of the physical plane will find in them no source of satisfaction. An indication given in spiritual science a long time ago, in the lecture course on the Apocalypse,¹ namely that we are heading for the “War of All against All,” must from now onward be grasped in all its significance and gravity; its implications must not remain in the realm of theory but also come to expression in the actions, the whole behavior of human beings.

The fact that—to use a colloquialism—people in the future are not going to get much fun out of developments on the physical plane will bring home to them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.

This can be understood only by surveying a lengthy period of evolution and applying what is discovered to experiences that will become more and more general in the future. The trend of forces that will manifest in the well-nigh rhythmical onset of war and destruction—processes of which the present catastrophe is but the beginning—will become only too evident. It is childish to believe that anything connected with this war can bring about a permanent era of peace for humanity on the physical plane. That will not be so. What must come about on the earth is spiritual development. Its direction and purport will be clear to us if, after surveying a comparatively lengthy epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, we bear in mind something of the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha and then try to envisage the impulse of that event working in the future evolution of humankind.

We have studied the Mystery of Golgotha from many different points of view and will do so again today by characterizing, very briefly, the civilization which preceded it—let us say as far back as the third millennium B.C.—and then continued for a time as pagan culture in the period of Christian development itself. Within this pagan culture, the utterly different Hebraic-Jewish culture took root, having Christianity as its offspring.

The nature of pagan culture can best be understood if we realize that it was the outcome of knowledge, vision and action born of forces much wider in range than those belonging to present earthly existence. It was actually through Hebraic culture that the moral element was first inculcated into humanity. In paganism the moral element did not occupy a place separate and apart; this pagan culture was such that people felt themselves members of the whole cosmos.

This is something we must particularly bear in mind. Human beings living on earth within the old pagan world felt themselves membered into the whole cosmos. They felt how the forces at work in the movements of the stars extend into their own action, or, better said, into the forces taking effect in their actions. What later passed for astrology, and does so still, is but a reflection—and a very misleading one at that—of the ancient wisdom gleaned from contemplation of the stars in their courses and then used as the basis for precepts governing human action.

These ancient civilizations can be understood only if light is thrown by spiritual science upon human evolution in its outer aspect some four or five thousand years before Christ.

We are apt to speak in rather a matter-of-fact way of the second or the first post-Atlantean epochs, but we err if we picture human existence on the earth in the fifth, sixth, or seventh millennia B.C. as having been similar to our present existence. It is quite correct that people living on the earth in those ancient times had a kind of instinctive soul life, in a certain respect more akin to the soul life of animals than to that of present-day human beings. But it is a very one-sided conception of human life to say that in those ancient times people were more like animals. In tenor of soul, the human being then moving about the earth was, it is true, more like the animal; but those human-animal bodies were used by beings of soul and spirit who felt themselves members of the super-sensible worlds, above all of the cosmic worlds. And provided we go back far enough, say to the fifth pre-Christian millennium, it may be said that people made use of animal bodies as instruments rather than feeling themselves within those bodies. To characterize these people accurately, one would have to say that when they were awake, they moved about with an instinctive life of soul like that of animals, but into this instinctive life of soul there shone something like dreams from their sleeping state, waking dreams. And in these waking dreams they perceived how they had descended, to use animal bodies merely as instruments. This inner, fundamental tenor of the human soul then came to expression as a religious rite, in the Mithras cult with its main symbol of the God Mithras riding on a bull, above him the starry heavens to which he belongs, and below him the earth to which the bull belongs. This symbol was not, strictly speaking, a symbol to these people of old; it was a vision of reality. People's whole tenor of soul made them say to themselves: When I am outside my body at night I belong to the forces of the cosmos, of the starry heavens; when I wake in the morning I make use of animal instincts in an animal body.

Then human evolution passed, figuratively speaking, into a period of twilight. A certain dimness, a certain lethargy, spread over the life of humanity; the cosmic dreams receded and instinct gained the upper hand.

The attitude of soul formerly prevailing in human beings was preserved through the Mysteries, mainly through the Asiatic Mysteries. But in the fourth millennium B.C. and until the beginning of the third, humanity in general—when uninfluenced by the Mystery wisdom—lived an existence pervaded by a more or less dim, twilight consciousness. In Asia and the then-known world, it may be said that during the fourth and at the beginning of the third millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, people's life of soul was dim and instinctive. But the Mysteries were there, into which, through the powerful rites and ceremonies, the spiritual worlds were able to penetrate. And it was from these centers that human beings received illumination.

At the beginning of the third millennium a momentous event took place. The root cause of this dim, more instinctive life may be characterized by saying that as beings of spirit and soul, people were still unable at that time to make use of the human organs of intellect. These organs were already within them, they had taken shape in their physical constitution, but the being of spirit and soul could not make use of them. Thus human beings could not acquire knowledge through their own thinking, through their own powers of intellectual discernment. They were dependent upon what was imparted to them from the Mysteries. And then, about the beginning of the third millennium, a momentous event took place in the east of Asia.

A child of a distinguished Asiatic family of the time was allowed to grow up in the precincts of the Mystery ceremonies. Circumstances were such that this child was actually permitted to take part in the ceremonies, undoubtedly because the priests conducting the rites in the Mysteries felt it as an inspiration that such a child must be allowed to participate. And when the being incarnate in that child had reached the age of about forty—approximately that age—something very remarkable came to light. It became evident—and there is no doubt at all that the priests of the Mysteries had foreseen the event prophetically—it became evident that this man who had been allowed to grow up in the precincts of one of the Mystery centers in East Asia, began suddenly, at the age of about forty, to grasp through the faculty of human intellect itself what had formerly come into the Mysteries through revelation, and only through revelation. He was as it were the first to make use of the organs of human intellect, but still in association with the Mysteries.

Translating into terms of our present language how the priests of the Mysteries spoke of this matter, we must say: In this man, Lucifer himself was incarnated—no more and no less than that! It is a significant, momentous fact that in the third millennium before Christ an incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh actually took place in the east of Asia. And from this incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh—for this being became a teacher—there went forth what is described as the pre-Christian, pagan culture which still survived in the gnosis of the earliest Christian centuries.

It would be wrong to pass derogatory judgment on this Lucifer culture. For all the beauty produced by Greek civilization, even the insight that is still alive in ancient Greek philosophy and in the tragedies of Aeschylus would have been impossible without this Lucifer incarnation.

The influence of the Lucifer incarnation was still powerful in the south of Europe, in the north of Africa, and in Asia Minor during the first centuries of Christendom. And when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on earth, it was essentially the luciferic wisdom through which it could be understood. The gnosis, which set about the task of grasping the import of the Mystery of Golgotha, was impregnated through and through with luciferic wisdom. It must therefore be emphasized, firstly, that at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. there was a Chinese incarnation of Lucifer; at the beginning of our own era the incarnation of Christ took place. And to begin with, the significance of the incarnation of Christ was grasped because the power of the old Lucifer incarnation still survived. This power did not actually fade from the human faculty of comprehension until the fourth century A.D.; and even then, it had its aftermath, its ramifications.

To these two incarnations, the Lucifer incarnation in ancient times and the incarnation of the Christ which gives the earth its meaning, a third incarnation will be added in a future not so very far distant. And the events of the present time are already moving in such a way as to prepare for it.

Of the incarnation of Lucifer at the beginning of the third millennium B.C., we must say: through Lucifer, human beings have acquired the faculty of using the organs of their intellect, of their power of intellectual discernment. It was Lucifer himself, in a human body, who was the first to grasp through the power of intellect what formerly could be imparted to humanity only through revelation, namely, the content of the Mysteries.

What is now in preparation and will quite definitely come to pass on earth in a none-too-distant future is an actual incarnation of Ahriman.

As you know, since the middle of the fifteenth century we have been living in an era in which it behooves humankind to come more and more into possession of the full power of consciousness. It is of the very greatest importance that people should approach the coming incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness of this event. The incarnation of Lucifer could be recognized only by the prophetic insight of the priests of the Mysteries. People were also very unconscious of what the incarnation of Christ and the event of Golgotha really signified. But they must live on toward the incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness amid the shattering events which will occur on the physical plane. Amid the perpetual stresses of war and other tribulations of the immediate future, the human mind will become very inventive in the domain of physical life. And through this very growth of inventiveness in physical life—which cannot be averted in any way or by any means—the bodily existence of a human individuality in whom Ahriman can incarnate will become possible and inevitable.

From the spiritual world this Ahrimanic power is preparing for incarnation on the earth, endeavoring in every conceivable way to make such preparation that the incarnation of Ahriman in human form may be able to mislead and corrupt humankind on earth to the uttermost. A task of humankind during the next phase of civilization will be to live toward the incarnation of Ahriman with such alert consciousness that this incarnation can actually serve to promote a higher, spiritual development, inasmuch as through Ahriman himself humanity will become aware of what can, or shall we say, can not be achieved by physical life alone. But people must go forward with full consciousness toward this incarnation of Ahriman and become more and more alert in every domain, in order to recognize with greater and greater clarity those trends in life which are leading toward this Ahrimanic incarnation. People must learn from spiritual science to find the key to life and so be able to recognize and learn to control the currents leading toward the incarnation of Ahriman. It must be realized that Ahriman will live among people on the earth, but that in confronting him people will themselves determine what they may learn from him, what they may receive from him. This, however, they will not be able to do unless, from now onward, they take control of certain spiritual and also unspiritual currents which otherwise are used by Ahriman for the purpose of leaving humankind as deeply unconscious as possible of his coming; then, one day, he will be able to appear on earth and overwhelm people tempting and luring them to repudiate earth evolution, thus preventing it from reaching its goal. To understand the whole process of which I have been speaking, it is essential to recognize the character of certain currents and influences—spiritual or the reverse.

Do you not see the continually growing number of people at the present time who do not want any science of the spirit, any knowledge of the spiritual? Do you not see how numerous are the people to whom the old forces of religion no longer give any inner stimulus? Whether they go to church or not is a matter of complete indifference to large numbers of human beings nowadays. The old religious impulses mean nothing to them. But neither will they bring themselves to give a thought to what can stream into our civilization as new spiritual life. They resist it, reject it, regard it as folly, as something inconvenient; they will not allow themselves to have anything to do with it. But, you see, human beings as we live on earth are veritably a unity. Our spiritual nature cannot be separated from our physical nature; both work together as a unity between birth and death. And even if human beings do not receive the spiritual through their faculties of soul, the spiritual takes effect, nevertheless. Since the last third of the nineteenth century the spiritual has been streaming around us; it is streaming into earthly evolution. The spiritual is there in very truth—only people are not willing to receive it.

But even if they do not accept the spiritual, it is there! And what becomes of it? Paradoxical as it may seem—for much that is true seems paradoxical to the modern mind—in those people who refuse the spiritual and like eating and drinking best of all things in life, the spiritual streams, unconsciously to them, into the processes of eating and digestion. This is the secret of that march into materialism which began about the year 1840, or rather was then in active preparation. Those who do not receive the spiritual through their souls receive it today nonetheless: in eating and drinking they eat and drink the spirit. They are “eaters” of the soul and spirit. And in this way the spirit that is streaming into earth evolution passes over into the luciferic element, is conveyed to Lucifer. Thereby the luciferic power, which can then be of help to the ahrimanic power for its later incarnation, is constantly strengthened. This must come to the knowledge of those who admit the fact that in the future people will either receive spiritual knowledge consciously or consume the spirit unconsciously, thereby delivering it into the hands of the luciferic powers.

This stream of spirit-and-soul-consumption is particularly encouraged by Ahriman because in this way he can lull humankind into greater and greater drowsiness, so that then, through his incarnation, he will be able to come among people and fall upon them unawares because they do not confront him consciously.

But Ahriman can also make direct preparation for his incarnation, and he does so. Certainly, people of our day also have a spiritual life, but it is purely intellectual, unconnected with the spiritual world. This purely intellectual life is becoming more and more widespread; at first it took effect mainly in the sciences, but now it is leading to mischiefs of every kind in social life as well. What is the essential character of this intellectual life?

This intellectual life has very little to do with the true interests of human beings! I ask you: how many teachers do you not see today, passing in and out of higher and lower educational institutions without bringing any inner enthusiasm to their science but pursuing it merely as a means of livelihood? In such cases the interest of the soul is not directly linked with the actual pursuit. The same thing happens even at school. Think how much is learned at the various stages of life without any real enthusiasm or interest, how external the intellectual life is becoming for many people who devote themselves to it! And how many there are today who are forced to produce a mass of intellectual material which is then preserved in libraries and, as spiritual life, is not truly alive!

Everything that is developing as intellectual life without being suffused by warmth of soul, without being quickened by enthusiasm, directly furthers the incarnation of Ahriman in a way that is after his own heart. It lulls people to sleep in the way I have described, so that its results are advantageous to Ahriman.

There are numerous other currents in the spiritual or unspiritual life which Ahriman can turn to his advantage. You have lately heard—and you are still hearing it—that national states, national empires must be founded. A great deal is said about “freedom of the individual peoples.” But the time for founding empires based on relationships of blood and race is past and over in the evolution of mankind. [Quote 1] If an appeal is made today to national, racial, and similar relationships, to relationships arising out of the intellect and not out of the spirit, then disharmony among humankind will be intensified. And it is this disharmony among humankind which the ahrimanic power can put to special use. Chauvinism, perverted patriotism in every form—this is the material from which Ahriman will build just what he needs.

But there are other things as well. Everywhere today we see parties being formed for one object or another. People nowadays have no discernment, nor do they desire to have it where party opinions and party programs are concerned. With intellectual ingenuity, proof can be furnished in support of the most radically opposing theories. Very clever arguments can be used to prove the soundness of Leninism—but the same applies to directly contrary principles and also to what lies between the two extremes. An excellent case can be made out for every party program: but the one who establishes the validity of the opposite program is equally right. The intellectualism prevailing among people today is not capable of demonstrating the inner potentialities and values of anything. It can furnish proofs; but what is intellectually proved should not be regarded as of real value or efficacy in life. People oppose one another in parties because the soundness of every party opinion—at any rate the main party opinions—can be proved with equal justification. Our intellect remains at the surface layer of understanding and does not penetrate to the deeper layer where the truth actually lies. This, too, must be fundamentally and thoroughly understood.

People today prefer to let their intellect remain on the surface and not to penetrate with deeper forces to those levels where the essential nature of things is disclosed. It is only necessary to look around a little, for even where it takes its most external form, life often reveals the pitfalls of current predilections. People love numbers and figures in science, but they also love figures in the social sphere as well. Social science consists almost entirely of statistics. And from statistics, that is to say from figures, the weightiest conclusions are reached. Well, with figures too, anything can be proved and anything believed; for figures are not a means whereby the essential reality of things can be proved—they are simply a means of deception! Whenever one fails to look beyond figures to the qualitative, they can be utterly deceptive.

The following is an obvious example. There is, or at least there used to be, a great deal of argument about the nationality of the Macedonians. In the political life of the Balkan peninsula, much depended upon the statistics compiled there. The figures are of just as much value as those contained in other statistics. Whether statistics are compiled of wheat and rye production, or of the numbers of Greek, Serbian, or Bulgarian nationals in Macedonia—in regard to what can be proved by these means it is all the same. From the figures quoted for the Greeks, for the Bulgarians, for the Serbians, very plausible conclusions can be drawn. But one can also have an eye for the qualitative element, and then one often finds it recorded that the father was Greek, one son was Bulgarian, another was Serbian. What is at the back of it you can puzzle out for yourselves! These statistics are taken as authoritative, whereas in this case they were compiled solely in support of party aims. It stands to reason that if the father is really a Greek, the two sons are also Greeks. But the procedure adopted there is just an example of many other things that are done with figures. Ahriman can achieve a great deal through figures and numbers used in this way as evidence of proof.

A further means of which Ahriman can avail himself is again one that will seem paradoxical. As you know, we have been concerned in our movement to study the Gospels in the light of spiritual science. But these deeper interpretations of the Gospels, which are becoming more and more necessary in our time, are rejected on all sides, just as spiritual science as a whole is rejected.

The people who often profess humility in these matters—and they are insistent about it—are actually the most arrogant of all. More and more generally it is being said that people should steep themselves in the very simplicity of the Gospels and not attempt to understand the Mystery of Golgotha by entering into the complexities of spiritual science. Those who feign unpretentiousness in their study of the Gospels are the most arrogant of all, for they despise the honest search for knowledge demanded in spiritual science. So arrogant are they that they believe the highest revelations of the spiritual world can be garnered without effort, simply by browsing on the simplicity of the Gospels. What claims to be “humble” or “simple” today is often supreme arrogance. In sects, in religious confessions—it is there that the most arrogant people are to be found:

It must be remembered that the Gospels came into existence at a time when the luciferic wisdom still survived. In the first centuries of Christendom, people's understanding of the Gospels was quite different from what it came to be in later times. Today, people who cannot deepen their minds through spiritual science merely pretend to understand the Gospels. In reality they have no idea even of the original meaning of the words; for the translations that have been made into the different languages are not faithful reproductions of the Gospels; often they are scarcely even reminiscent of the original meaning of the words in which the Gospels were composed.

Real understanding of the intervention of the Christ being in earthly evolution is possible today only through spiritual science. Those who want to study, or actually do study the Gospels “without pretension”—as the saying goes—cannot come to any inner realization of the Christ being as he truly is, but only to an illusory picture, or, at very most, a vision or hallucination of the Christ being. No real connection with the Christ impulse can be achieved today merely through reading the Gospels—but only a hallucinatory picture of the Christ. Hence the prevalence of the theological view that the Christ was not present in the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was simply an historical figure like Socrates or Plato or others, although possibly more exalted. The “simple man of Nazareth” is an ideal even to the theologians. And very few of them indeed can make anything of an event like Paul's vision at the gate of Damascus, because without the deepened knowledge yielded by spiritual science the Gospels can give rise only to a hallucination of the Christ, not to vision of the real Christ. And so Paul's vision at Damascus is also regarded as a hallucination.

Deeper understanding of the Gospels in the light of spiritual science is essential today, for the apathy that takes hold of people who are content to live merely within the arms of the denominations will be used to the utmost by Ahriman in order to achieve his goal—which is that his incarnation shall catch people unawares. And those who believe they are being most truly Christian by rejecting any development of the conception of the Christ mystery, are, in their arrogance, the ones who do most to promote Ahriman's aims. The denominations and sects are positively spheres of encouragement, breeding-grounds for Ahriman. It is futile to gloss these things over with illusions. Just as the materialistic attitude, rejecting the spiritual altogether and contending that the human being is a product of what people eat and drink, furthers Ahriman's aims, so are these aims furthered by the stubborn rejection of everything spiritual and adherence to the literal, “simple” conception of the Gospels.

You see, a barrier which prevents the single Gospels from unduly circumscribing the human mind has been erected through the fact that the event of Golgotha is described in the Gospels from four—seemingly contradictory—sides. Only a little reflection will show that this is a protection from too literal a conception. In sects, however, where one Gospel only is taken as the basis of the teaching—and such sects are quite numerous—pitfalls, stupefaction, and hallucination are generated. In their day, the Gospels were given as a necessary counterweight to the luciferic gnosis; but if no attempt is made to develop understanding of their content, the aims of Ahriman are furthered, not the progress of humankind. In the absolute sense, nothing is good in itself, but is always good or bad according to the use to which it is put. The best can be the worst if wrongly used. Sublime though they are, the Gospels can also have the opposite effect if people are too lazy to search for a deeper understanding based on spiritual science.

Hence there is a great deal in the spiritual and unspiritual currents of the present time of which people should be acutely aware, and determine their attitude of soul accordingly. Upon the ability and willingness to penetrate to the roots of such matters will depend the effect which the incarnation of Ahriman can have upon human beings, whether this incarnation will lead them to prevent the earth from reaching its goal, or bring home to them the very limited significance of intellectual, unspiritual life. If people rightly take in hand the currents leading toward Ahriman, then simply through his incarnation in earthly life they will recognize the ahrimanic influence on the one side, and on the other its polar opposite—the luciferic influence. And then the very contrast between the ahrimanic and the luciferic will enable them to perceive the third reality. Human beings must consciously wrestle through to an understanding of this trinity of the Christian impulse, the ahrimanic and the luciferic influences; for without this consciousness they will not be able to go forward into the future with the prospect of achieving the goal of earth existence.

Spiritual science must be taken in deep earnestness, for only so can it be rightly understood. It is not the outcome of any sectarian whim but something that has proceeded from the fundamental needs of human evolution. Those who recognize these needs cannot choose between whether they will or will not endeavor to foster spiritual science. On the contrary they will say to themselves: The whole physical and spiritual life of human beings must be illumined and pervaded by the conceptions of spiritual science!

Just as once in the East there was a Lucifer incarnation, and then, at the midpoint, as it were, of world evolution, the incarnation of Christ, so in the West there will be an incarnation of Ahriman.

This ahrimanic incarnation cannot be averted; it is inevitable, for humanity must confront Ahriman face to face. He will be the individuality by whom it will be made clear what indescribable cleverness can be developed if they call to their help all that earthly forces can do to enhance cleverness and ingenuity. In the catastrophes that will befall humanity in the near future, people will become extremely inventive; many things discovered in the forces and substances of the universe will be used to provide human nourishment. But these very discoveries will at the same time make it apparent that matter is connected with the organs of intellect, not with the organs of the spirit but of the intellect. People will learn what to eat and drink in order to become really clever. Eating and drinking cannot make them spiritual, but clever and astute, yes. Humanity has no knowledge of these things as yet; but not only will they be striven for, they will be the inevitable outcome of catastrophes looming in the near future. And certain secret societies—where preparations are already in train—will apply these things in such a way that the necessary conditions can be established for an actual incarnation of Ahriman on the earth. This incarnation cannot be averted, for people must realize during the time of the earth's existence just how much can proceed from purely material processes! We must learn to bring under our control those spiritual or unspiritual currents which are leading to Ahriman.

Once it is realized that conflicting party programs can be proved equally correct, our attitude of soul will be that we do not set out to prove things, but rather to experience them. For to experience a thing is a very different matter from attempting to prove it intellectually.

Equally we shall be convinced that deeper and deeper penetration of the Gospels is necessary through spiritual science. The literal, word-for-word acceptance of the Gospels that is still so prevalent today promotes ahrimanic culture. Even on external grounds it is obvious that a strictly literal acceptance of the Gospels is unjustified. For as you know, what is good and right for one time is not right for every other time. What is right for one epoch becomes luciferic or ahrimanic when practiced in a later one. The mere reading of the Gospel texts has had its day. What is essential now is to acquire a spiritual understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha in the light of the truths enshrined in the Gospels. Many people, of course, find these things disquieting; but those whose interest is attracted by anthroposophy must learn to realize that the levels of culture, gradually piling one above the other, have created chaos, and that light must penetrate again into this chaos.

It is interesting nowadays to listen to someone whose views have become very extreme, or to read about some burning question of the day, and then to listen to sermons on the same subject given by a priest of some denomination who is still steeped in the form of thought current in bygone times. There you face two worlds which you cannot possibly confuse unless you avoid all attempts to get at the root of these things. Listen to a modern socialist speaking about social questions and then, immediately afterward, to a Catholic preacher speaking about the same questions. It is very interesting to find two levels of culture existing side by side but using the words in an entirely different sense. The same word has quite a different meaning in each case.

These things should be seen in the light that will dawn if they are taken in the earnest spirit we have been trying to convey. People belonging to definite religions do also come, in the end, to long in their way for spiritual deepening. It is by no means without significance that a man as eminently spiritual as Cardinal Newman, ardent Catholic though he was, should say at his investiture in Rome that he could see no salvation for Christianity other than a new revelation.

In effect, what Cardinal Newman said was that he could see no salvation for Christianity other than a new revelation! But he had not the courage to take a new spiritual revelation seriously. And so it is with many others. You can read countless treatises today about what is needed in social life. Another book has recently appeared: Socialism, by Robert Wilbrandt, the son of the poet. In it the social question is discussed on the foundation of accurate and detailed knowledge. And finally it is stated that without the spirit nothing is achieved, that the very course of events shows that the spirit is necessary. Yes, but what does such a man really achieve? He gets as far as to utter the word “spirit,” to pronounce the abstract word “spirit;” but he refuses to accept, indeed he rejects, anything that endeavors to make the spirit really take effect.

For that, it is essential above all to realize that wallowing in abstractions, however loud the cry for the spirit, is not yet spiritual, not yet spirit! Vague, abstract chattering about the spirit must never be confused with the active search for the content of the spiritual world pursued in anthroposophical science.

Nowadays there is much talk about the spirit. But you who accept spiritual science should not be deluded by such chattering; you should perceive the difference between it and the descriptions of the spiritual world attempted in anthroposophy, where the spiritual world is described as objectively as the physical world. You should probe into these differences, reminding yourselves repeatedly that abstract talk of the spirit is a deviation from sincere striving for the spirit and that by their very talk, people are actually removing themselves from the spirit. Purely intellectual allusion to the spirit leads nowhere. What, then, is “intelligence?” What is the content of our human intelligence? I can best explain this in the following way. Imagine—and this will be better understood by the many ladies present!—imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and looking into it. The picture presented to you by the mirror is you, but it has no reality at all. It is nothing but a reflection. All the intelligence within your soul, all the intellectual content, is only a mirror image; it has no reality. And just as your reflected image is called into existence through the mirror, so what mirrors itself as intelligence is called into existence through the physical apparatus of your body, through the brain. You are intelligent only because your body is there. And as little as you can touch yourself by stretching your hand toward your reflected image, as little can you lay hold of the spirit if you turn only to the intellectual—for the spirit is not there! What is grasped through the intellect, ingenious as it may be, never contains the spirit itself, but only a picture of the spirit. You cannot truly experience the spirit if you get no further than mere intelligence. The reason why intelligence is so seductive is that it yields a picture, a reflected picture of the spirit—but not the spirit itself. It seems unnecessary to go to the inconvenience of penetrating to the spirit, because it is there—or so, at least, one imagines. In reality it is only a reflected picture—but for all that, it is not difficult to talk about the spirit.

To distinguish the mere picture from the reality—that is the task of the tenor of soul which does not merely theorize about spiritual science but has actual perception of the spirit.

That is what I wanted to say to you today in order to intensify the earnestness which should pervade our whole attitude to the spiritual life as conceived by anthroposophy. For the evolution of humanity in the future will depend upon how truly this attitude is adopted by people of the present day. If what I have characterized in this lecture continues to be offered the reception that is still offered to it today by the vast majority of people on the earth, then Ahriman will be an evil guest when he comes. But if people are able to rouse themselves to take into their consciousness what we have been studying, if they are able so to guide it that humanity can freely confront the ahrimanic influence, then, when Ahriman appears, human beings will acquire, precisely through him, the power to realize that although the earth must enter inevitably into its decline, humankind is lifted above earthly existence through this very fact. When human beings have reached a certain age in physical life, the body begins to decline, but if they are sensible they make no complaint, knowing that together with the soul they are approaching a life that does not run parallel with this physical decline. There lives in humankind something that is not bound up with the already prevailing decline of the physical earth but becomes more and more spiritual just because of this physical decline.

Let us learn to say frankly: Yes, the earth is in its decline, and human life, too, with respect to its physical manifestation; but just because it is so, let us muster the strength to draw into our civilization that element which, springing from humankind itself, will live on while the earth is in decline, as the immortal fruit of earth evolution.

• 1. Twelve lectures given at Nürnberg, 1908.

It was my task yesterday to show how the special configuration of such mythologies as the Osiris Myth, the Greek mythology—and in a certain sense even the Old Testament teachings to which we will return presently—is connected with changes in the stages of human consciousness. We know of the development of consciousness in mankind, we know that we have to look back to earlier times of man's evolution in which there existed an old clairvoyance, a perceptibility of super-earthly things. It is well to look back at such things for this retrospection gives us orientation. Mankind is again to achieve vision directed to the super-sensible; it is to be achieved on the path of Spiritual Science, through spiritual scientific thinking. The realization of what each one can do, no matter where he stands in the world, can be helped by the will to orientate oneself for what is to come by considering what has been.

In a certain sense things take place in later times in connection with events of earlier times. We look back from our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, in the development of which we are standing, to the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, the Greco-Latin, and to the Third, the Egyptian; we come then already to the time in which it was natural for men to express in certain mythical pictures and imaginations what they thought and felt about cosmic mysteries. In another connection we have already stated that we in our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch have to recapitulate in a sort of inverted way what had happened in the Third, the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, so that it emerges again differently. The booklet ‘The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind’, also refers, as you know, to this subject.

Now we saw yesterday that in the time of the Greco-Latin evolution, in the time that begins with the 7th or 8th century before our era, there was a kind of looking back of mankind, and this looking back to other states of consciousness in fact expressed in imaginative myths facts about the ruling spiritual beings, as we described yesterday. Men in the Fourth Epoch knew: when we look around us we see only the physical, on the other we can reflect. You know, moreover, if you have followed attentively what is said in my book The Riddles of Philosophy, that in Grecian times, and even much later, people saw Ideas—as it were—as Goethe still did, and that they could really say: we see them. Entirely abstract thinking has only come about in modern times. But at that time there was indeed a seeing of ideas, a seeing of spiritual realities, a living in spiritual realities.

In the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch this was no longer so in the full sense, but the people remembered that it had been so earlier. They said—and in fact this represented the truth:—there are, however, Beings in existence, who are not human beings, who live in super-sensible worlds and have still preserved life in the imaginative consciousness. The Greeks saw such Beings in the individuals of the Zeus-circle.

The Egyptians again said to themselves: that age in which men still lived directly with Imaginations was the age when Osiris wandered upon Earth. They meant of course not one Osiris, but it was believed that there had been a time in which men on earth lived in Imaginations. And this type of human soul which was able to live in Imaginations was described by saying: Osiris lived upon earth. Lost and slain had been this life-in-Imaginations. Osiris has been killed by his brother Typhon—that is, by that force of the human soul, which to be sure is still directed to the super-sensible, but will no longer evolve the Imaginative faculties. The ancient clairvoyance exists no more. The forces active in the old clairvoyance are now amidst the dead. Hence Osiris is the Judge of the dead; the human being meets him when he has passed through the portal of death. The figures of Osiris and Isis were brought into connection with the Death-Mystery by those people who set the Osiris myth into the centre of their thought. Moreover, in the details through which the Osiris myth has been elaborated there actually lies all that I have been stating. The point of time has also been specified in which according to the legend, Osiris was killed by Typhon.

And just as we could point to a quite definite heavenly constellation, which the Magi of the East knew as the constellation in which the new cosmic age was to approach (we have pointed out in the Christmas lectures that by a certain constellation of the ‘Virgin’ the Magi of the East knew that they were to bring their offerings to the new World-Saviour) so too have those whose thoughts centred on the Osiris myth looked back to quite definite star-constellations. They have said: Osiris was slain. They meant to say: the old life in the Imaginations vanished when the setting sun in autumn stood in seventeen degrees of Scorpio and in the opposite point of the heavens the full moon rose in Taurus or in the Pleiades. This constellation of the full moon rising in Taurus at a definite point of the year in connection with the Scorpio position of the Sun, this moment of evolution has been given by the followers of Osiris as that in which Osiris has vanished from the earth, that is, in which he was no longer there. These things naturally come about in such a way as to leave legacies behind. There have always been people, stragglers even up to recent centuries with Imaginative clairvoyance, but the point is to show when Imaginative clairvoyance disappeared from earth as a normal faculty of the human soul. And men were aware that in the ages when Imaginative clairvoyance prevailed on earth conditions were quite different from what they were later. And this too was plainly indicated in the Osiris-Isis myth. But it is just this that is so very little understood by those who explain the myth of Isis and Osiris.

It is related, as you know, that when Isis discovered that her spouse, Osiris, had been slain, she departed on a search for the dead body. She found it at last in Byblos in Phoenicia and brought the corpse of Osiris from Phoenicia back to Egypt. A deep wisdom is expressed in such a myth, a wisdom of humanity's physiology. What sort of conditions were there then during the Osiris-time? During the Osiris-time there was not yet such a script as the later script. What prevailed in Egypt during the age of Osiris was a picture-writing and this was considered sacred. And how actually was the picture-script brought about? It was brought about inasmuch as the most important signs were taken, not from animal or earthly forms, but from the star-constellations, in fact from what clairvoyance saw in the star-constellations. If I were to make a comparison from something lately in our minds, I might say: You have heard in the ‘Dream of Olaf &Åsteson’ how he experiences the spirit-snake, the spirit-dog and the spirit-bull; he describes what he feels about them. Imagine to yourselves such pictures, but in a far more perfect form, as signs—such signs then are images of Imaginations. Such signs as the signs of the earliest writing were held to be holy. In such signs was cosmic wisdom contained for ancient times, this cosmic wisdom which in fact was at the same time a heavenly wisdom, inasmuch as men read the cosmic mysteries in the star-script, as the dead alone are able to do now. The gift of possessing a writing which is really a reproduction of Imaginations only belonged to humanity at a certain period of time, and then vanished. And the ancients knew: this imaginative way of writing existed in the age of Osiris. Together with the dying away of the old life of the world in Imaginations, the ancient picture-script disappeared and there arose that which has become the abstract script. This no longer expresses mysteries, but gradually, since it has become abstract, only serves to express the sense world—namely, the ordinary letter-script. Just as Osiris was looked on in those ancient times as the hero, as the divine hero of the Imaginative script, so is Typhon, his brother but his opponent, the hero of the abstract script of letter, developed from it.

This is also indicated profoundly in the Osiris-Isis myth. Over to Phoenicia must Isis go to find the corpse; that means to find the picture-script transformed into the letter-script—to find the corpse of Osiris. The letter-script was ‘found’, invented, as we say, in Phoenicia. From Phoenicia back to Egypt the abstract-script has come, whereas the Egyptians in their old mysteries in the Osiris-time had a picture-writing reflecting Imaginations. Thus the transition from the old concrete conception in the Imaginative-script to the newer concept in the abstract script has also found expression in the Osiris-Isis myth.

All these things lie in the course of mankind's evolution. We are there looking back to an older experience in Imaginations. Real physiological wisdom is, in fact, expressed in the myths. Thinking gradually passed over to abstractions—not immediately to the quite empty abstractions of today but to the somewhat fuller abstractions of about the 6th and 5th-centuries B.C.—in the work of Thales, with whom one generally begins the history of philosophy. (You can read of it in my The Riddles of Philosophy.)

But you can see from this that humanity has to look back to earlier evolutionary periods with quite different conditions of soul. Certain Brotherhoods of modern times know, to be sure, about these entirely different conditions, but they hold that such things should still be kept under lock and key. That is not right for the present day, but it is a little dangerous to talk of these things beyond a certain degree. Up to a certain degree, however, it is not only a case of should, these things must be spoken of today, because the knowledge of ancient conditions of human consciousness helps to give orientation for what is to develop as the new. If we have knowledge of what once existed, that can help us to further the necessary new conditions of evolution, although of an entirely different kind.

Now today you find in boys who develop to the age of puberty a change of voice. It is as we know, the expression in the boys of an organic process, which occurs differently in the female sex, and which apparently makes greater inroads into the human being in the case of the female, since the process reaches more directly into the physical. But that is not true. The influence on boys is just as strong, though it lies in a different sphere, so to say, and though externally it only comes to expression physically in the change of voice.

This reaching maturity by the human being is today—in fact since the times when Osiris was dead for the outer world—almost a physical process. It was not merely a physical process in the ages when Osiris lived, no, it was a soul process. The boy of fourteen or fifteen years—as you know we have already spoken of other experiences at the time of puberty—experienced not only that his voice changed, but that what today only enters, presses into, the region of the voice, extending from the sexual essences of the organism, in those ancient times pressed also into the thoughts, the conceptual world of the young boy. We must deal with such things truthfully; the voice apparatus is simply pervaded with the sexual essences of the organism. Today the voice breaks; in those days the thoughts ‘broke’ too, since it was still the ancient Imaginative time. In those times the young boy before the age of puberty had certain Imaginations; it was a living process and all knew that the child up to nine or ten years of age had Imaginations—Imaginations of spiritual events in the atmosphere. (Today there are still slight remains of this in almost every child of tender age, it is only that people pay no attention to it, or talk the children out of it as being foolish nonsense.) In the air spiritual events are taking place around us all the time. The air is not only what physical science describes, but spiritual events are taking place. These spiritual events, essentially events of the etheric world, were perceived by children in full Imaginations up to the time of puberty. And when puberty entered—not only for the voice, but the life of concepts—the human being felt something in him (it was in fact that which shot up out of the forces which are usually called in physiology the sex forces), felt something in him of which he said: what I saw as a child through the Imaginations in the atmosphere, now comes to life in me again, it is perception, it lives in me. That took place. The man was aware that he had taken something into himself out of the atmosphere. Formerly he had seen it outside; now he felt it within him.

For woman too, in those ancient times, there had been, before puberty, a perception in Imaginations of what was outside in the atmosphere. But after puberty that which in the case of boys merely emerged in the feeling of an alteration in their mental life, in the case of the woman was like an ascent of still more inward Imaginations: it was the human image that the woman perceived within her again and again in Imagination. And then she said to herself: what I now perceive Imaginatively, is the same as I experienced in childhood before puberty, out in cosmic space, as Imaginative pictures. Both sexes, only in different ways, experienced the fact that they actually knew in the soul: in me something is born which cosmic space has fructified in me.

There you have a still more concrete form of the Osiris-Isis-myth: it is universal wisdom in so far as it is won from the atmosphere, but it is in organic connection with man, the deeper layers of the human spirit. You can get an idea of it if you seek it in the following way. You see, men think nowadays in an abstract way, inasmuch as they desire to know through the head what the world contains of laws and so on. In these old times men were clear that in this way, merely through head knowledge, one cannot know, but one knows through the whole human being. One knows what goes on outside in space, goes on etherically, by having perceived it formerly as it were, outside, and then after puberty pictured or felt it inwardly. How do you perceive then today, with the abstract perception that you have? You discover something which you see with the senses; then you think it over afterwards. That happens in rapid succession. With those mysteries, through which man in ancient times penetrated into the laws of the atmosphere present in Imaginations, it was a different matter. As child, up to puberty, he perceived, he only perceived; afterwards he worked this over inwardly. One might say it is only a perceptive process and a thinking process spread out in time; whereas today it is placed at man's own discretion to observe abstractly and to reflect, conceive abstractly. Over the whole life was spread what we now crowd together in a few moments as regards the outer physical world, perceive, conceive. That was something which in his relation to the world man thought of as spread out over the whole of human life between birth and death. To the age of puberty he perceived certain things, afterwards he reflected upon them. Such an age was once in existence.

But now think. People said to themselves: ‘this perceiving and reflecting, this is connected in a certain way with the day, with the rising and setting sun. With the rising sun, one wakes, gets up, begins to perceive and to think; with the setting sun this ceases, since one lies down to sleep.’ Thus people connected perceiving and thinking with the day; and what was spread out over the whole life between birth and death they brought into connection with more widely extended cosmic events in the heavens. Just as it depends on the sun, on the ordinary rising and setting of the sun, that I can perceive and think, so does it depend on greater, more extended star constellations which appear after centuries, after millennia, what man develops in perceiving and thinking of the kind that I have described. And as in those old times people connected the ordinary perception and thinking with the day, with sunrise and sunset—indeed as people do today though they don't think so and even believe they go by the clock—so they connected matters concerning more comprehensive cosmic mysteries with the other star-constellations, with the other events in the heavens.

You see, a deep logic, a deep wisdom lies in these things. With superficialities one cannot get at the facts. But something else too is bound up with it. These ancient peoples—and we could speak of others besides the Egyptians and the Greeks—these ancient peoples knew that the more inward-lying forces of human nature are connected with what come to expression in celestial happenings, in star-constellations. That decadence of man which is expressed in the modern attitude to the sex problem, and that greatest decadence which is expressed in the most modern attitude to sexual problems, of this nothing was yet known to those ancient peoples of the ages of which one must speak when one deals with these things. For them it was something very different when they had the feeling: it is the sexual essences which are suffused into the human being when the voice breaks and therewith the thoughts break too—or when the other appears of which I have spoken. That the divine was then pouring itself forth in man—that was the conviction of the ancients. Hence what is only viewed in a pernicious sense today is found in all old religious rites: the sex-symbols, the so-called sex-symbols, point thus to this connection—we can call it the connection between the atmosphere with its air-events and the human processes of knowledge which take place during the whole human life between birth and death.

‘Through my eye, through my ear’—so said these people—‘I am connected with what is brought by the day. Through the deeper, more inwardly lying forces, I am connected with something quite different, with the secrets of the air, which, however, are only perceived in Imaginative experience.’ And this Imaginative experience in its concrete form I have described for you with reference to these early times.

The Old Testament conception in these matters was different inasmuch as it put doctrine in the place of actual experience. The Egyptian of the Osiris-age, especially of the earlier Osiris-age, said as follows: ‘The true human being only enters me with puberty, for I then take in what formerly I saw in Imaginations. The air transmits to me the true man.’ In the doctrine of the Old Testament this was transformed into the conception: The Elohim or Jahve have breathed into man the living breath (Odem), the air. There the essence was lifted out of the direct living experience and became doctrine, theory. This was necessary, for only so could mankind be led—and that is the meaning of the Old Testament—be led from that living in union with the outer world, which still had an inner connection between the microcosm, man, and the macrocosm, the world, to their further evolution (of which I will speak later). As this connection gradually vanished, it was necessary to fall back on just such a doctrine as that of the Old Testament.

But now there came the time of the death of Osiris—and therewith the time too in which, while one thing became finer, the other thing, as it were, became coarser. How is that to be understood? Well, you can imagine it thus: When we go back into the old Osiris-time, then the human being saw or felt before puberty the Light-Imaginations within the outer air (see sketch)—if I speak for the one sex—

Thus he saw in his environment the Light-Imaginations in the air up to the time of puberty. Afterwards he had the feeling that they had entered into him, and the changes occurred of which we have spoken. For the child the air was everywhere filled with Light phenomena; for the grown man, the matured man, the air was certainly still there, but he knew that as child he had seen something else in it. He knew that the air was at the same time the bearer, the mother, of light. He knew that it was not true that when he looked out into the air there was nothing in it but what was shown physically. Beings live in it which are to be perceived in Imagination.

These Beings were for the Greeks the Being of the Zeus-circle. Thus man knew that there were Beings in the air. But all this—the fact that human states of consciousness became changed—all this is connected with the fact that even objective things became different in the finer substantiality. Naturally, for the modern clever man it is an outrage if one says such things. I know it is an outrage, but nevertheless it is true: the air has become different. Naturally it has not changed in a way that can be tested by chemical reagents; nevertheless the air has become different. The air has lost the strength to express the Light-Imaginations; the air has—one could say—become coarser. It has actually become different on earth since that ancient time. The air has become coarser. But not only the air, but man himself has become coarser. That which formerly lived spiritually in the essences which permeated the larynx and the rest of the organism, that has also grown coarser. So that in fact if one speaks today of the sexual-essences one speaks of what is different from what one would speak of in ancient times. Everyone in older times knew: ‘The perception of the day is connected with my personality; the other, which I experience from the atmosphere, experience with my whole life, that, however, is connected with mankind as such, that goes beyond the individual man.’ Hence they also sought to fathom the social mysteries under which men live together, through the link which bound them with the macrocosm, they sought for social wisdom through the star-wisdom. But what lived in man as social wisdom bound him in fact to the celestial. This came to expression in the most everyday concepts. A human pair before the death of Osiris would never have felt anything else than that they had received a child from heaven. That was a living consciousness and corresponded also with truth. And this living consciousness could develop because man knew that he received out of the air-filled space what he himself experienced.

Of all this the coarse dregs, so to say, have been left. As in the air the coarse sediment has remained behind of that power of the air that revealed itself to man in Imaginations in earlier ages, so in man himself are the coarse dregs left behind. This had to come about since otherwise men could not have attained freedom and a full consciousness of the ego. But it is the dregs that have remained. In this way, however, all that the ancients meant by the divine, which as you can now readily realize, they connected in a roundabout way with the sexual essences, all this has been coarsened, not only in idea but also in reality. But it is there nevertheless; naturally not only in the one way, but in the other way too. The reproduction of mankind was in those olden times thought to be in direct connection with the micro-macrocosmic bond of mankind, as you have seen, but the whole social life of man on earth was in fact also thought to be in connection with this micro-macrocosmic bond. Numa Pompilus went to the Nymph Egeria to receive information from her as to how he should arrange social conditions in the Roman Kingdom. This, however, means nothing else than that he had let the star wisdom be imparted to him, had let the star-wisdom tell him how social conditions should be organized.

That which men reproduce on earth, and which is connected with successive generations, was to be placed in the service of what the stars have to say. As the individual man directed his life with his ordinary perceiving and thinking, according to the rising and setting of the sun, so the interconnections of mankind which later became ‘States’, were to be placed under the star-constellations as expressions of cosmic relationships.

In our language—and languages often contain memories of old conditions—we still have a remembrance of this connection in the fact that the relation of male and female is described by the word ‘Geschlecht’ (sex) and also the successive generations as ‘Geschlechter’ (races). It is one and the same word: the ‘Geschlecht’—the family, interconnected, blood relations—and then the relation of man and woman. And so is it too in other languages, and it all points to how man sought to find a recognizable connection with the macrocosm for what lay in his nature, in the deeper strata of his being.

These things have become coarsened in the direction we have discussed. Among other things that have remained behind is the attachment in longing and feeling to nationality, the clinging to the national, the chauvinistic impulse for the national; that is the lingering relic of what in older times could be thought of in quite different connections. But only when one looks into such things does one know the truth contained in them. What is expressed by the nationalistic longing? When man develops to excess this national feeling, this sentiment for the nation, what is living in it? Exactly the same as lives in the sexual, in the sexual in one way, in national sentiment in another. It is the sexual human being that lives his life through these two different poles. To be Chauvinistic, is, nothing else really than developing a sort of group-sexuality. One could say that where the sexual essences, in what they have left behind, grip men more, there is present more national Chauvinism; for it is the very force living in reproduction that comes to manifestation too in national sentiment. Hence the battle-cry of the so-called ‘Freedom of the Peoples or of the Nations’ is really only to be understood in its more intimate connections if one said—in a most respectable sense of course—‘The Call for the Re-establishment of the National in the Light of the Sex-Problem’. It is necessary to realize as one of the secrets of the time-impulse, the fact that the sexual problem is proclaimed in quite a special form over the earth today, without people having any idea of how out of their subconsciousness the sexual clothes itself in the words: ‘Freedom of the Peoples.’ And far more than men imagine are sexual impulses present in the catastrophic events of today, far more than men imagine! For the impulses to what is happening today lie, in fact, very, very deep.

Such truths must no longer in our present age be kept under lock and key. Certain Brotherhoods have been able to keep them under lock and key, because in the strictest sense of the word they have excluded women. Although joint work with women can nevertheless lead to all sorts of bad things, as has indeed constantly been shown today, yet the time has come in which right views, general views, on these matters must be spread among humanity. Ideas are nevertheless spread abroad which are impure, foolish, empty, inasmuch as from certain directions, without knowledge of the more intimate connections, all sorts of things are treated today as sexual problems. But you see how what here is pure, genuine, honourable truth comes in contact, on the one hand, with what can be the most impure, lowest way of thinking, as is shown from time to time in the outgrowths of Psycho-Analysis or similar things. You will always find, however, that what on the one hand, rightly understood, is profound truth, needs hardly to be altered at all in words, but only to be permeated with a low-minded type of thought, and it is simply a pernicious, stupid, objectionable conception.

A former age could speak of ‘nations’, when one pictured ‘Nations’ in such a way that one nation had its guardian spirit in Orion, another in another star, and one knew that one's life was ruled from the star-constellations. One then appealed, as it were, to the ordering in the heavens. Today where there is no longer such ordering in the heavens, there is the appeal to the merely national, the Chauvinistic appeal to the merely national, that is to say, an asserting of an impulse, psycho-sexual in the most pronounced sense, a backward luciferic impulse.

If one would see clearly and plainly what is today, one must not shrink from the actual underlying truth. But one can also see from such things why people are so afraid of the truth. Just imagine if, in the outcry on the freedom of nations and so forth that is raised today, people were to hear ‘that comes from sexual impulses!’ One should just imagine that! One should picture for once the crowing cock ... I don't mean any special one, not simply Clemenceau ... one should picture all the declaimers on this theme ... and imagine that they had to realize that what they crow is after all the mating-voice of the cock, however finely it is decked out in national garments.

These are things which mankind must learn to know today, and which they do not want to hear, for, as you know, of things that are black it is asserted that they are white, and of those that are white, that they are black. The point is, that that ancient time of which I have spoken has come now to the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch in which abstraction has gradually developed. There where the boundary lies between the fourth and fifth Post-Atlantean epochs (you can read about this in my book The Riddles of Philosophy), there men strove with all their might over the intellectual value—so to say—of the abstract. Read afterwards in my The Riddles of Philosophy where I speak of the nominalism and realism of the Middle Ages. Abstraction had grown to such a pitch that they asked themselves: When I form a concept, has that any significance for the things outside, or is it only a name in my head? Today people no longer reflect on such things. Of what interest is it to people to know that men have tormented themselves in the Middle Ages, when the abstractive power of thought was felt, what role the so-called universals, the general ideas, play in the world! That one wrestled and strove about what role abstractions play! Nowadays one thinks no more about it; one has already become used to abstractions; one does not strive to get beyond the abstract impulse but, on the contrary, to get thoroughly within it. The conflict over ‘universals’—this ultimately came to the point where it was said: ‘Universals, General Ideas, are at first as certain Ideas in God: those are Universals ante rem; then the Ideas are in the objects: Universals in re; and then the Ideas are in our mind, our soul: post rem—Universals post rem.’ That was an expedient, in order to take up a stand on the question: is a man connected with reality when he thinks, when he only thinks ideas? They still felt something of how in ancient times men had been connected with reality. When they reached maturity they thought over, as it were, what as a child they had formerly perceived; they knew therefore that only then had the true human being entered in. One had to struggle desperately over the Universals, as to whether, when one thinks, there is still something of reality left in one's thought or whether it is entirely divorced from reality and has nothing to do with it. Since that time people have grown accustomed to take the universals, the abstractions, as abstractions, and are more or less completely cut off from reality in their consciousness.

Such a process is taking place continually on a small scale. Think for a moment: words which are the representatives of concepts, are originally in direct connection with what is seen. For instance, a small group of fighting men has one man at the head, they have this one man before them, they call him the foremost, the first, Fürst (Eng: Chief, Prince). There one has it linked directly with what is beheld, later it was set free, it became a word which denoted something without any sort of connection with a direct perception. Just think to how many words this applies! And the next step is that then certain words become privileged, that speech becomes monopolized, becomes the property of the State. Even in language certain things are developing in this direction, are they not? ... Take the simple case that someone has learnt a great deal, has become wise—let us say, without meaning anything foolish by it—he is a learned man. In a certain naive way one would then say: he is a ‘Doctor’. Here we have a connection with fact if we call someone ‘doctor’ who is seen to be learned. For it still has a certain significance when there is documentary evidence held by a Corporation which gives this recognition. But it loses the significance when it is monopolized ... Yet mankind is enthusiastic about such monopolizing nowadays. All possible words are to be monopolized. A man is not supposed merely through his gifts to be an ‘engineer’, but this must also become a recognized title from heaven knows where. And increasingly things are to be loosed from their connections. There you can see the abstraction-process on a small scale, but it is accomplished wholesale with infinite significance. A family has a father. What is the connection between the pater, who is the father of the family and the Pater, who is a priest? This tearing loose of what is contained in the word—I wanted to bring it forward as illustrating the abstraction-process taking place in humanity.

And in the case of ideas it is much more mischievous than in language; people often make use of concepts without having the least idea of their connection with what is perceived. Sometimes people then search for the real observation, become comic, frightfully comic in this search! Only remember how there is a whole literature today about the cross-sign, which is really a universal sign, spread over the world. Most amusing is all the learnedness applied to it! This sign

is traced back to this

That was supposed to have been the cross of former times.

Sometimes they then trace that back by saying: only the parts have been left, the swastika and so on. Yes, it is frightfully

clever what has been written about it, quite immensely clever, the way ‘cleverness’ has been applied to such things. I do not wish at all to go in for detailed criticism. But to know what is true, cleverness is not enough. One ought, of course, to know that the cross-sign means nothing else than that the human being takes his stand, stretches out his arms and then he is the cross. From above downwards goes a stream of existence that binds man with the macrocosm, and through the outstretched hands too. And the Cross is the sign for Man.

And when you find distinguishing marks of the Assyrian kings or of the Egyptian kings, medallions, for instance, then they are medallions with the cross-sign.

And two other signs (the cross on the medallion is one sign that ancient kings had) were, for instance, these.

The star in the sign is generally made in such a way that one does not immediately recognize the pentagram in it—or is it even a hexagram;—however, that is not the point.

Specially clever people have said: that is the Sun, that is the Cross, that is the moon, that is the star. But the deeper meaning lies precisely in the fact that it is man, the microcosm, who is compounded of sun and moon. You see from this ordinary cross-sign, how the concept has been separated from the real object. The direct perception is this, the sign is this: man in the form of a cross. People today know so little of how to connect the object with the sign, that, as I have said, an immensely clever literature exists which seeks to find out how this sign is connected with what it wants to express. And so one could write quite clever articles over the most everyday words without discovering how these things, these words, were connected with the realities.

Humanity had to go through the period of abstractions. We know that today we are no longer in the sign of Aries, in which the Sun stood at the beginning of Spring when the transition took place from the old Imaginative time, of which echoes still lingered, to the age of abstractions. We have entered the age of Pisces. A special characteristic of this age is that man receives the force for abstract ideas out of the macrocosm. Man receives this force today from the macrocosm. But in the meantime man does not know how he is to unite the abstract ideas again with reality. They must be united again with reality.

I said at the beginning of the lecture that in this fifth Post-Atlantean epoch there must be a kind of recapitulation of the time in the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch when one looked back to the ancient Osiris-age, when Imaginations were in existence. The reverse, as it were, must take place: man must find the way back again to the Imaginations. One could say in another form: Osiris must become alive again, we must find ways and means to bring Osiris to life. I have spoken very concretely in these studies by saying that we must find forms of experience which are common to the dead and the living. Since Osiris was slain he has been with the dead; he will remain with the dead, but he will have to come again among the living, when there are concerns which are common to the dead and the living for the social life of men.

This brings us to the fact that people must understand something which it is above all necessary for our time to understand: how will Osiris be revivified? How can Osiris come to new life? How does man approach again life and experience in the Imaginative consciousness?

We will speak of this tomorrow—how he is to rise again, and how the resurrection is to be brought about. Tomorrow's considerations shall have then, as their subject, the Imaginative consciousness.

If we look back over the evolution of mankind since the Mystery of Golgotha, we get the impression that Christianity, the Christ Impulse, has only been able to live on within the European and American civilisations in the face of definite obstacles and in association with other streams of spiritual life. And a study of the growth and gradual development of Christianity reveals many remarkable facts.

To-day I want to describe in broad outlines the growth and development of Christianity in connection with what ought to live within the Anthroposophical Society: and not only ought to, but can live, because those persons who feel an honest and sincere urge towards Anthroposophy, have this urge from the very depths of their being.

If we take the facts of repeated earthly lives in all seriousness, we shall say: This inner urge to get away from the conceptions and habits of thought of those among whom life, education and social relationships have placed us, this urge that we feel to enter a stream of thought which really makes claims upon our life of soul, must have its origin in karma, in the karma coming from earlier lives on earth.

Now if we study the question of karma in connection with those personalities who find themselves together in the Anthroposophical Movement, it transpires that, without exception, before their present earthly life they have had one other important incarnation since the Mystery of Golgotha. They were already on earth once since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and are now there for the second time since that Event.

And then the great question arises: How has the previous earthly life, with respect to the Mystery of Golgotha, worked upon these personalities who now, out of their karma, feel the urge to enter the Anthroposophical Movement?

Even from exoteric study we find that men standing as firmly within the stream of Christianity itself as St. Augustine, have said: “Christianity did not begin with Christ; there were Christians before Christ, only they were not so called.” This is what St. Augustine says.

Those who penetrate more deeply into the spiritual mysteries of human evolution and can study these spiritual mysteries with Initiation Science, will strongly confirm such a view as is expressed by St. Augustine, for it is a fact. But it becomes necessary, then, to know in what form that which through the Mystery of Golgotha became the historical Christ Impulse upon the earth, existed in earlier times.

To-day I can speak of this earlier form of Christianity by starting from impressions which came in a place not far distant from Torquay (where our Summer Course has been held), in Tintagel, whence proceeded the spiritual stream connected with King Arthur. It was possible to receive the impressions which can still come to-day at the spot where King Arthur's castle with its Round Table stood—impressions which come above all from the magnificent natural surroundings of this castle.

At this place where nothing but ruins remain of the old citadel of King Arthur, where we look back as if in memory across the centuries that have elapsed since the Arthur stream went out from thence, we realise how stone after stone has so crumbled away that there is hardly anything to be recognised of the old castles which once were inhabited by King Arthur and those around him. But when with the eye of spirit we look out from the place where the castle once stood, over the sea with its iridescent colours and breaking waves, the impression we get is that we are able at this place to penetrate deeply into the elemental secrets of nature and of the cosmos.

And if we look back with occult sight, if we can visualise the point of time which lies a few thousand years ago, when the Arthur stream had its beginning, then we see that those who lived on Arthur's Mount had, as is the case with all such occult centres, chosen this spot because the impulses necessary for the tasks they had set themselves, for their mission in the world, needed the play of those forces which nature there displayed before them.

I cannot say whether it is always so, but when I saw the view there was a most wonderful play of waves surging and rippling up from the depths—in itself one of the most beautiful sights in all nature. These waves hurl themselves against the walls of rock and as they fall back again in seething foam the elementary spirits are able to rise up from below and come to living expression. From above, the sunlight is reflected in manifold forms in the waves of the air. This interplay of elemental nature from above and from below reveals the full power of the Sun and displays it in such a way that man is able to receive it into his being. Those who can imbibe what is given by this interplay of the beings born of the light above and the beings born in the depths below, receive the power of the Sun, the impulse of the Sun. It is a moment in which man can unfold what I will call “piety”—piety in the pagan sense. Christian piety is not the same as pagan piety which means inner surrender to the gods of nature working and weaving everywhere in the play of nature.

Those who lived around King Arthur absorbed this play of weaving, working nature into their very being. And most significant of all was what they were able to receive in the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha.

I want to tell you to-day about the character of this spiritual life that was connected with such centres as that of King Arthur's Round Table. And I must begin by speaking of something that is known to you all.

When a human being dies, he leaves his physical body and still has his etheric body around him for a few days. After these few days have elapsed he lays aside his etheric body and lives on then in his astral body and Ego. What happens thus to the man who has passed through the gate of death, appears to the eye of vision as if the etheric being were dissolving. After death the etheric human being expands and expands, his actual form becoming more and more indefinite as he weaves himself into the cosmos.

A remarkable phenomenon, and the exact opposite of this other, occurred in the world-historic sense when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. What was it that happened then? Up to that time Christ had been a Sun Being, had belonged to the Sun. Before the Mystery of Golgotha had come to pass, the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table stood on these rocks, gazed at the play between the Sun-born spirits and the Earth-born spirits, and felt that the forces living in this play of nature-spirits poured into their hearts and above all through their etheric bodies. Therewith they received into themselves the Christ Impulse which was then streaming away from the Sun and was living in everything that is brought into being by the Sun-forces.

And so, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Knights of King Arthur received into themselves the Sun-Spirit, that is to say, the Christ as He was in pre-Christian times. And they sent their messengers out into all Europe to subdue the wild savagery of the astral bodies of the peoples of Europe, to purify and to civilise, for such was their mission. We see such men as these Knights of King Arthur's Round Table starting from this point in the West of England to bear to the peoples of Europe as they were at that time, what they had received from the Sun, purifying the astral forces of the then barbarous European population—barbarous at all events in Central and Northern Europe.

Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. What happened in Asia? Over yonder in Asia, the sublime Sun Being, Who was later known as the Christ, left the Sun. This betokened a kind of death for the Christ Being. He went forth from the Sun as we human beings go forth from the earth when we die. And as a man who dies leaves his physical body behind on the earth and his etheric body which is laid aside after three days is visible to the seer, so Christ left behind Him in the Sun that which in my book Theosophy is called “Spirit-Man,” the seventh member of the human being.

Christ died to the Sun. He died cosmically, from the Sun to the earth. He came down to the earth. From the moment of Golgotha onwards His Life-Spirit was to be seen around the earth. We ourselves leave behind at death the Life-Ether, the etheric body, the life-body. After this cosmic Death, Christ left His Spirit-Man on the Sun, and around the earth, His Life-Spirit. So that after the Mystery of Golgotha the earth was swathed as it were by the Life-Spirit of the Christ.

Now the connections between places are not the same in the spiritual life as they are in physical life. The Life-Spirit of the Christ was perceived in the Irish Mysteries, in the Mysteries of Hibernia; and above all by the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table. So, up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Impulse belonging to the Sun actually went out from this place where the impulses were received from the Sun. Afterwards the power of the Knights diminished but they lived at the time within this Life-Spirit which encircled the earth and in which there was this constant interplay of light and air, of the Spirits in the Elements from above and from below.

Try to picture to yourselves the cliff with King Arthur's castle upon it and from above the Sun-forces playing down in the light and air, and pouring upwards from below the elementary beings of the earth. There is a living interplay between Sun and earth.

In the centuries which followed the Mystery of Golgotha this all took place within the Life-Spirit of the Christ. So that in the play of nature between sea and rock, air and light, there was revealed, as it were in spiritual light, the Event of Golgotha.

Understand me rightly, my dear friends. If in the first five centuries of our era men looked out over the sea, and had been prepared by the exercises practised by the twelve who were around King Arthur and who were concerned above all with the Mysteries of the Zodiac, if they looked out over the sea they could see not merely the play of nature but they could begin to read a meaning in it just as one reads a book instead of merely staring at it. And as they looked and saw, here a gleam of light, there a curling wave, here the sun mirrored on a rocky cliff, there the sea dashing against the rocks, it all became a flowing, weaving picture—a truth whose meaning could be deciphered. And when they deciphered it they knew of the spiritual Fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha was revealed to them because the picture was all irradiated by the Life-Spirit of Christ presented to them by nature.

Yonder in Asia the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place and its impulse had penetrated deeply into the hearts and souls of men. We need only think of those who became the first Christians to realise what a change had come about in their souls. While all this of which I have been telling you was happening in the West, the Christ Himself, the Christ Who had come down to earth leaving His Spirit-Man on the Sun and His Life-Spirit in the atmosphere around the earth, bringing down His Ego and His Spirit-Self to the earth—the Christ was moving from East to West in the hearts of men, through Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, across Europe. The Christ worked here in the hearts of men, while over in the West He was working through nature.

And so on the one hand we have the story of the Mystery of Golgotha, legible in the Book of Nature for those who were able to read it, working from West to East. It represented, as it were, the science of the higher graduates of King Arthur's Round Table. And on the other hand we have a stream flowing from East to West, not in wind and wave, in air and water, not over hills or in the rays of the Sun, but flowing through the blood, laying hold of the hearts of men on its course from Palestine through Greece into Italy and Spain.

The one stream flows through nature; the other through the blood and the hearts of men. These two streams flow to meet one another. The pagan stream is still working, even to-day. It bears the pre-Christian Christ, the Christ Who was proclaimed as a Sun Being by those who were Knights of the Round Table, but also by many others before the Mystery of Golgotha actually took place. The pre-Christian Christ was carried through the world by this stream even in the age of the Mystery of Golgotha. And a great deal of this wisdom was carried forth into the world by the stream known as that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It is possible, even to-day, to discover these things. There is a pagan Christianity, a Christianity that is not directly bound up with the actual historical Event of Golgotha.

And coming upwards to meet this stream there is the form of Christianity that is connected directly with the Mystery of Golgotha, flowing through the blood, through the hearts and souls of men. Two streams come to meet one another—the pre-Christian Christ stream, etherealised as it were, and the Christian Christ stream. The one is known, subsequently, as the Arthur stream; the other as the Grail stream. Later on they came together; they came together in Europe, above all in the spiritual world.

How can we describe this movement? The Christ Who descended through the Mystery of Golgotha drew into the hearts of men. In the hearts of men He passed from East to West, from Palestine, through Greece, across Italy and Spain. The Christianity of the Grail spread through the blood and the hearts of men. The Christ took His way from East to West.

And to meet Him from the West there came the spiritual etheric Image of the Christ—the Image evoked by the Mystery of Golgotha, but still picturing the Christ of the Sun Mysteries.

Behind the scenes of world-history, sublime and wonderful events were taking place. From the West came pagan Christianity, the Arthur-Christianity, also under other names and in another form. From the East came the Christ in the hearts of men. And then the meeting takes place—the meeting between the Christ Who had Himself come down to earth and His Own Image which is brought to Him from West to East. This meeting took place in the year 869 A.D. Up to that year we have two streams, clearly distinct from one another. The one stream, more in the North, passed across Central Europe and bore the Christ as a Sun Hero, whether the name were Baldur or some other. And under the banner of Christ, the Sun Hero, the Knights of Arthur spread their culture abroad.

The other stream, rooted inwardly in the hearts of men, which later on became the Grail stream, is to be perceived more in the South, coming from the East. It bears the real Christ, Christ Himself. The other stream brings to meet it from the West a cosmic Image of the Christ. This meeting of Christ with Himself, of Christ the Brother of Humanity with Christ the Sun Hero Who is there only as it were in an Image—this meeting of Christ with His own Image took place in the 9th century.

I have given you here, my dear friends, an idea of the inner happenings during the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, when, as I have already said, the souls were living who are now again upon earth, and who have carried with them from their previous earthly lives the urge to come in sincerity into the Anthroposophical Movement.²

When we consider this significant Arthur stream from West to East, it appears to us as the stream which brings the Impulse of the Sun into earthly civilisation. In this Arthur stream is working and weaving the Michael stream as we may call it in Christian terminology, the stream in the spiritual life of humanity in which we have been living since the end of the seventies of last century. The Ruling Power, known by the name of Gabriel, who had held sway for three or four centuries in European civilisation, was succeeded at the end of the seventies of last century by Michael. And the Rulership of Michael will last for three to four centuries, weaving and working in the spiritual life of mankind. And so we have good cause at the present time to speak of the Michael streams, for we ourselves are living once again in an Age of Michael.

We find one of these Michael streams if we look back to the period immediately preceding that of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Arthur Impulse going out from the West, from England, an Impulse which was kindled originally by the Hibernian Mysteries. And we find a still more ancient form of this Michael stream if we look back to what happened centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, when, taking its start from Northern Greece, in Macedonia, the international, cosmopolitan stream connected with the name of Alexander the Great arose under the influence of the conception of the world that is known as the Aristotelian. What was achieved through Aristotle and Alexander in that pre-Christian age took place under the Rulership of Michael, just as now once again we are living under his Rulership. The Michael Impulse was there in the spiritual life at the time of Alexander the Great, just as it is there now, in our own time. Whenever a Michael Impulse is at work in humanity upon the earth it is always a time when that which has been founded in a centre of spiritual culture spreads abroad among many peoples of the earth and is carried into many regions, wherever it is possible to carry it.

This came to pass in pre-Christian times through the campaigns of Alexander. The achievements of Greek culture were spread among men wherever this became possible. If one had asked Alexander and Aristotle: Whence comes your impulse to spread abroad the spiritual culture of your age?—they would have spoken, though under a different name, of that same Being, Michael, who works from the Sun as the Servant of Christ. For among the Archangels who in turn rule over civilisation, Michael belongs to the Sun. Michael was Ruler in the time of Alexander and is Ruler again in our own time. The next Ruling Archangel was Oriphiel, who belongs to Saturn. His successor, the Archangel Anael, belongs to Venus. While Zachariel, the Archangel who ruled civilisation in the 4th and 5th centuries, belongs to the sphere of Jupiter. Then came Raphael, from the Mercury sphere, at the time when a form of thought connected with medicine and healing lived in the background of European civilisation. After Raphael came Samael, whose Rulership extended a little beyond the 12th century. And then came the Age of Gabriel. Samael belongs to Mars, Gabriel to the Moon. And Gabriel was once again succeeded by Michael, who belongs to the Sun sphere, in the seventies of the 19th century. Thus in rhythmic succession these seven Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangels rule over the spiritual life of the earth.

And so as we look back—when was the last Rulership of Michael? It was in the Alexander period. It prevailed during that period when Greek civilisation was carried across to Asia and Africa, and finally concentrated in the great and influential city of Alexandria with its mighty heroes of the spiritual life.

It is a strange vista that presents itself to occult sight. In the age which lies a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, we see, going Eastwards from Macedonia—that is to say, once more from West to East but this time farther to the East—we see the same stream which proceeds from the English and Irish souls in the West and which also flows from West to East. During the Alexander period, Michael was the Ruling Archangel on the earth. During the Arthur period, when Michael was working from the Sun, the influences I have described were sent down from the Sun. But what happened later on, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place? What happened to the kind of thought that had been carried by Alexander the Great over to Asia?

At the time when Charlemagne, in his own way, was establishing a certain form of Christian culture in Europe, Haroun al Raschid was living over yonder in Asia Minor. All the oriental wisdom and spirituality to be found at that time in architecture, in art, in science, in religion, in literature, in poetry—it was all gathered at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. And at his side there was a Counsellor, a man who was not initiated in all these arts and sciences at that time, but who had been an Initiate in earlier times, in a former life. Around these two men, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor, we find that all the wisdom which had been carried by Alexander into Asia, all the teachings which had been drawn from the old nature-wisdom and were imparted by Aristotle to those he was able to instruct—all this was changed. Alexandrianism and Aristotelianism were permeated and impregnated at the Court of Haroun al Raschid with Arabism, with Mohammedanism.

And then, all the learning thus permeated with Arabism was carried over into the stream of Christianity by way of Greece, but especially by way of Northern Africa, Italy and Spain. It was carried over, inculcated as it were into the world of Christendom.

But before this, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor had passed through the gate of death, and from that life which leads from death to a new birth they looked down on what was taking place on earth in the expeditions of the Mohammedan Moors to Spain. From the spiritual world they watched the form of culture which they themselves had promoted and which had been spread by their successors. Haroun al Raschid concentrated his attention from the spiritual world more on the regions of Greece, Italy and Spain; his Counsellor more on the stream going out from the East across the regions to the North of the Black Sea, through Russia and into Central Europe.

And now the question arises: What was the destiny of Alexander and Aristotle themselves? They were deeply bound up with the Rulership of Michael but they were not incarnated on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

We must try to get a clear conception of the two contrasting pictures. On the earth are those who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ comes down through the Mystery of Golgotha, becomes Man, and from then on lives in the earth-sphere. And what is happening on the Sun? On the Sun there are the souls who at that time belonged to Michael, who were living in his sphere. These souls witnessed, from the Sun, the departure of Christ from the Sun and His descent to earth. On the earth there were those who witnessed His arrival. That is the difference. The experience of those who were on earth during the Michael Rulership at the time of Alexander, was that they saw as it were the other direction of the Christ Event, namely, the departure of the Christ from the Sun. They live on—I will not now mention unimportant incarnations—and they experience, in the spiritual world, that significant point of time in the 9th century, about the year 869, when there took place the meeting of the Christ with His own Image, with His own Life-Spirit brought over from pagan, pre-Christian Christianity.

Another meeting also took place in the spiritual world, a meeting of the individualities living in Alexander the Great and in Aristotle with the individualities who had lived in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor. The wisdom from Asia, in a Mohammedanised form, living in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor after their death, came into contact, in the spiritual world, with Alexander and Aristotle. On the one side Aristotelianism and Alexandrianism, but impregnated with Mohammedanism, and on the other, the real Aristotle and the real Alexander—not a weakened form of their teachings. Alexander and Aristotle had witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha from the Sun.

Then a great spiritual exchange, a great heavenly Council, if one may call it so, took place in the spiritual world between Mohammedanised Aristotelianism and Christianised Aristotelianism which had, however, been imbued in the spiritual world with the Christian Impulse.

In the spiritual world which borders on our physical earth—it was here that Alexander and Aristotle met with Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor and consulted together as to the further progress of Christianity in Europe, with an eye to what should come at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, when Michael would again have the Rulership on earth. This all took place in the light raying from that other event, namely, the meeting of Christ with His own Image. That heavenly Council was permeated by the influence of this meeting. And the lines, the threads of the spiritual life of humanity were projected with great intensity in the spiritual world which borders on the physical earth.

Below, on the earth itself, the Church Fathers gathered together in Constantinople at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, where they formulated the dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul, the soul possessing certain spiritual attributes. Trichotomy—the definition of man as body, soul and Spirit—was done away with and anyone who persisted in believing it was declared to be a heretic. The Christian Fathers in Europe never spoke of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul.

The decisive event which took place in the year 869 in the super-sensible worlds as I have described it, cast its shadows down into the earthly world. The Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, received a special impetus, while what I have just described was taking place above, in the spiritual world.

Such was the real course of events. In the physical world the Council of Constantinople which eliminated the Spirit, and in the world immediately bordering on the physical, a heavenly Council such as I have described—coinciding with the meeting of Christ Himself with His own Image.

But it was known that it was a question of waiting until the new Michael Age had dawned on earth. There were, none the less, always a few Teachers who knew, even though in a somewhat decadent way, something of what takes place behind the veils of existence. There were always Teachers who knew how to present, if not always in very apt pictures, the spiritual content of the world, who could speak of what was happening in the spiritual world that is so near to the earth. And here and there these Teachers found ears willing to listen to them. Their listeners were men who learned something of true Christianity by catching here and there fragmentary words as to what would come in the 20th century after the Michael Rulership had begun once again.

In you yourselves, my dear friends, are the souls who were in incarnation at that time and listened to those who spoke of the coming Age of Michael and whose speech was influenced by impulses coming down from the heavenly Council of which I have told you.

From these experiences of a previous life in the early Christian centuries—not precisely the 9th century but before and after, chiefly before—arose the subconscious urge, when the Michael Rulership should be there once more, from the end of the 19th century onwards, to look for centres where the spiritual life is again cultivated under the influence of Michael. This impulse was rooted in the souls of those who had once heard of the teachings, who knew something of the mysteries of which we have spoken to-day.

And so the karmic urge lives in souls to find their way to that form of Christianity which was to be spread by Anthroposophy under the influence of Michael at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. What these souls had experienced in earlier times expresses itself in this incarnation in the fact that certain of them find their way to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Knowledge resulting from a converging of old pre-Christian, cosmic Christianity with inward Christian doctrines, teachings which were connected with the spiritual workings of nature and yet also with the Mystery of Golgotha, continued to be taught on earth at the time when those souls who now in this later incarnation feel themselves drawn to Anthroposophy had passed through the gates of death and were living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Some of them indeed came down to incarnation on the earth. The ancient teachings, with their cosmic view of Christianity, lived on, propagating traditions of the Mysteries of antiquity. This knowledge lived on in Schools in Europe like that of Chartres in the 12th century, with its great Teachers—Bernardus Sylvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and others. And the teachings lived and worked too in the great teacher of Dante, Brunetto Latini, of whom I spoke to you in the last lecture. In this way we see how there is a continuation of the knowledge in which there was still connection between cosmic Christianity and the purely human, earthly Christianity which more and more gained the supremacy on earth.

The Council held in Constantinople was an earthly, shadow-image of something that took place in the spiritual world. A constant connection was maintained between what was proceeding in the physical world and in the immediately adjacent spiritual world. And because of this, the most illustrious Teachers of Chartres felt themselves inspired by the true Alexander and the true Aristotle, although in a still stronger way by Plato and by the Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought which prevailed in the mysticism of the Middle Ages.

Something of great significance now took place. Those who had grouped themselves around Michael, and who had for the most part been incarnated at the time of Alexander, were now living in the spiritual world. Looking down from thence they saw how Christianity was evolving under the Teachers of Chartres. But they waited until these Teachers—who were the last who taught of Christianity in its cosmic aspect—they waited until these Teachers of Chartres had come up into the spiritual world. And at a certain point of time, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, there gathered together in the spiritual sphere bordering on cur earth, the more definitely Platonic Teachers of Chartres and those who had in some way taken part in the heavenly Council in the year 869. There took place—if I may use trivial words of earth to describe such a sublime event—a kind of conference between the Teachers of Chartres who had just ascended into the spiritual world and were now to continue their existence there, and those who were on the point of descending to earth, among them the individualities of Alexander and Aristotle, who immediately afterwards incarnated in the Dominican Order. And then, in a body of teaching that is so misunderstood to-day but the deep significance of which ought to be realised, in Scholasticism, preparation was made for all that was to come later on in the next Age of Michael.

And now, in order that they might enter right into the heart of Christianity, the souls who belonged to the sphere of Michael, who had lived in the old Alexander time, who had not lived on earth during the first Christian centuries, or at least only in unimportant incarnations—these souls now came into incarnation in order to imbibe Christianity in the Dominican or other Orders, but mainly in the Dominican Order. Again they passed through the gate of death and continued their existence in the spiritual world.

In the 15th century and lasting on into the 16th—and it must be remembered that time-relationships are quite different in the spiritual world—there took place in the super-sensible world the great process of instruction instituted by Michael himself for those who belonged to him. A great super-sensible School was founded, a School in which Michael himself was the Teacher and in which those souls took part who had been inspired by the impulses of the Alexander Age and had later steeped themselves in Christianity in the manner described. All the discarnate souls who belonged to Michael took part in this great School in the super-sensible world during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. All the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angels, Archangels and Archai who belonged to the Michael stream, as well as many elementary beings, also took part in it.

In this super-sensible School, a wonderful review was given of the wisdom of the ancient Mysteries. Detailed knowledge in regard to the ancient Mysteries was imparted to the souls partaking in this School. They looked back to the Sun Mysteries, to the Mysteries of the other planets. But a vista of the future was given too, a vista of what should begin at the end of the 19th century in the new Age of Michael. All this passed through these souls who now, in the present Michael Age, feel drawn to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Meanwhile, on earth, the last bout of the struggle was taking place. Haroun al Raschid had incarnated again as Lord Bacon of Verulam and in this new incarnation had set the impulse of materialism on foot. The universality in the teachings of Bacon, but also his materialism, came from his incarnation as Haroun al Raschid. Bacon was the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. The Counsellor, who had taken the other path, incarnated in the same epoch, as Amos Comenius.

And so while Christianity illumined by Aristotelian and Alexandrian thought was going through its most important phase of development in the super-sensible worlds during the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries—during this very same period we find materialism being established on earth in the minds of men, established in science by Bacon, the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid, and in the realm of education by Amos Comenius, the reincarnated Counsellor of Haroun al Raschid. The two souls worked together.

When Amos Comenius and Bacon had once again passed through the gate of death, a remarkable thing came to pass in the spiritual world. After Bacon had passed through the gate of death, it happened that because of the particular mode of thinking he had adopted in his incarnation as Bacon, a whole world of “idols,” demonic idols, went forth from his etheric body, and spread themselves out in the spiritual world which was peopled by those who were the pupils of Michael.

As I have shown in my first Mystery Play, things that happen on earth work powerfully into the spiritual world. Bacon's mode of thinking on the earth worked so shatteringly into the spiritual world that it was flooded by a whole host of “idols.”

And the materialistic form of educational science inaugurated by Amos Comenius provided the sphere, the cosmic atmosphere, as it were, for the idols of Bacon. Bacon provided the idols; and just as we human beings have around us the mineral and plant kingdoms, so these idols of Bacon were surrounded by other kingdoms which were necessary to their existence. And these were provided by what Amos Comenius had instituted on earth.

The individualities who had once lived on the earth as Alexander and Aristotle set themselves to fight these demonic idols. And the conflict continued until the time when the French Revolution broke out on the earth.

The idols, the demonic idols which it had not been possible to overcome, which had as it were escaped from the fight, descended to earth and became the inspiring forces of the materialism of the 19th century with its many consequences. These forces are the inspirers of the materialism of the 19th century.

The souls who had remained behind, who with the assistance of the individualities of Aristotle and Alexander had profited by the teaching of Michael, came back to earth, bearing the impulses I have described, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. And many of these souls can be recognised in those who come to the Anthroposophical Movement. Such is the karma of those who come to the Movement with inner sincerity.

It is a shattering experience to hear of what is happening immediately behind the events in the outer world at the present time. But it is something which, under the impulse of the Christmas Foundation at the Goetheanum must be implanted in the hearts and souls of those who call themselves Anthroposophists. It must live in their hearts and souls, and it will give them the strength to work on, for those who are Anthroposophists to-day in the true sense will feel a strong urge to come down again to the earth very soon. And with a faculty of prophecy connected with the Michael Impulse, it can be foreseen that many anthroposophical souls will come again to the earth at the end of the 20th century in order to bring to full realisation the Anthroposophical Movement which must now be established on a firm and sure foundation.

Every Anthroposophist should be moved by this knowledge: “I have in me the impulse of Anthroposophy. I recognise it as the Michael Impulse. I wait and am strengthened in my waiting by true activity in Anthroposophy at the present time in order that after the short interval allotted in the 20th century to anthroposophical souls between death and a new birth, I may come again at the end of the century to promote the Movement with much more spiritual power. I am preparing for the new Age leading from the 20th into the 21st century” ... It is thus that a true Anthroposophist speaks. Many forces of destruction are at work upon the earth! All culture, all civilised life must fall into decadence if the spirituality of the Michael Impulse does not so lay hold of men that they are capable of bringing upliftment to the civilisation that is hurrying downhill.

If there are to be found truly anthroposophical souls, willing to bring this spirituality into earthly life, then there will be a movement leading upwards. If such souls are not found, decadence will continue to spread. The great War, with all its attendant evils, will be merely the beginning of still worse evils.

Human beings to-day are facing a great crisis. Either they must see civilisation going down into the abyss, or they must raise it by spirituality and promote it in the sense of the Michael Impulse.

That, my dear friends, is what I had to say to you on this occasion and my desire is that it shall work on and bear fruit in your souls. For as I have often said at the conclusion of a happy and satisfying visit, when we have worked together for a time, we know, as Anthroposophists, that it is our karma to have been able to do so. We know too that we still remain united, even when divided in physical space. We shall remain united in the signs that can reveal themselves to the eyes of spirit and to the ears of soul if what I have said in these lectures has been received in full earnestness and has been understood.

• 2. See: Karmic Relationships, Vol. III.

If we look back over the evolution of mankind since the Mystery of Golgotha, we get the impression that Christianity, the Christ Impulse, has only been able to live on within the European and American civilisations in the face of definite obstacles and in association with other streams of spiritual life. And a study of the growth and gradual development of Christianity reveals many remarkable facts.

To-day I want to describe in broad outlines the growth and development of Christianity in connection with what ought to live within the Anthroposophical Society: and not only ought to, but can live, because those persons who feel an honest and sincere urge towards Anthroposophy, have this urge from the very depths of their being.

If we take the facts of repeated earthly lives in all seriousness, we shall say: This inner urge to get away from the conceptions and habits of thought of those among whom life, education and social relationships have placed us, this urge that we feel to enter a stream of thought which really makes claims upon our life of soul, must have its origin in karma, in the karma coming from earlier lives on earth.

Now if we study the question of karma in connection with those personalities who find themselves together in the Anthroposophical Movement, it transpires that, without exception, before their present earthly life they have had one other important incarnation since the Mystery of Golgotha. They were already on earth once since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and are now there for the second time since that Event.

And then the great question arises: How has the previous earthly life, with respect to the Mystery of Golgotha, worked upon these personalities who now, out of their karma, feel the urge to enter the Anthroposophical Movement?

Even from exoteric study we find that men standing as firmly within the stream of Christianity itself as St. Augustine, have said: “Christianity did not begin with Christ; there were Christians before Christ, only they were not so called.” This is what St. Augustine says.

Those who penetrate more deeply into the spiritual mysteries of human evolution and can study these spiritual mysteries with Initiation Science, will strongly confirm such a view as is expressed by St. Augustine, for it is a fact. But it becomes necessary, then, to know in what form that which through the Mystery of Golgotha became the historical Christ Impulse upon the earth, existed in earlier times.

To-day I can speak of this earlier form of Christianity by starting from impressions which came in a place not far distant from Torquay (where our Summer Course has been held), in Tintagel, whence proceeded the spiritual stream connected with King Arthur. It was possible to receive the impressions which can still come to-day at the spot where King Arthur's castle with its Round Table stood—impressions which come above all from the magnificent natural surroundings of this castle.

At this place where nothing but ruins remain of the old citadel of King Arthur, where we look back as if in memory across the centuries that have elapsed since the Arthur stream went out from thence, we realise how stone after stone has so crumbled away that there is hardly anything to be recognised of the old castles which once were inhabited by King Arthur and those around him. But when with the eye of spirit we look out from the place where the castle once stood, over the sea with its iridescent colours and breaking waves, the impression we get is that we are able at this place to penetrate deeply into the elemental secrets of nature and of the cosmos.

And if we look back with occult sight, if we can visualise the point of time which lies a few thousand years ago, when the Arthur stream had its beginning, then we see that those who lived on Arthur's Mount had, as is the case with all such occult centres, chosen this spot because the impulses necessary for the tasks they had set themselves, for their mission in the world, needed the play of those forces which nature there displayed before them.

I cannot say whether it is always so, but when I saw the view there was a most wonderful play of waves surging and rippling up from the depths—in itself one of the most beautiful sights in all nature. These waves hurl themselves against the walls of rock and as they fall back again in seething foam the elementary spirits are able to rise up from below and come to living expression. From above, the sunlight is reflected in manifold forms in the waves of the air. This interplay of elemental nature from above and from below reveals the full power of the Sun and displays it in such a way that man is able to receive it into his being. Those who can imbibe what is given by this interplay of the beings born of the light above and the beings born in the depths below, receive the power of the Sun, the impulse of the Sun. It is a moment in which man can unfold what I will call “piety”—piety in the pagan sense. Christian piety is not the same as pagan piety which means inner surrender to the gods of nature working and weaving everywhere in the play of nature.

Those who lived around King Arthur absorbed this play of weaving, working nature into their very being. And most significant of all was what they were able to receive in the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha.

I want to tell you to-day about the character of this spiritual life that was connected with such centres as that of King Arthur's Round Table. And I must begin by speaking of something that is known to you all.

When a human being dies, he leaves his physical body and still has his etheric body around him for a few days. After these few days have elapsed he lays aside his etheric body and lives on then in his astral body and Ego. What happens thus to the man who has passed through the gate of death, appears to the eye of vision as if the etheric being were dissolving. After death the etheric human being expands and expands, his actual form becoming more and more indefinite as he weaves himself into the cosmos.

A remarkable phenomenon, and the exact opposite of this other, occurred in the world-historic sense when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. What was it that happened then? Up to that time Christ had been a Sun Being, had belonged to the Sun. Before the Mystery of Golgotha had come to pass, the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table stood on these rocks, gazed at the play between the Sun-born spirits and the Earth-born spirits, and felt that the forces living in this play of nature-spirits poured into their hearts and above all through their etheric bodies. Therewith they received into themselves the Christ Impulse which was then streaming away from the Sun and was living in everything that is brought into being by the Sun-forces.

And so, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Knights of King Arthur received into themselves the Sun-Spirit, that is to say, the Christ as He was in pre-Christian times. And they sent their messengers out into all Europe to subdue the wild savagery of the astral bodies of the peoples of Europe, to purify and to civilise, for such was their mission. We see such men as these Knights of King Arthur's Round Table starting from this point in the West of England to bear to the peoples of Europe as they were at that time, what they had received from the Sun, purifying the astral forces of the then barbarous European population—barbarous at all events in Central and Northern Europe.

Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. What happened in Asia? Over yonder in Asia, the sublime Sun Being, Who was later known as the Christ, left the Sun. This betokened a kind of death for the Christ Being. He went forth from the Sun as we human beings go forth from the earth when we die. And as a man who dies leaves his physical body behind on the earth and his etheric body which is laid aside after three days is visible to the seer, so Christ left behind Him in the Sun that which in my book Theosophy is called “Spirit-Man,” the seventh member of the human being.

Christ died to the Sun. He died cosmically, from the Sun to the earth. He came down to the earth. From the moment of Golgotha onwards His Life-Spirit was to be seen around the earth. We ourselves leave behind at death the Life-Ether, the etheric body, the life-body. After this cosmic Death, Christ left His Spirit-Man on the Sun, and around the earth, His Life-Spirit. So that after the Mystery of Golgotha the earth was swathed as it were by the Life-Spirit of the Christ.

Now the connections between places are not the same in the spiritual life as they are in physical life. The Life-Spirit of the Christ was perceived in the Irish Mysteries, in the Mysteries of Hibernia; and above all by the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table. So, up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Impulse belonging to the Sun actually went out from this place where the impulses were received from the Sun. Afterwards the power of the Knights diminished but they lived at the time within this Life-Spirit which encircled the earth and in which there was this constant interplay of light and air, of the Spirits in the Elements from above and from below.

Try to picture to yourselves the cliff with King Arthur's castle upon it and from above the Sun-forces playing down in the light and air, and pouring upwards from below the elementary beings of the earth. There is a living interplay between Sun and earth.

In the centuries which followed the Mystery of Golgotha this all took place within the Life-Spirit of the Christ. So that in the play of nature between sea and rock, air and light, there was revealed, as it were in spiritual light, the Event of Golgotha.

Understand me rightly, my dear friends. If in the first five centuries of our era men looked out over the sea, and had been prepared by the exercises practised by the twelve who were around King Arthur and who were concerned above all with the Mysteries of the Zodiac, if they looked out over the sea they could see not merely the play of nature but they could begin to read a meaning in it just as one reads a book instead of merely staring at it. And as they looked and saw, here a gleam of light, there a curling wave, here the sun mirrored on a rocky cliff, there the sea dashing against the rocks, it all became a flowing, weaving picture—a truth whose meaning could be deciphered. And when they deciphered it they knew of the spiritual Fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha was revealed to them because the picture was all irradiated by the Life-Spirit of Christ presented to them by nature.

Yonder in Asia the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place and its impulse had penetrated deeply into the hearts and souls of men. We need only think of those who became the first Christians to realise what a change had come about in their souls. While all this of which I have been telling you was happening in the West, the Christ Himself, the Christ Who had come down to earth leaving His Spirit-Man on the Sun and His Life-Spirit in the atmosphere around the earth, bringing down His Ego and His Spirit-Self to the earth—the Christ was moving from East to West in the hearts of men, through Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, across Europe. The Christ worked here in the hearts of men, while over in the West He was working through nature.

And so on the one hand we have the story of the Mystery of Golgotha, legible in the Book of Nature for those who were able to read it, working from West to East. It represented, as it were, the science of the higher graduates of King Arthur's Round Table. And on the other hand we have a stream flowing from East to West, not in wind and wave, in air and water, not over hills or in the rays of the Sun, but flowing through the blood, laying hold of the hearts of men on its course from Palestine through Greece into Italy and Spain.

The one stream flows through nature; the other through the blood and the hearts of men. These two streams flow to meet one another. The pagan stream is still working, even to-day. It bears the pre-Christian Christ, the Christ Who was proclaimed as a Sun Being by those who were Knights of the Round Table, but also by many others before the Mystery of Golgotha actually took place. The pre-Christian Christ was carried through the world by this stream even in the age of the Mystery of Golgotha. And a great deal of this wisdom was carried forth into the world by the stream known as that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It is possible, even to-day, to discover these things. There is a pagan Christianity, a Christianity that is not directly bound up with the actual historical Event of Golgotha.

And coming upwards to meet this stream there is the form of Christianity that is connected directly with the Mystery of Golgotha, flowing through the blood, through the hearts and souls of men. Two streams come to meet one another—the pre-Christian Christ stream, etherealised as it were, and the Christian Christ stream. The one is known, subsequently, as the Arthur stream; the other as the Grail stream. Later on they came together; they came together in Europe, above all in the spiritual world.

How can we describe this movement? The Christ Who descended through the Mystery of Golgotha drew into the hearts of men. In the hearts of men He passed from East to West, from Palestine, through Greece, across Italy and Spain. The Christianity of the Grail spread through the blood and the hearts of men. The Christ took His way from East to West.

And to meet Him from the West there came the spiritual etheric Image of the Christ—the Image evoked by the Mystery of Golgotha, but still picturing the Christ of the Sun Mysteries.

Behind the scenes of world-history, sublime and wonderful events were taking place. From the West came pagan Christianity, the Arthur-Christianity, also under other names and in another form. From the East came the Christ in the hearts of men. And then the meeting takes place—the meeting between the Christ Who had Himself come down to earth and His Own Image which is brought to Him from West to East. This meeting took place in the year 869 A.D. Up to that year we have two streams, clearly distinct from one another. The one stream, more in the North, passed across Central Europe and bore the Christ as a Sun Hero, whether the name were Baldur or some other. And under the banner of Christ, the Sun Hero, the Knights of Arthur spread their culture abroad.

The other stream, rooted inwardly in the hearts of men, which later on became the Grail stream, is to be perceived more in the South, coming from the East. It bears the real Christ, Christ Himself. The other stream brings to meet it from the West a cosmic Image of the Christ. This meeting of Christ with Himself, of Christ the Brother of Humanity with Christ the Sun Hero Who is there only as it were in an Image—this meeting of Christ with His own Image took place in the 9th century.

I have given you here, my dear friends, an idea of the inner happenings during the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, when, as I have already said, the souls were living who are now again upon earth, and who have carried with them from their previous earthly lives the urge to come in sincerity into the Anthroposophical Movement.¹

When we consider this significant Arthur stream from West to East, it appears to us as the stream which brings the Impulse of the Sun into earthly civilisation. In this Arthur stream is working and weaving the Michael stream as we may call it in Christian terminology, the stream in the spiritual life of humanity in which we have been living since the end of the seventies of last century. The Ruling Power, known by the name of Gabriel, who had held sway for three or four centuries in European civilisation, was succeeded at the end of the seventies of last century by Michael. And the Rulership of Michael will last for three to four centuries, weaving and working in the spiritual life of mankind. And so we have good cause at the present time to speak of the Michael streams, for we ourselves are living once again in an Age of Michael.

We find one of these Michael streams if we look back to the period immediately preceding that of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Arthur Impulse going out from the West, from England, an Impulse which was kindled originally by the Hibernian Mysteries. And we find a still more ancient form of this Michael stream if we look back to what happened centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, when, taking its start from Northern Greece, in Macedonia, the international, cosmopolitan stream connected with the name of Alexander the Great arose under the influence of the conception of the world that is known as the Aristotelian. What was achieved through Aristotle and Alexander in that pre-Christian age took place under the Rulership of Michael, just as now once again we are living under his Rulership. The Michael Impulse was there in the spiritual life at the time of Alexander the Great, just as it is there now, in our own time. Whenever a Michael Impulse is at work in humanity upon the earth it is always a time when that which has been founded in a centre of spiritual culture spreads abroad among many peoples of the earth and is carried into many regions, wherever it is possible to carry it.

This came to pass in pre-Christian times through the campaigns of Alexander. The achievements of Greek culture were spread among men wherever this became possible. If one had asked Alexander and Aristotle: Whence comes your impulse to spread abroad the spiritual culture of your age?—they would have spoken, though under a different name, of that same Being, Michael, who works from the Sun as the Servant of Christ. For among the Archangels who in turn rule over civilisation, Michael belongs to the Sun. Michael was Ruler in the time of Alexander and is Ruler again in our own time. The next Ruling Archangel was Oriphiel, who belongs to Saturn. His successor, the Archangel Anael, belongs to Venus. While Zachariel, the Archangel who ruled civilisation in the 4th and 5th centuries, belongs to the sphere of Jupiter. Then came Raphael, from the Mercury sphere, at the time when a form of thought connected with medicine and healing lived in the background of European civilisation. After Raphael came Samael, whose Rulership extended a little beyond the 12th century. And then came the Age of Gabriel. Samael belongs to Mars, Gabriel to the Moon. And Gabriel was once again succeeded by Michael, who belongs to the Sun sphere, in the seventies of the 19th century. Thus in rhythmic succession these seven Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangels rule over the spiritual life of the earth.

And so as we look back—when was the last Rulership of Michael? It was in the Alexander period. It prevailed during that period when Greek civilisation was carried across to Asia and Africa, and finally concentrated in the great and influential city of Alexandria with its mighty heroes of the spiritual life.

It is a strange vista that presents itself to occult sight. In the age which lies a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, we see, going Eastwards from Macedonia—that is to say, once more from West to East but this time farther to the East—we see the same stream which proceeds from the English and Irish souls in the West and which also flows from West to East. During the Alexander period, Michael was the Ruling Archangel on the earth. During the Arthur period, when Michael was working from the Sun, the influences I have described were sent down from the Sun. But what happened later on, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place? What happened to the kind of thought that had been carried by Alexander the Great over to Asia?

At the time when Charlemagne, in his own way, was establishing a certain form of Christian culture in Europe, Haroun al Raschid was living over yonder in Asia Minor. All the oriental wisdom and spirituality to be found at that time in architecture, in art, in science, in religion, in literature, in poetry—it was all gathered at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. And at his side there was a Counsellor, a man who was not initiated in all these arts and sciences at that time, but who had been an Initiate in earlier times, in a former life. Around these two men, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor, we find that all the wisdom which had been carried by Alexander into Asia, all the teachings which had been drawn from the old nature-wisdom and were imparted by Aristotle to those he was able to instruct—all this was changed. Alexandrianism and Aristotelianism were permeated and impregnated at the Court of Haroun al Raschid with Arabism, with Mohammedanism.

And then, all the learning thus permeated with Arabism was carried over into the stream of Christianity by way of Greece, but especially by way of Northern Africa, Italy and Spain. It was carried over, inculcated as it were into the world of Christendom.

But before this, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor had passed through the gate of death, and from that life which leads from death to a new birth they looked down on what was taking place on earth in the expeditions of the Mohammedan Moors to Spain. From the spiritual world they watched the form of culture which they themselves had promoted and which had been spread by their successors. Haroun al Raschid concentrated his attention from the spiritual world more on the regions of Greece, Italy and Spain; his Counsellor more on the stream going out from the East across the regions to the North of the Black Sea, through Russia and into Central Europe.

And now the question arises: What was the destiny of Alexander and Aristotle themselves? They were deeply bound up with the Rulership of Michael but they were not incarnated on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

We must try to get a clear conception of the two contrasting pictures. On the earth are those who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ comes down through the Mystery of Golgotha, becomes Man, and from then on lives in the earth-sphere. And what is happening on the Sun? On the Sun there are the souls who at that time belonged to Michael, who were living in his sphere. These souls witnessed, from the Sun, the departure of Christ from the Sun and His descent to earth. On the earth there were those who witnessed His arrival. That is the difference. The experience of those who were on earth during the Michael Rulership at the time of Alexander, was that they saw as it were the other direction of the Christ Event, namely, the departure of the Christ from the Sun. They live on—I will not now mention unimportant incarnations—and they experience, in the spiritual world, that significant point of time in the 9th century, about the year 869, when there took place the meeting of the Christ with His own Image, with His own Life-Spirit brought over from pagan, pre-Christian Christianity.

Another meeting also took place in the spiritual world, a meeting of the individualities living in Alexander the Great and in Aristotle with the individualities who had lived in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor. The wisdom from Asia, in a Mohammedanised form, living in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor after their death, came into contact, in the spiritual world, with Alexander and Aristotle. On the one side Aristotelianism and Alexandrianism, but impregnated with Mohammedanism, and on the other, the real Aristotle and the real Alexander—not a weakened form of their teachings. Alexander and Aristotle had witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha from the Sun.

Then a great spiritual exchange, a great heavenly Council, if one may call it so, took place in the spiritual world between Mohammedanised Aristotelianism and Christianised Aristotelianism which had, however, been imbued in the spiritual world with the Christian Impulse.

In the spiritual world which borders on our physical earth—it was here that Alexander and Aristotle met with Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor and consulted together as to the further progress of Christianity in Europe, with an eye to what should come at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, when Michael would again have the Rulership on earth. This all took place in the light raying from that other event, namely, the meeting of Christ with His own Image. That heavenly Council was permeated by the influence of this meeting. And the lines, the threads of the spiritual life of humanity were projected with great intensity in the spiritual world which borders on the physical earth.

Below, on the earth itself, the Church Fathers gathered together in Constantinople at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, where they formulated the dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul, the soul possessing certain spiritual attributes. Trichotomy—the definition of man as body, soul and Spirit—was done away with and anyone who persisted in believing it was declared to be a heretic. The Christian Fathers in Europe never spoke of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul.

The decisive event which took place in the year 869 in the super-sensible worlds as I have described it, cast its shadows down into the earthly world. The Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, received a special impetus, while what I have just described was taking place above, in the spiritual world.

Such was the real course of events. In the physical world the Council of Constantinople which eliminated the Spirit, and in the world immediately bordering on the physical, a heavenly Council such as I have described—coinciding with the meeting of Christ Himself with His own Image.

But it was known that it was a question of waiting until the new Michael Age had dawned on earth. There were, none the less, always a few Teachers who knew, even though in a somewhat decadent way, something of what takes place behind the veils of existence. There were always Teachers who knew how to present, if not always in very apt pictures, the spiritual content of the world, who could speak of what was happening in the spiritual world that is so near to the earth. And here and there these Teachers found ears willing to listen to them. Their listeners were men who learned something of true Christianity by catching here and there fragmentary words as to what would come in the 20th century after the Michael Rulership had begun once again.

In you yourselves, my dear friends, are the souls who were in incarnation at that time and listened to those who spoke of the coming Age of Michael and whose speech was influenced by impulses coming down from the heavenly Council of which I have told you.

From these experiences of a previous life in the early Christian centuries—not precisely the 9th century but before and after, chiefly before—arose the subconscious urge, when the Michael Rulership should be there once more, from the end of the 19th century onwards, to look for centres where the spiritual life is again cultivated under the influence of Michael. This impulse was rooted in the souls of those who had once heard of the teachings, who knew something of the mysteries of which we have spoken to-day.

And so the karmic urge lives in souls to find their way to that form of Christianity which was to be spread by Anthroposophy under the influence of Michael at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. What these souls had experienced in earlier times expresses itself in this incarnation in the fact that certain of them find their way to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Knowledge resulting from a converging of old pre-Christian, cosmic Christianity with inward Christian doctrines, teachings which were connected with the spiritual workings of nature and yet also with the Mystery of Golgotha, continued to be taught on earth at the time when those souls who now in this later incarnation feel themselves drawn to Anthroposophy had passed through the gates of death and were living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Some of them indeed came down to incarnation on the earth. The ancient teachings, with their cosmic view of Christianity, lived on, propagating traditions of the Mysteries of antiquity. This knowledge lived on in Schools in Europe like that of Chartres in the 12th century, with its great Teachers—Bernardus Sylvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and others. And the teachings lived and worked too in the great teacher of Dante, Brunetto Latini, of whom I spoke to you in the last lecture. In this way we see how there is a continuation of the knowledge in which there was still connection between cosmic Christianity and the purely human, earthly Christianity which more and more gained the supremacy on earth.

The Council held in Constantinople was an earthly, shadow-image of something that took place in the spiritual world. A constant connection was maintained between what was proceeding in the physical world and in the immediately adjacent spiritual world. And because of this, the most illustrious Teachers of Chartres felt themselves inspired by the true Alexander and the true Aristotle, although in a still stronger way by Plato and by the Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought which prevailed in the mysticism of the Middle Ages.

Something of great significance now took place. Those who had grouped themselves around Michael, and who had for the most part been incarnated at the time of Alexander, were now living in the spiritual world. Looking down from thence they saw how Christianity was evolving under the Teachers of Chartres. But they waited until these Teachers—who were the last who taught of Christianity in its cosmic aspect—they waited until these Teachers of Chartres had come up into the spiritual world. And at a certain point of time, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, there gathered together in the spiritual sphere bordering on cur earth, the more definitely Platonic Teachers of Chartres and those who had in some way taken part in the heavenly Council in the year 869. There took place—if I may use trivial words of earth to describe such a sublime event—a kind of conference between the Teachers of Chartres who had just ascended into the spiritual world and were now to continue their existence there, and those who were on the point of descending to earth, among them the individualities of Alexander and Aristotle, who immediately afterwards incarnated in the Dominican Order. And then, in a body of teaching that is so misunderstood to-day but the deep significance of which ought to be realised, in Scholasticism, preparation was made for all that was to come later on in the next Age of Michael.

And now, in order that they might enter right into the heart of Christianity, the souls who belonged to the sphere of Michael, who had lived in the old Alexander time, who had not lived on earth during the first Christian centuries, or at least only in unimportant incarnations—these souls now came into incarnation in order to imbibe Christianity in the Dominican or other Orders, but mainly in the Dominican Order. Again they passed through the gate of death and continued their existence in the spiritual world.

In the 15th century and lasting on into the 16th—and it must be remembered that time-relationships are quite different in the spiritual world—there took place in the super-sensible world the great process of instruction instituted by Michael himself for those who belonged to him. A great super-sensible School was founded, a School in which Michael himself was the Teacher and in which those souls took part who had been inspired by the impulses of the Alexander Age and had later steeped themselves in Christianity in the manner described. All the discarnate souls who belonged to Michael took part in this great School in the super-sensible world during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. All the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angels, Archangels and Archai who belonged to the Michael stream, as well as many elementary beings, also took part in it.

In this super-sensible School, a wonderful review was given of the wisdom of the ancient Mysteries. Detailed knowledge in regard to the ancient Mysteries was imparted to the souls partaking in this School. They looked back to the Sun Mysteries, to the Mysteries of the other planets. But a vista of the future was given too, a vista of what should begin at the end of the 19th century in the new Age of Michael. All this passed through these souls who now, in the present Michael Age, feel drawn to the Anthroposophical Movement.

Meanwhile, on earth, the last bout of the struggle was taking place. Haroun al Raschid had incarnated again as Lord Bacon of Verulam and in this new incarnation had set the impulse of materialism on foot. The universality in the teachings of Bacon, but also his materialism, came from his incarnation as Haroun al Raschid. Bacon was the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. The Counsellor, who had taken the other path, incarnated in the same epoch, as Amos Comenius.

And so while Christianity illumined by Aristotelian and Alexandrian thought was going through its most important phase of development in the super-sensible worlds during the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries—during this very same period we find materialism being established on earth in the minds of men, established in science by Bacon, the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid, and in the realm of education by Amos Comenius, the reincarnated Counsellor of Haroun al Raschid. The two souls worked together.

When Amos Comenius and Bacon had once again passed through the gate of death, a remarkable thing came to pass in the spiritual world. After Bacon had passed through the gate of death, it happened that because of the particular mode of thinking he had adopted in his incarnation as Bacon, a whole world of “idols,” demonic idols, went forth from his etheric body, and spread themselves out in the spiritual world which was peopled by those who were the pupils of Michael.

As I have shown in my first Mystery Play, things that happen on earth work powerfully into the spiritual world. Bacon's mode of thinking on the earth worked so shatteringly into the spiritual world that it was flooded by a whole host of “idols.”

And the materialistic form of educational science inaugurated by Amos Comenius provided the sphere, the cosmic atmosphere, as it were, for the idols of Bacon. Bacon provided the idols; and just as we human beings have around us the mineral and plant kingdoms, so these idols of Bacon were surrounded by other kingdoms which were necessary to their existence. And these were provided by what Amos Comenius had instituted on earth.

The individualities who had once lived on the earth as Alexander and Aristotle set themselves to fight these demonic idols. And the conflict continued until the time when the French Revolution broke out on the earth.

The idols, the demonic idols which it had not been possible to overcome, which had as it were escaped from the fight, descended to earth and became the inspiring forces of the materialism of the 19th century with its many consequences. These forces are the inspirers of the materialism of the 19th century.

The souls who had remained behind, who with the assistance of the individualities of Aristotle and Alexander had profited by the teaching of Michael, came back to earth, bearing the impulses I have described, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. And many of these souls can be recognised in those who come to the Anthroposophical Movement. Such is the karma of those who come to the Movement with inner sincerity.

It is a shattering experience to hear of what is happening immediately behind the events in the outer world at the present time. But it is something which, under the impulse of the Christmas Foundation at the Goetheanum must be implanted in the hearts and souls of those who call themselves Anthroposophists. It must live in their hearts and souls, and it will give them the strength to work on, for those who are Anthroposophists to-day in the true sense will feel a strong urge to come down again to the earth very soon. And with a faculty of prophecy connected with the Michael Impulse, it can be foreseen that many anthroposophical souls will come again to the earth at the end of the 20th century in order to bring to full realisation the Anthroposophical Movement which must now be established on a firm and sure foundation.

Every Anthroposophist should be moved by this knowledge: “I have in me the impulse of Anthroposophy. I recognise it as the Michael Impulse. I wait and am strengthened in my waiting by true activity in Anthroposophy at the present time in order that after the short interval allotted in the 20th century to anthroposophical souls between death and a new birth, I may come again at the end of the century to promote the Movement with much more spiritual power. I am preparing for the new Age leading from the 20th into the 21st century” ... It is thus that a true Anthroposophist speaks. Many forces of destruction are at work upon the earth! All culture, all civilised life must fall into decadence if the spirituality of the Michael Impulse does not so lay hold of men that they are capable of bringing upliftment to the civilisation that is hurrying downhill.

If there are to be found truly anthroposophical souls, willing to bring this spirituality into earthly life, then there will be a movement leading upwards. If such souls are not found, decadence will continue to spread. The great War, with all its attendant evils, will be merely the beginning of still worse evils.

Human beings to-day are facing a great crisis. Either they must see civilisation going down into the abyss, or they must raise it by spirituality and promote it in the sense of the Michael Impulse.

That, my dear friends, is what I had to say to you on this occasion and my desire is that it shall work on and bear fruit in your souls. For as I have often said at the conclusion of a happy and satisfying visit, when we have worked together for a time, we know, as Anthroposophists, that it is our karma to have been able to do so. We know too that we still remain united, even when divided in physical space. We shall remain united in the signs that can reveal themselves to the eyes of spirit and to the ears of soul if what I have said in these lectures has been received in full earnestness and has been understood.

• 1. See: Karmic Relationships, Vol. III.

My dear brothers and sisters! Since the Christmas Conference an esoteric impulse goes through the entire Anthroposophical Society, and those members of the Anthroposophical Society who have recently taken part in the general members' lectures will have noticed just how this esoteric impulse flows through all that is worked on within the Anthroposophical Movement and through all that is still to be worked on.

This was a necessity, a necessity which above all has been given out of the spiritual world, from which certainly flow the revelations which should live in the Anthroposophical Movement. It was a necessity which arose out of the spiritual world.

With this, however, an imperative emerged, in particular out of the spiritual world, out of which the revelations flow which should live in the Anthroposophical movement. This emerged out of the spiritual world. This imperative was fashioned as a specific kernel for Anthroposophical esoteric life, to make a kernel for true esoteric living. Thereby the imperative was given in a certain measure to build a bridge over to the spiritual world itself.

The spiritual world in a certain sense revealed itself in having to fashion such a school. For an esoteric school cannot be made out of human caprice, or what people might call human idealism. Rather this Esoteric School must be the body of something flowing out of spiritual life itself, so that in all that happens in such a school, it presents itself as the external expression what happens from an activity specifically in the supersensible, in the spiritual world itself. In this fashion this esoteric school could not have been made without having surveyed the will, which frequently has been brought forth in members' lectures, the will which since the last third of the nineteenth century has actually been guiding human spiritual affairs, the Will of Michael.

This Michael Will is one of those forces which in the course of time has intervened out of the spiritual world in sequence ever and again in the cycles of human destiny. When we look back in time at evolution, we find that this same Michael Will, which we can also call the Michael Regency, was active in the spiritual affairs of humanity, in the great questions of civilization, before the Mystery of Golgotha during the time of Alexander. Then what had been brought forth in Greece through the Mysteries, both the underworld Chthonic and the celestial Mysteries, that this was to be carried abroad into Asia, carried abroad into Africa. Whenever and wherever the Will of Michael has dominion, a cosmopolitan spirit is always present. The differentiations among people on earth are overcome in an era of Michael.

After this deeply significant activity, linked with the spreading of Aristotelianism and of Alexandrianism, which was an activity of Michael, after this followed other activities linked with Oriphiel.¹ After the Oriphiel-linked activity came the Anael activity, the Zachariel activity, then the significant Raphael activity, then the Samael activity, then the Gabriel activity, which extended into the nineteenth century. Since the late seventies of the nineteenth century, we stand once again under the sign of Michael's regency. It is beginning, but the Michael-Impulses must flow in, and can certainly become clear to you, my brothers and sisters, through the general members' lectures, Michael-Impulses must flow in a conscious way into all genuine, rightfully constituted esoteric work.

And through all that is connected with the impulse of the Christmas Conference, through all that has been brought forth, is the possibility of this being the kernel of the Anthroposophical Movement’s forming an esoteric school to be seen as the esoteric school inspired and guided by Michael himself. Thereby it rightfully stands its ground in our time as a spiritual institution. And a person must feel, a person who would rightfully become a member of this school, that this must become a part of one’s life in deepest sincerity. And a person who would rightfully become a member of this school must feel not merely belonging to an earthly community, but also to a supersensible community, whose leader and guide is Michael himself. As a consequence, what is communicated here should not be taken as my word, but rather in so far as it is the content of the lesson it should be taken as that which Michael has to make known esoterically in this age to those who feel themselves belonging to him. Therefore, what these lessons contain will be the Michael communication for our era.

And thereby, since it is that, the Anthroposophical Movement will contain its specific spiritual vigor. To this end it is necessary that what may be called membership in this school will be acquired with utmost sincerity. It is still necessary, my dear brothers and sisters, fundamentally and deeply necessary, that in an ever more earnest way, it is necessary to point to the holy sincerity with which the school must be taken up.

Here within this school, it must be said once again, and ever and again, that in Anthroposophical circles much too little seriousness prevails for what actually flows through the Anthroposophical Movement, and, at least among the esoteric members of this esoteric school, a kernel of humanity will be drawn forth, which will gradually rise to the necessary earnest sincerity. Therefore, it is necessary that the leadership of this school really reserves to itself the responsibility to recognize only those as rightful, worthy members of the school who, in every detail of their lives, would be worthy representatives of Anthroposophical endeavors, and the decision as to whether or not that is the case must rest with the leadership of the school.

Do not see this, my dear brothers and sisters, as a limitation of freedom. The leadership of the school must have freedom and be free to recognize who belongs to this school and who does not, just as much as each of you will freely choose whether or not to belong to this school. But it must throughout be an idealistic spiritual freely-borne pact, so to speak, that will be made between the members of the school and the leadership. In no other way could the esoteric development be considered healthy, and especially in no other way worthy of the actuality of this esoteric school standing under the immediate impact of the potency of Michael himself.

The leadership of the school must, in the strictest sense of the word, manage what has just been said. That it does so may become evident to you, my dear friends, through what has taken place since the relatively brief existence of the school, that eighteen to twenty expulsions have occurred, because the earnest serious quality which is essential to the school was not adhered to.

Conscientious care of the mantric maxims, so that they do not fall into unauthorized hands, is the first obligation, but also to actually be a worthy representative of Anthroposophical affairs.

I need only mention a few facts in order to indicate how little, in actuality, the Anthroposophical Movement is grasped fully in earnest, how little earnestness penetrates the Anthroposophical Movement. I have mentioned this to some of you individually. It has happened that members of the school have reserved their seats here with the blue certificates which give them the right to be present in the school. It has happened in the Anthroposophical Society that whole piles of News Sheets, intended only for members, have been found in the tram running from Dornach to Basel. I could enlarge this list in the greatest variety of ways. Again and again, it happens that the most dumbfounding incidents occur as a result of the lack of seriousness. Even things which are taken seriously in everyday life, as soon as the same things practiced seriously in ordinary life are practiced within the Anthroposophical Movement, they are not taken seriously.

These are all matters which must be taken into account in relation to the firm structure which this school must have. Therefore, these things must be said, for if one fails to pay attention to these matters, one cannot worthily receive the revelations from the spiritual world which are given here in this school. At the close of each lesson attention is expressly drawn to the fact that the individuality of Michael himself is present while the revelations of the school are being given, and this is confirmed through the Sign and Seal of Michael.

All these things must live in the hearts of the members. Dignity, profound dignity, must prevail in everything, even to what connects one’s thoughts to the school. For in all of this there can live only what today an esoteric streaming through the world should carry. And all this is included in the responsibilities each individual has.

The mantric maxims written here on the board can only be possessed, in the strictest sense of the word, by those who have the right to participate in the school. If a member of the school is prevented on some occasion from taking part in the lessons in which mantric verses are given, another member who has received these verses in the school can communicate the verses. In every single case, however, for every single person to whom the verses are to be given, permission must be requested either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from myself. When permission has been given for one person it then remains in effect. But for every other person permission must again be requested from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. This is not an administrative regulation, it is something which is demanded, in the strictest sense, by the rules of occult life. For it must be understood that every act of the school must remain connected with the school's leadership, and this begins with the fact that one requests permission if something is to occur which belongs to the sphere of responsibility of the school. Not the one who is to receive the mantras should request permission, but the one who transmits them, according to the procedures which I have just described. If someone writes down anything during the lesson, other than the mantric verses, something which has been said, that person is obligated to keep it only eight days and then to burn it.

All these things are not arbitrary regulations, but are connected with the occult fact that esoteric matters are only effective when they are encompassed by a certain attitude of heart and mind, which those who are recognized as responsible members of the school have. The mantras lose their effectiveness when they come into unauthorized hands. This rule is so firmly inscribed into the world's order that the following incident once occurred and a whole series of mantras became ineffective, which had been current within the Anthroposophical Movement.

It was possible for me to give to a number of people some mantric verses. I gave the mantras also to a certain person. This person had a friend who was clairvoyant to a certain degree. It then came about, as both friends were sleeping in the same room, that the clairvoyant friend, during the time that the other was merely repeating the mantra in his mind, the clairvoyant read it mentally and then misused it by giving it to others as coming from him. One first had to investigate the incident, which then brought to light why the mantras in question became ineffective for all those who possessed them.

You may not, therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, take these matters lightly, because the rules of esoteric life are strict, and no one who has committed such a mistake should excuse himself with the thought that he couldn't help himself. If someone lets a mantra pass through his head in thought, and someone else observes this clairvoyantly, the one who thinks the mantra certainly cannot do anything about this. But the events occur, nevertheless, according to an iron law of necessity.

I mention this incident in order that you may see how little arbitrariness is involved in these matters, and to show how in these matters there is contained what is read directly from the spiritual world, what corresponds with the habits and customs of the spiritual world. Nothing is arbitrary in what takes its course in a rightfully constituted esoteric school. And there should ray out from the esoteric school into the rest of the Anthroposophical Movement that earnest quality about which we have spoken. Only then will this school be for the Anthroposophical Movement what it should be. But it will be necessary to be honest with oneself, and acknowledge that one acts sometimes out of personal motives, and if so, one should not dress the matter up as if it were inspired by devotion to the Anthroposophical Movement. Naturally, I certainly don't intend to say that nothing should occur out of personal motives, for it is a matter of course that people today must be personal. But then it is necessary that in what is personal the truth must be acknowledged. For instance, if someone travels here to Dornach for personal pleasure, he or she should therefore admit this and not make out otherwise. There's nothing wrong with traveling to Dornach for personal pleasure! Indeed, it is, by the way, very good when one comes here. But one should admit the personal pleasure and not dress it up as pure devotion to spiritual life.

I mention this, but I might equally well have chosen a different example, which might be closer to reality, for it is, in fact, true that when most of our friends travel to Dornach, the readiness to sacrifice, the spirit of sacrifice, is indeed involved, and that in this particular example, the traveling to Dornach, in at least some degree, untruthfulness played a role. But I chose this example precisely because of the fact that it hits home least and is thus less hurtful. If I had chosen other examples, the basic quite calm mood of soul, a truly serene mood in the hearts and souls of all those who are sitting here, would have been less likely to rise to the occasion.

After this introduction I would like to start with the verse which is both the beginning and the end of what comes before you here as the declaration of Michael, which contains what is spoken to all human beings who have an unencumbered sense for it, by all things and beings in the world, if one listens to what is said with the soul. For everything that lives in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, that sparkles down from the stars, that works into our soul from the realm of the hierarchies, from all that crawls on the earth worm-like, that moves living upon the earth, out of all that speaks in rock and spring, in forest and field and mountains and thunder and clouds and lightning, out of all this spoke to the open-minded human being in the past, speaks to him in the present, will speak in all futures:

O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds
You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.

Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?

Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?
Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?

Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?

The last lesson concluded, my dear brothers and sisters, following the final admonitions that the Guardian of the Threshold imparts before crossing the yawning abyss of being, with the Guardian of the Threshold having spoken weighty, human-heart-moving words:

Enter
The door is opened
You will become
A true human being

Weighty, portentous, significant experiences have entered our hearts, through all that the Guardian of the Threshold has spoken at Michael's behest. All that he has spoken was spoken in order to prepare us for the demeanor which we must have, when after the door is opened, we cross over the yawning abyss of existence, where one does not go by walking with earthly feet, where one only goes by flying with the soul, when the soul out of a spiritual attitude, out of spiritual love, out of spiritual feeling grows wings.

So now, my dear brothers and sisters, will be described what the human being experiences when he stands beyond the yawning abyss of existence. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs, “Turn around and look back! Until now you have looked toward what appeared to you a black, night-bedecked darkness, concerning which you had to surmise that it will become bright and will illumine the source of your own self. I allowed it, on the occasion of the last admonitions, so says the Guardian of the Threshold, I allowed it to grow brighter, at first very gently. First you feel light dawning around you. But turn around, look back!”

As one who has crossed the yawning abyss of being now turns around and looks back, he beholds his person of earth, what he is during physical incarnation, over there in that part of existence which he has left, that now lies yonder in the province of the earth. He beholds his own person of earth over there. He has entered and embodies himself with his spirit-soul being in spirit existence. The earthly sheath, the earthly formation, now stands over yonder. It stands yonder in that region in which we were at first with our entire human being, where we have seen all that crawls below and flies above, where we have seen the sparkling stars, the warm sun, where we have seen what lives in wind and weather, and where we have stood, knowing that in all of this, despite all that is so majestic that rays out and gives light in the sun, despite all its beauty and greatness, there in the field of sense-existence, where we have stood and said to ourselves that our own human being's essence is not within it, that you must seek beyond the yawning abyss of existence, in what from the other, from the sense-bound side appears to you as black, night-bedecked darkness.

The Guardian of the Threshold has shown us in the three beasts what we actually are. Now there is described how, within the darkness which is growing bright, which is beginning to lighten up, we should begin by looking back on what we are as human beings in the sense-world, together with what was formerly our only world in sense-bound earth existence.

Now the Guardian of the Threshold points in a very definite way to the one who stands over there as the earth-person, who is ourself, in earth existence, that being to whom we must return again and again, into whom we must penetrate over and over again when we step forth from the spiritual world and enter into the duties of our work on earth, when we return to earth existence. For we may not become dreamers and light-headed enthusiasts. We must return, in every respect, to earthly life and obligations. For this reason, the Guardian of the Threshold directs us to look on the person who stands over yonder, who we ourselves are, in such a way that he makes us attentive, at first, to who and what this person is. [An outline of the human form was drawn on the blackboard.] The human being is aware that he perceives the outer world through the senses [the eye is drawn] which are localized, primarily, in the head and that he perceives his thinking through the activity of his head.

But the Guardian of the Threshold now remarks, “Look inside this head.” It is as if you look into a dark cell, for you do not see the light which is working within it. But the truth is that what you carried within you as thinking over there in the sense world is the mere appearance of reality, is mere picture-images, not much more than mirror-pictures.

The Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us to be very conscious of this fact, but also to be conscious of the fact that what lives in earthly thinking only as appearance, as we learned in earlier lessons, is the corpse of living thinking, in which we lived in the spiritual-soul world before we descended into this earth-existence. In that existence thinking was alive. Now, thinking rests as dead thinking, as the semblance of thinking, in the coffin of our body. All thinking which we make use of in the sense world is dead thinking. It was alive before we descended to earth.

What did this thinking make? It first made all that, which within the top of the body, within the head, within this dark cell, so it shows itself for sensory appearance, all that is light-making being.² The brain, which sits there inside as the supporting pillar of thinking, has been made out of living thinking. [The interior of the head, yellow, was drawn on the blackboard.] And living thinking it is that first makes the supporting pillar for our semblance of thinking on earth.

Look at the convolutions of the brain, look at all you bear within you in the dark cell of the head, which makes earthly thinking possible for you, my brothers and sisters. Look behind that thinking, which is only appearance in the cabinet of the head, and you will then discover how into what here above is felt as thinking [drawing, red arrows] there streams the force of willing, there pours up into thinking the force of willing, so that each thought is irradiated by will. It can be felt how the will flows into thinking.

We look back thus from beyond the threshold and see how that other human being, who we ourselves are, has streaming out of the body into the head the willing’s undulations, willing at work, and eventually, if we follow it back in time, traveling as far as our former incarnations on earth, at work over here from past worlds into the present incarnation are thought-undulations which build our head, finally passing over into the appearance of thinking here in this incarnation.

Therefore, we should be stout and strong,³ the Guardian of the Threshold says to us, and imagine the dead thinking thrown out into world-nothingness, for it is mere appearance. And the willing which arises there we should regard as that which from former earth-incarnations crosses over to dwell and move and work and make⁴ us finally into a thinker. There, within [see drawing, yellow] are the formative world-thoughts.⁵ These formative world-thoughts first take effect, that we can have intrinsically human thoughts.

Therefore, the first word of the Guardian of the Threshold after he has allowed us to cross the threshold, after he has informed us that the door is opened, that we can become a true human being, therefore the first word which he there speaks is:

Look behind thinking's sensory light,
How in the darkened spirit-cell
Willing ascends from bodily depths;
Through the strength of your soul
Let dead thinking flow into worldly void;
And willing, it shall arise
As world-thought-creating.

The first words that we hear over there, as we look back upon the form, the gestalt which we ourselves are, which stands here before our soul's gaze, which we direct back from over there: [The heading and the first verse with the underlined words were written on the blackboard.]

The Guardian is heard in the gradually brightening darkness:

Look behind thinking's sensory light,
How in the darkened spirit-cell
Willing ascends from bodily depths;
Through the strength of your soul
Let dead thinking flow into worldly void;
And willing, it shall arise
As world-thought-creating.

Then the Guardian of the Threshold adds to this, and one must exert oneself in order to hear it. Just imagine yourself looking back at what you yourself are, who stands over yonder, then turn again and look into the darkness and try with all possible inner imaginative force of memory, as when you retain an after-image, a physical after-image held in your eye, try with maximum force to sketch there something like a kind of gray outline form of what you have seen over yonder, but avoid making a sketch of anything else other than a gray outline. [Drawing continued.]

There then appears, if one succeeds in seeing this gray outline-figure, there

appears behind this gray outline the image of the moon [the sickle moon is drawn, yellow] with the gray silhouette in front of it.

If one is now able to maintain inner quiet, one sees in the distance the moon. The gray silhouette becomes something that is both over there and at the same time arises within one. If we practice in this way, again and again, we feel approaching the spirit-form of the head, which one has yonder, not the physical form, but the spirit-form of the head, which we have over there, then will the person feel coming toward him what karma brings him from former incarnations on earth [yellow arrow to the right of the sickle moon].

Therefore, in meditating, you should meditate on the image I have drawn here in gold, the sickle moon with this arrow. Let the mantra run, let it play out, then bring up the image as a reminder for what can gradually lead one to become familiar with what emerges in force from prior lives on earth.

As a second step the Guardian of the Threshold instructs with a more forceful gesture, pointing to what lives as feeling in the person over there, who we ourselves are, and he admonishes us to correctly see this feeling as a dream dawning. And in the act, we will see feeling, which in spite of this person over there is made much more real than is thinking, for thinking is appearance, yet feeling is half real. However, we see the feeling of the day-person unfolding in dream pictures that are louder, purer, and we learn to know through the observation, that feeling as seen from the spirit, and in the spirit, is dreaming.

But what kind of dreaming is feeling? In this feeling the person dreams not alone the individual person, but therein dreams the whole surrounding world-consciousness.⁶ Our thinking is ours alone, therefore it is also only appearance. Our feeling is something in which the world to some extent lives. World-consciousness is within it.

Now we must look to acquiring the greatest possible restfulness of heart, which the Guardian admonishes us to do. If we acquire the greatest possible restfulness of heart, so that we can extinguish what moves and lives as feeling in dream pictures, just as dreaming is extinguished in deep sleep, then we come upon the truth of feeling and can see personal feeling interwoven with world living that is present in spirit around us. And then the true spirit-person appears to us, which lives and moves in the body, initially in its half-existence. Emerging from the sleeping feeling appears to us the person. We feel ourselves over there on the other side of the Threshold in this way, on the other side of the yawning abyss of existence in our essence as a human being, since feeling has fallen asleep and world-creative might has appeared around us, might that lives in feeling. Therefore, the Guardian admonishes us:

Look into feeling's wafting of soul,
How in the diminishment of dreams
Living streams from world afar;
Through calm of heart in sleep
Let human feeling waft away;
And world living shall come alive
As human-being's-power.

[The second stanza was written on the board and compared with the first.]

Look into

Here [in the first verse] it was behind, here it is into [into was underlined]. Every word is significant in mantric verses.

feeling’s wafting of soul,

Here it is thinking, here feeling, here sensory-light, here wafting of soul. Wafting is much more real than light’s appearance.

[In the second verse feeling's was underlined but not wafting of soul.]

How in the diminishment of dreams
Living streams from world afar;

Here it says Willing ascends from bodily depths, and here Living streams from world afar.

[In the second verse Living was underlined.]

Through calm of heart in sleep
Let human feeling waft away;

It progresses. Here [in the first verse] there is let flow through the strength of your soul. Here [in the second verse] one must let human feeling waft away. [waft away was underlined.]

And world living shall come alive

There [in the first verse] it was willing, which is still within the person. Here

As human-being's-power.

The progression is in contrast to world-thought-creating. [In the second verse human being's power was underlined.]

The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us to look back once again on the form, the gestalt that stands over there, the one we ourselves are in earth existence, and once again we should take up the gray image, but now take it up in such a way that we retain it, after having turned away from ourselves, and in our soul-life we turn it in a circle, so that it persists as we turn it. We shall find that when we rotate the image in this way in a circle, the sun appears, in its appearance behind the silhouette turning in the circle. [drawing, red]. In this experience we become aware how in the moment we are drawn out of spiritual worlds into physical earth consciousness, our etheric body has drawn itself together out of the world ether. Therefore, just as the previous picture belongs to the first verse [The drawing of the gray silhouette and the first verse were numbered 1.], we should add this picture to the second verse [The red drawing of the rotating image and the second verse were numbered 2.].

Then the Guardian of the Threshold directs us to our willing, that acts in our limbs. He sternly makes us aware that everything connected with the will is sleeping in us when we are awake. For just as the thought works downward, as I explained last time and therefore may say today, just as the thought warms downward into the limb’s movement, just so willing emerges, which becomes clear in spiritual discernment, in spiritual observation. This is hidden from ordinary consciousness just as life is hidden in sleep. Now we are to look, and from the start, to behold willing within our limbs sunk in deep sleep. There willing sleeps. The limbs sleep. This we should have as a firm thought in mind. For then, when we have this, we are able to realize how thinking, that is the origin of willing in earthly man, sinks down into the limbs. Then it becomes light in the human being. Willing becomes bright. It wakes up. When we first see it in its sleeping condition, we find that it awakens when thinking sinks downward and light streams upward from below, light which is indeed none other than the forces of gravity. Feel in your legs, feel in your arms the force of gravity when you just let everything hang down. That is what streams upward, what unites itself with the downward streaming thinking. We see human willing transforming itself into its reality and thinking appearing as what, in a mysterious, magical way ignites the will in man. This is, in actuality, the magical activity, the magical effect of thinking, which the will carries out. There is magic. This we now realize. The Guardian of the Threshold says:

Look over willing's bodily-working

in the surrounding aura

How in sleeping fields of work
Thinking descends from forces of head;
Through soul-viewing brought to light
Let human willing be transformed;
And thinking, it shall appear
As willing’s-magical-essence.

[This third verse, with certain words underlined, was now written on the board.]

Look over willing's bodily-working
How in sleeping fields of work
Thinking descends from forces of head;
Through soul-viewing brought to light
Let human willing be transformed;
And thinking, it shall appear
As willing’s-magical-essence.

To that, imagine the Guardian of the Threshold again beckoning us to look down at what is over there, who we ourselves are, to retain an image, but this time not to turn round but rather to allow this image to sink into the earth beneath the form that stands there. We look over there. There stands over there, who we ourselves are. We form the image for ourselves and form within us the powerful force to look downward, as though a lake were there and we would see this image by looking down and under, so that we see it now as if within the earth, but not as a reflected image, but as an upright picture.

We imagine the earth, [The arc was drawn.] with the third verse. [This drawing and the third verse were numbered 3.] We imagine the earth, how its gravity-forces ascend, how the gravity-forces shine into the limbs, feet, and arms [arrows]. In what we perceive later we have a foreshadowing of how the gods work together with human beings between death and a new birth, in order to fulfill karma.

It is this about which the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us, when he speaks to us for the first time after we have crossed the yawning abyss of existence:

Look behind thinking's sensory light,
How in the darkened spirit-cell
Willing ascends from bodily depths;
Through the strength of your soul
Let dead thinking flow into worldly void;
And willing, it shall arise
As world-thought-creating.

Look into feeling's wafting of soul,
How in the diminishment of dreams
Living streams from world afar;
Through calm of heart in sleep
Let human feeling waft away;
And world living shall come alive
As human-being's-power.

Look over willing's bodily working,
How in sleeping fields of work
Thinking descends from forces of head;
Through soul-viewing brought to light
Let human willing be transformed;
And thinking, it shall appear
As willing’s-magical-essence.

Always, the circle closes. Again, we look back upon the point from which we set out, hearing out of all beings and all processes of the world:

O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds
You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.

Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?

Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?
Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?

Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?

With his communication, Michael is present in this rightly constituted school. His presence is confirmed by his sign, which should have dominion over all that will be given in this school [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.], and it is confirmed through his seal which he has impressed upon the esoteric striving of the Rosicrucian School, which lives symbolically in the threefold maxim Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. And as Michael impresses his seal, the first sentence is spoken in this gesture [The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], the second sentence in this gesture [The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], and the third sentence in this gesture [The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.].

The first gesture signifies [Beside the lower seal gesture was written:]

I honor the Father.

It lives silently while we speak the Ex Deo Nascimur. The second gesture signifies [Beside the middle seal gesture was written:]

I love the Son

It lives silently while we speak the In Christo Morimur. The third gesture signifies [beside the upper seal gesture was written:]

I unite with the Spirit

It lives silently in the sign, that there is Michael's Seal, as we speak the Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

And so is confirmed today’s Michael proclamation substance through the Sign and Seal of Michael. [The Michael sign was made and with the three seal gestures was spoken:] Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

I have to announce that the course for theologians will take place tomorrow at 10:45. The speech formation and dramatic course at 12 o'clock. In the afternoon at 5 there will be a eurythmy presentation, and at 8 o'clock in the evening, or, if the eurythmy finishes late, at 8:15 or 8:30, the members' lecture.

The Guardian is heard in the gradually brightening darkness:

Look behind thinking's sensory light
How in the darkened spirit cell
Willing ascends from bodily depths;
Through the strength of your soul
Let dead thinking flow into worldly void;
And willing, it shall arise
As world-thought-creating.

Look into feeling's wafting of soul
How in the diminishment of dreams
Living streams from world afar;
Through calm of heart in sleep
Let human feeling waft away;
And world living shall come alive
As human-being's-power.

Look over willing's bodily working,
How into sleeping fields of work
Thinking descends from forces of head;
Through soul-viewing brought to light
Let human willing be transformed;
And thinking, it shall appear
As willing’s-magical-essence.

Ex Deo Nascimur
In Christo Morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus
I honor the Father
I love the Son
I unite with the Spirit

• 1. In a notebook of Rudolf Steiner, dated August 18, 1924, under morning lecture, Torquay, appears an entry about the different epochs: 1979–1510 Gabriel (Moon), 1510–1190 Samael (Mars), 1190–850 Raphael (Mercury), 850–500 Zachariel (Jupiter), 500–150 Anael (Venus), 150–200 Oriphiel (Saturn).
• 2. lichtschaffendes Wesen
• 3. stark
• 4. herüberwellt und webt und wirkt und macht
• 5. schaffenden Weltgedanken
• 6. Weltendasein

My dear friends,

Today I should like to link on what I am about to say to the laboratory scene in Goethe's Faust just represented, and to connect it in such a way that it may form a unity, as well as a starting point for more thorough deliberations tomorrow.

We have seen that the transition from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the sixteenth and seventeenth forms a remarkably significant and suggestive incision into the whole course of human evolution—a transition from the Greco-Latin age to our fifth post-Atlantean epoch in which we are now living, out of which flow the impulses for all our knowledge and all our action, and which will last until the third millennium. Now, from all that you know of Goethe's Faust, and of the connection between this Faust and the figure of Faust originating in the legend of the sixteenth century, you will see that not only this sixteenth century Faust but also what Goethe has made of him is most closely connected with all the transitional impulses introduced by the new age, both from a spiritual and from an external, material point of view.

Now for Goethe the problem of the rise of this new age and the further working of its impulses was something very powerful, and during the sixty years in which he was creating his “Faust” he was wholly inspired by the question: What are the most important tasks and the most important trends of thought of the new man? Goethe could actually look back into the previous age, the age that came to an end with the fourteenth, fifteenth centuries, of which now so little is known even to science. As I have often said, what history tells of man's mood of soul, of his capacities and needs in former centuries, is indeed nothing but colourless theory. In the souls of men in the earlier centuries, even as in the centuries immediately preceding the age of Faust, things looked completely different from how they appear to the soul modern man, to human souls in the present epoch. And in his Faust Goethe has created a figure, a personality, who looks back in the right way on man's mood of soul in former centuries, in centuries long past, while at the same time he looks forward to the tasks of the present and those of the future.

But although at first Faust looks back to an era preceding his own, he can actually only see the ruins of a culture, a spiritual culture that has come to an end. He can look back only on ruins. To begin with we must always keep in mind the Faust of the sixteenth century, the historical Faust who actually lived and then passed into folklore. This Faust still lived in the old sciences that he had made his own, lived in magic, in alchemy, and mysticism, all of which was the wisdom of former centuries, and also the wisdom in particular of pre-Christian times. In the age, however, in which lived the historic Faust of the sixteenth century, this wisdom was definitely on the decline. What was accepted as alchemy, as magic, as mysticism, by those among whom Faust lived, was already in a state of confusion. It all originated in tradition, the legacy of older ages, but it was no longer possible to find one's bearings in it. The wisdom contained there was no longer recognisable. There were,all kinds of sound formulas here from past ages, and much real insight, but these could hardly be understood. Thus the historical Faust was placed into an age of decaying spiritual life. And Goethe constantly mingled the experiences of the historical Faust with those of the Faust he was creating, the Faust of the eighteenth century, of the nineteenth and indeed of many centuries to come. Hence we see Goethe's Faust looking back to the ancient magic, to an older type of wisdom, mysticism, that did not deal with chemistry in the modern, materialistic way, hoping to make contact with a spiritual world through its dealings with nature but no longer having the knowledge enabling it to do so in the way that was right for an earlier age. The art of healing, as it was looked upon in centuries long past, was by no means so foolish as modern science sometimes makes it out to be, but the real wisdom contained in it has been lost. It was already to a great part lost in Faust's time and Goethe knew this well. He knew it not only with his intellect but with his heart, with those soul forces that have specially to do with the well-being, the soundness, of man. He wanted to find an answer to the questions, the problems, arising from it; he wanted to know how a man, continually advancing, could arrive at a different kind of wisdom with regard to the spiritual world, a wisdom adapted to the new age, as the ancients had been able to attain their kind of wisdom which in the natural course of human affairs had now to die out. For this reason he makes his Faust a magician. Faust has given himself up to magic like the Faust of the sixteenth century. But he is still unsatisfied for the simple reason that the real wisdom of the old magic had already faded away. It was from this wisdom that the old art of healing sprang; all dispensing, the whole science of medicine, was connected with the ancient chemistry, with alchemy.

Now in touching on such a question we come at the same time to one of the deepest secrets of humanity—these secrets going to show that no one can heal diseases without also being able to produce them. The ways leading to the healing of disease are the same as those leading to its production. We shall shortly hear how completely in the ancient wisdom the principle prevailed that he who healed diseases was likewise able to produce them. Thus, in olden days, the art of healing was associated in men's s minds with a profoundly moral conception of the world. And we shall also shortly see how little what is called the new freedom in human evolution would have been able to develop in those days. Actually this freedom was not taken hold of until this fifth epoch of ours, the epoch following the Greco-Roman. We shall see what it would have been like if the ancient wisdom had persisted. But in every sphere this wisdom had to disappear so that man might make, as it were, a fresh start, striving towards freedom in both knowledge and action. This he could not have done under the influence of the old wisdom. In such times of transition as those in which Faust lived the old is passing away, the new has not yet come. Then arise such moods as may be seen in Faust in the scene preceding the one produced today. Here we see clearly that Faust both is and feels himself to be a product of the new age, in which the ancient wisdom still existed though it was no longer fully understood. We see how Faust accompanied by his famulus, Wagner, goes out from his cell into the green world where, to begin with, he watches the country people celebrating the Easter Festival out-of-doors in the meadows, until he himself is affected by the Easter mood. We see at once, however, that he refuses the people's homage. An old peasant comes forward to express this homage, for the folk think that Faust, as son of a former adept in the art of healing, must be distinguished in the same way, and be able to bring them health and blessing:

“Nay, of a truth, it is but meet
Our joyful day should see you here.
You proved a very friend in need,
In evil days when death was near.
And many a man stands here alive
Whom your good father, wrestling yet,
Snatched from the fever's burning rage,
When for the Plague a bound he set.
And you yourself, a young men then,
In every stricken house were found,
And corpse on corpse was carried forth,
But you came out, aye, safe and sound.
Steadfast in trials did you prove;
Helped was the helper from above.”

Thus speaks the old peasant, remembering Faust's connection with the ancient art of healing, not only the healing of physical diseases in the people but also the healing of their moral evil. Faust knows that he no longer lives in an age when the ancient wisdom could be really helpful to humanity, for it is already in decline. Humility begins to glimmer in his soul, and at the same time despondency over the falsity he is opposing. He says:

“Yet a few paces onward, up to yonder stone;
Here a brief while we'll rest us from our straying.
Here have I often sat and mused alone,
And racked myself with fasting and with praying.
For rich in hope and staunch in faith,
With tears and sighs and frenzied wringing
Of aching hands, to stay the Death
I thought, Heaven's Lord to mercy bringing.
And now the crowd's applause rings in my ears like scorn!
O could'st thou read what in my heart is hidden.
Father and son, no more than babe unborn,
Merit the fame that seeks them thus unbidden.
My father was a worthy gentleman,
To fame unknown, who sought with honest passion,
Yet whimsical device, as was his fashion,
Nature and all her holy rounds to scan;
In the Black's Kitchen's murky region,
Cloistered with masters of the craft.
He, guided by prescriptions legion,
Concocted nauseous draught on draught.
There a red lion with lily wedded,
A wooer bold within the tepid bath,
From bridal bower to bridal bower was speeded,
Racked by the naked fire's flaming wrath.”

After the manner of those days Goethe had thoroughly studied how the “red lion” (mercury-oxide, sulphurated mercury) used to be dealt with, how the different chemicals had been combined, what the results of these processes were, and how medicines had been manufactured from them. But all that no longer represented the ancient wisdom. Goethe also knew their mode of expression; what was to be shown was put into pictures; the fusion of substances was represented as a marriage. Hence he says:

“From bridal bower to bridal bower speeded,
And, thereupon, in gorgeous hues attired,
Shone the young Queen within the glassy cell.”

This was a technical expression; just as modern chemistry has its technical terms so in those days, when certain substances had reached a definite condition and colour, the result was called the young Queen.

“Here was the medicine, but the patients died”; they died in the days of Faust as they still die today in spite of many medicines.

“Here was the medicine but the patients died.
None asked the question: Who got well?
Thus have we wrought among these hills and valleys,
With hellish lecturaries, worse havoc than the malice
Of that same desolating pest.
Myself to thousands have the poison given;
They pined away—and yet my fame has thriven,
Till I must hear their shameless murderers blessed.”

This is Faust's sell-knowledge. This is how ho sees himself, he of whom you know that he has studied the ancient magic wisdom in order to penetrate into the secrets of nature. And through all that he has become spiritualised. Faust cannot remain satisfied like Wagner his famulus. Wagner contents himself with the new wisdom, relying on manuscripts, on the written word. This Wagner is a man who makes far fewer claims on wisdom and on life. And while Faust tries to dream himself into nature in order to reach her spirit, Wagner thinks only of the spirit that comes to him from theories, from parchments, from books, and calls the mood that has come over Faust a passing whimsy:

“I too have had my whimsies and my fancies,” (says Wagner)
“But no such freaks as that by any chances.
On woods and fields I soon have looked my fill.
I never shall begrudge the bird his pinion.”

He never wants to fly out on the wings of a bird to gain knowledge of the world!

“How elsewise flit we through the mind's dominion
From book to book, from leaf to leaf at will?”
Such snug delights the wintry eve console;
A blissful warmth in every limb comes o'er you;
Some venerable parchment then if you unroll
Ah, then, all heaven opens out before you!”

A thorough bookworm, a theory-monger! And so the two stand there after the country folk have gone—Faust, who wishes to penetrate to the sources of life, to unite his own being with the hidden forces of nature in order to experience them, and the other, who sees nothing but the external, material life, and just what is recorded in books by material means. It does not need much reflection to see what has taken place in Faust's inner being as the result of all the experiences which, as described by Goethe, he has passed through up to this moment. When we consider all that we meet with in Faust, we can be sure of this, however, that his inner being has been completely revolutionised, a real soul-development has taken place in him and he has acquired a certain spiritual vision. Otherwise he would not have been able to call up the Earth-spirit who storms hither and thither in the tumult of action. Faust has made his own a certain capacity not only to look at the external phenomena of the outside world, but to see the spirit living and weaving in all things. Then from the distance a poodle comes leaping towards Faust and Wagner. The way the two see the poodle—an ordinary poodle—the way Faust sees and the way Wagner sees it, absolutely characterises the two men, After Faust has dreamed himself into the living and weaving of the spirit in nature, he notices the poodle:

“Dost thou see yon black dog ranging through shoot and stubble?”

Wagner: “I saw him long ago; he struck me not in the least,”

Faust: “Look at him narrowly. What mak'st thou of the beast?”

Wagner: “A poodle who like any other poodle breathing
casts for the scent strayed from his master's heels.”

(The poodle goes circling round them.)

Faust: “Mark how, a mighty spiral round us wreathing,
Nearer and ever nearer yet he steals,
And see! unless mine eyes deceive me queerly,
He trails a fiery eddy in his train.”

Not only does Faust see the poodle but something stirs within him; he sees something that belongs to the poodle appearing as if spiritual. This Faust sees. It goes without saying that Wagner cannot de so; what Faust sees cannot be seen by the external eye.

Wagner: “I see a poodle, a black poodle only.
’Tis but some sport, some phantom of your brain.”

Faust: “Meseemth he softly coileth magic meshes
To be a future fetter round our feet”

Wagner: “He frisks in doubt and fear around us, lest ungracious
The strangers' welcome be. He thought his lord to greet.”

In this simple phenomenon Faust sees also something spiritual.Let us keep this firmly in mind. Inwardly struck by a certain spiritual connection between himself and the poodle, he now goes into his Laboratory. Naturally the poodle is there dramatically represented by Goethe as a poodle, and so it must be; but fundamentally we are concerned with what is being inwardly experienced by Faust. And in Goethe's every word he shows us in a most masterly fashion how in this scene Faust is passing through an inner experience. He and Wagner have stayed out of doors till late in the evening, till outwardly the light has gone, the dusk has fallen. And into the twilight Faust has projected the picture of what he spiritually wishes to see. He now returns home to his cell and is alone. When alone, such a man as Faust, having been through all this, is in a position to experience self-knowledge, that is, the life of the spirit in his own ego. He speaks as though his inmost soul were stirred, but stirred in a spiritual way:

“Now field and mead have I forsaken,
Which night enshroudeth, deep and still,
In us the better soul doth waken,
with a presaging, holy thrill.
Now stress of deed and storm of yearning
Sleep, at her all-compelling nod;
The love of man now bright is burning,
and burning bright the love of God.”

The poodle growls. But let us be quite clear that those are spiritual experiences; even the growling of the poodle is a spiritual experience, although dramatically it is represented as external. Faust has associated himself with decadent magic; he has associated himself with Mephistopheles, and Mephistopheles is not a spirit who can lead him to progressive spiritual forces. Mephistopheles is the spirit whom Faust has to overcome, and he is associated with him just in order that he may overcome him, having been given him not for instruction but as a test. That is to say, we now see Faust standing between the divine, spiritual world that bears forward the evolution of the universe, on the one hand, and on the other the forces stirring in his soul which drag him down into the life of the ordinary instincts, and these divert a man from spiritual endeavor. Directly anything holy stirs in his soul, it is ridiculed, the opposing impulses ridicule it. This is wonderfully presented now in the form of external events—Faust striving with all his knowledge towards the divine spiritual, and his instincts growling, as the materialist's mind growls, at spiritual endeavor. When Faust says: “Be quiet poodle,” he is really saying this to himself. And now Faust speaks—or rather, Goethe makes Faust speak—in a wonderful way. It is only when we study it word by word that we realise how wonderfully Goethe knows the inner life of man in spiritual evolution:

“When in our narrow chamber kindled
The lamp its cheerful radiance throws,
Bright gleams the light that erst had dwindled
Within the heart itself that knows.”

This is self-knowledge; seeking the spirit within itself.

“Reason again begins to speak”

A significant line, for whoever goes through the spiritual development Faust passes through during his life, knows that reason is not merely something dead within man, not only the reasoning of the head, but he realises how reason can become living—the weaving of an inner spirit that actually speaks. That is no mere poetical image:

“Reason again begins to parley
And hope to bloom that seemed dead.”

Reason again begins to speak of the past, of what is left alive out of the past. “Hope, blooms again that seemed dead,” that means that we find our will transformed, so that we know that we shall pass through the gates of death as spiritually living beings. Future and past are dove-tailed together in a wonderful way. Goethe now makes Faust say that through self-knowledge he can find the inner life of the spirit.

“Then for life's fountains long we dearly,
Ah, dearly, for life's fountain-head.”

And now Faust seeks to come nearer that towards which he is being pressed—nearer life's fountain-head. To begin with he seeks the path of religious exaltation; he picks up the New Testament. And the way in which he does so is a wonderful example of the wisdom in Goethe's drama. He picks out what contains the deepest wisdom of the new age—the John Gospel. He wants to translate this into his beloved German; and it is significant that Goethe should have chosen this particular moment. Those who know the workings of the deeply cosmic and spiritual beings realise that when wisdom is being put from one language into another, all the spirits of confusion make their appearance, all the bewildering spirits intervene. It is especially in the frontier regions of life that the powers opposed to human evolution and human well-being find expression. Goethe purposely chooses translation, to set the spirit of perversity, the spirit of lying (still inside the poodle) over against the spirits of truth. If we look closely at the feelings and emotions to which such a scene may give rise, the wonderful spiritual depths concealed in it become evident. All the temptations I have characterised as coming from what is inherent in the poodle, the temptation to distort truth by untruth, these go on working, and now they influence an action of Faust's which gives ample opportunity for such distortion, Yet, how little it has been noticed that this is what Goethe meant is still today made evident by the various interpreters of “Faust”; for what do these interpreters actually say about this scene? Well, you can read it; they say: “Goethe is indeed a man of external life, for whom the Word is not enough; he has to improve upon John's Gospel; he has to find a better translation—not: In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, but: In the beginning was the deed. That is what Faust after long hesitation decides on. This is a piece of Goethe's deep wisdom!” But this wisdom is not Faust wisdom, it is pure Wagner wisdom, genuine Wagner wisdom! Just like that wisdom quoted over and over again when, later, Faust speaks such beautiful words to Gretchen about the religious life:

“Who, then, can name Him? who thus proclaim Him? ...
The All-embracing, the All-sustaining ...”

And so on. What Faust says to Gretchen then is quoted repeatedly and represented as deep wisdom by the learned gentlemen who quote it:

“Who can name Him?
Who thus proclaim Him:
I believe Him?
Who hath that feeling,
His bosom steeling,
Can say: I believe Him not?
The All-embracing,
The All-sustaining,
Clasps and sustains He not
Thee, me, Himself?
Springs not the vault of Heaven above us?
Lieth not Earth firm—’stablished ’neath our feet?
And with a cheerful twinkling
Climb not eternal stars the sky?
Eye into eye gaze I not upon thee?
And floats in endless mystery
Invisible visible around thee? ...

These words of Faust's are often represented as deep wisdom! Now if Goethe had meant it to be accepted as such deep wisdom, he would not have put the speech into the mouth of Faust when he was trying to instruct the sixteen-year-old Gretchen. It is Gretchen-wisdom! We must take things seriously. The pundits are under a misapprehension and have mistaken this Gretchen-wisdom for deep philosophy. Faust's suggestion for the translation of the Bible is also taken for especially profound wisdom, whereas Goethe simply means to represent how men bandy about truth and error when they undertake much a task. Goethe has represented the two souls of Faust very profoundly indeed, here in this scene of the translation of the Bible.

“It is written: In the beginning was the Word.” We know that this is the Greek Logos. That actually stands in the John Gospel. In opposition to it there rises up in Faust what is symbolised by the poodle and it is this that prevents him from reaching the inner meaning of the Gospel. Why does the writer of the John Gospel choose precisely the Word, the Logos? It is because he wishes to emphasise that the most important thing in the evolution of man on earth, what really makes him externally man in this Earth-evolution, has not evolved gradually but was there in the primal beginning. What is it that distinguishes man from all other beings? The fact that he can speak, whereas no other being, animal, vegetable or mineral, can do so. The materialist thinks that the Word, Speech, the Logos, through which thought vibrates, was required by man only after he had passed through animal evolution. The Gospel of John takes the matter more deeply and says: No, in the primal beginning was the Word. That is to say, man's evolution was planned from the beginning; he is not in the materialistic Darwinian sense, simply the highest peak of the animal world; in the very first design of Earth-evolution, in its primal origin, in the beginning, was the Word. And man can develop on Earth a ego, to which animals do not attain, only by reason of the Word being interwoven with human evolution. The Word stands for the Ego in man. But against this truth the spirit of falsehood which has entered Faust rebels; he must go deeper to understand the profound wisdom of John's words,

“Already I am held up!”

But actually it is the poodle, the dog in him and what dwells in the dog, that is holding him up. He can get no higher; on the contrary he sinks much lower.

“Already I stick, and who shall help afford?
The Word at such high rate I may not tender;
The passage must I elsewise render,
If rightly by the Spirit I am taught.”

Seeing Mephistopheles coming to him he thinks that he is being “enlightened by the Spirit,” whereas in reality he is beclouded by the Spirit of darkness, and sinking lower.

“ ’Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought.” What is not higher than the Word. Sense, as we can easily prove, plays its part in the life of animals also, but the animal does not attain to the human Word. Man is capable of sense, thinking, because he has an astral body. Faust descends from the Ego to the astral body more deeply into himself.

“... In the beginning was the Thought. (Sinn)
By the first line a moment tarry,
Let not thine eager pen itself o'er hurry!”

He thinks he is rising higher but he is sinking lower.

“Does Thought work all, and fashion all outright?”

No, he is descending lower still, from the astral body to the dense, more material etheric body; and he writes:

“... In the beginning was the Force.”

(Force is what dwells in the etheric body.)

“Yet even as my pen the sentence traces,
A warning hint the half-writ word effaces.
The spirit helps me!”

(The spirit dwelling in the poodle. )

“From all-doubting freed,
Thus write I: In the beginning was the Deed.”

And now he has arrived at complete materialism; now he has reached the physical body through which the external deed is performed.

(Logos) Word.........Ego
Thought..................Astral Body
Force......................Etheric Body
Deed.......................Physical Body

Thus you have Faust living and weaving in self-knowledge. He translates the Bible wrongly because the several members of man's being of which we have so often spoken—the ego, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body are working together in him, through Mephistopheles' spirit, in a chaotic way. And now we see how these impulses prevail, for the external barking of the dog is what stirs him up against the truth. In all his knowledge he cannot yet recognise the wisdom of Christianity. This is shown the way he connects Word, Thought, Force, Deed. But the impulse, the urge, towards Christianity is already alive in him, and by making use of the living force of what dwells there as the Christ, he overcomes the opposing spirit. He first tries to do this with what he has received from ancient magic. But the spirit does not yield, does not show himself in his true form. He then calls up the four elements and their spirits—the salamanders, sylphs, undines and gnomes, but nothing of all this affects the spirit in the poodle. But when he calls upon the figure of Christ, “the shamefully Immolated, by Whom all heaven is permeated” then the poodle has to show its true shape.

All this is fundamentally self-knowledge, a self-knowledge that Goethe makes quite clear. And what appears now? A travelling scholar! Faust is genuinely practising self-knowledge, he stands actually facing himself. Now for the first time the wild impulses in poodle-form, which have been resisting the truth, are working, and now he sees himself with a clearness that is still not clear! The travelling student stands before him but this is only Faust's other self, for he has not become much more than a travelling student with all a student's errors. Only now that he has learnt through his bond with the spiritual world to recognise the impulses more accurately,the travelling scholar—his own ego as up to now, he has developed it—confronts him as something more definite and solid. Faust has learnt like a scholar; he has given himself up to magic and through magic scholastic wisdom has been bedevilled. What has developed out of the old, good Faust, the old travelling student, is merely the result of his having added ancient magic to his learning. The travelling scholar is still present in him and meets him under a changed form; it is only his other self. This travelling student is himself. The struggle to be free of all that confronts him as his other self, is shown in the ensuing scene.

Indeed, in the different characters whom Faust meets, Goethe is always trying to show Faust's other ego, so that he may come to know himself better and better. Many of the audience may remember how in earlier lectures I explained that even Wagner was to be found in Faust himself, that Wagner was just another ego of Faust's. Mephistopheles, also, is only another ego. It is all self-knowledge; self-knowledge is practised for knowledge of the universe. But, for Faust, none of this is yet clear spiritual knowledge; it is all wrapt in a vague, dull spirit seership, impaired by the old, atavistic clairvoyance. There is nothing clear about it. It is not knowledge full of light, but the knowledge of dreams. This is represented by the dream-spirits fluttering around Faust—really the group-souls of all the beings that accompany Mephistopheles—and represented also by his final waking. Then Goethe says, or makes Faust say, clearly and unmistakably:

“What! am I once again then cheated?
And vanishes the spirit-foison thus?
That but a dream the devil counterfeited,
A poodle from my room broke loose?”

Goethe employs the method of directing attention over and over again to the truth. That he is representing a spiritual experience in Faust, is clearly enough expressed in the above four lines. This scene shows us too how Goethe was striving for knowledge of the transition from the old era to the new in which he himself lived, that is, from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch to the fifth. The boundary line is in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth centuries. As I have said before, whoever thinks as men think today can hardly picture—unless he makes a special study of it—the soul-development of past centuries. In the days of Faust only the ruins of it remained. How often we experience today that men are not trying to come to the new spiritual research for which we are striving; they are trying to renew the old wisdom. Many indeed think that by renewing what was possessed by the people of old they will be able to find a deeper, magical and mystical wisdom about nature. There are two errors closely connected with all human spiritual striving. The first is that men buy ancient books and studying them come to prize them more highly than the newer science. They generally prize them more highly simply because they do not understand them, the language in which they are written being actually no longer comprehensible. Thus, the content of old books that has become double-Dutch being often put forward when spiritual research is under discussion is the one mischievous thing. The other is that whenever possible old names are given to new endeavours in order to justify them. Look at many of the societies calling themselves occult, or secret, or something of the kind; their whole endeavour is to give themselves an early origin, to talk as much as possible about a legendary past, and they delight in the use of old names. That is the second mischievous error. We do not have to do all this if we really see into the needs and impulses of our own age and of the inevitable future. If we pick up any book where traditions still existed, we can see from the way they were presented that, through the legacy of the past, the memory of an ancient wisdom formerly possessed by man, was still there, this wisdom had fallen into decay. Its modes of expression, however, continued for a considerable time.

I have at my disposal a book printed in the year 1740, that is, in the eighteenth century, from which I should like to read you a short passage, and we may be sure that many seeking spiritual knowledge today, coming upon such a passage will say: What depths of wisdom we have here! Indeed, there are many who believe they understand a quotation of this kind. Let me read you the one I am referring to:

“The King's crown should be of pure gold, and he must be married to a chaste bride. Now, if thou desirest to work upon our bodies, take the Greedy Grey Wolf who, according to his name, is subject to the warlike Mars but by birth is a child of ancient Saturn, and found in the hills and dales of the world, obsessed by hunger. Throw him the body of the King that he may feed upon it.”

This is the way chemical processes were described in olden days, the way to which Faust alludes when he talks of how Red Lion is married to the Lily in the glass. We should not make fun of such things for the simple reason that the way we speak of chemistry today will sound to those who come later just as this sounds to us. But we must be quite clear that this particular passage belongs to a late period of decline. Allusion is made to a “Grey Wolf.” Now this “Grey Wolf” stands for a certain metal found everywhere in the mountains, that is then subjected to a certain process. “King” is a name given to a condition of substances; and the whole paragraph describes a chemical process. The grey metal was collected and treated in a certain way; then this was called the “Greedy Grey Wolf”, and the other the “Golden King”, after the gold had gone through a process. Then an alliance was made and this is described: “And when he had devoured the King. ...” It comes about, therefore, that the Greedy Grey Wolf, the grey metal found in the mountains, is amalgamated with the Golden King, a certain condition of gold after it has been treated chemically. He represents it as follows:

“And when he has devoured the King, then make a great fire and throw the Wolf into it.”

—thus the Wolf who has eaten up the Golden King is thrown into the fire.

“So that he may be completely burnt up and the King released again.”

The gold once more makes its appearance.

“When that has happened three times the Lion will have overcome the Wolf, and will find nothing more of him to consume. Then our body is ready to begin our work.”

In this way then he makes something. To explain what he makes, we should have to describe these processes in greater detail, especially how the Golden King is made; but that is not told us here. Today these processes are no longer used. But for what does the man hope? He hopes for what is not entirely without reason for he has already made something. For what purpose exactly has he made it? The man who had this printed will certainly not have done anything more than copy it from some old book. But for what purpose was it done at the time when such things were understood? That you may gather from the following:

“And know that this alone is the right way thoroughly to purify our bodies; for the Lion cleanses itself by the blood of the Wolf; for the tincture of this blood delights marvelously in the tincture of the Lion's, for the two kinds of blood are closely allied.”

Thus he praises what he has been the cause of producing. He has invented a kind of medicine.

“And when the Lion is satiated, its spirit becomes stronger than before, and its eyes dart forth a gleam of pride, bright as the sun.”

(This describes the properties of what he has in the retort.)

“Its inner being is then able to do much, and is useful for all that is demanded of it. When it is made ready, children of men attacked by severe sickness and many diseases are grateful to it; the lepers run after it, hankering after its soul's blood, end all who have infirmities rejoice heartily in its spirit; for he who drinks of this golden spring, experiences a complete renewal of his nature, the removal of evil, strength in the blood, force in the heart and perfect health in all the limbs.”

This, you see, indicates that we are concerned with a medicine, but it is also sufficiently indicated that this also has to do with man's moral character. For naturally if a healthy man takes it in the right quantity then what is here described will make its appearance. This is what he means, and this is how it was with the men of olden days who understood something of these matters.

“For he who drinks of this golden spring, experiences a complete renewal of his nature”

Thus, by means of the art he describes here, he strives to discover a tincture that can arouse an actual stirring of life in man.

“Thanks to the strength of the heart's blood, and the perfect healthiness of all the limbs, they are either enclosed within or sensitive outside the body, for it opens all the nerves end pores so that evil can be driven out and good can peacefully take its place.”

I have read this aloud chiefly to show how in these ruins of an ancient wisdom one may find the remains of what was striven for olden times. By external means taken from nature men strove to stimulate the body, that is, to acquire certain faculties, not only through inner moral endeavour, but through the medium of nature herself, applied by man. Keep this in mind for a moment, for from it we shall be led to something of importance which distinguishes our epoch from earlier epochs. Today it is quite the thing to make fan of the ancient superstitions, for then one is accepted in the world as a clever man, whereas this does not happen should one see any sense in the old knowledge. And all this is lost, and had to be lost, for reasons affecting mankind; for spirit-freedom could never have been attained through what was thus striven for in ancient days. Now you know that in books of an even earlier date than this antiquated volume—that indeed belongs to a very late period of decline—you find Sun and Gold indicated by the same sign ⊙; and Moon and Silver by the sign ☾. To the modern man the application of the one sign used for Sun and Gold, and the other used for Moon and Silver, two faculties of the soul he necessarily has himself, is naturally sheer nonsense. And it is sheer nonsense as we find it in the literature that often calls itself “esoteric”. For the most part the writers of such books have no means of knowing why in the olden days Sun and Gold, Moon and Silver, were characterized by the same signs.

Let us start from Moon and Silver with the sign ☾. Now if we go further back in time, say a few thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha, before the Christian reckoning of time, men did not only possess the faculties later in ruins; at the time when such things came into existence they possessed still higher faculties. When a man of the Egypto-Chaldean culture said ‘Silver’ he did not mean only what we mean when we say ‘Silver’. In the language of that time, the word signifying a ‘Silver’ was quite differently applied. Such a man had the spiritual faculties, and he meant a certain kind of force-activity found, not only in a piece of silver that actually spread over the whole earth. What he wished to say was: We live in Gold, we live in Copper, we live in Silver. He meant certain kinds of living forces were there, and these flowed towards him especially strongly from the Moon. This he felt that something sensitive and delicate that was in its coarsest, most material form in the piece of silver. He really found these forces flowing from the Moon, but also spread out over the whole earth, materialized in a particular way in the piece of silver. Now, the enlightened man of today says: Yes, of course, the Moon shines with a silvery light so they believe that it consisted of silver. It was not so, however, but rather men had an aerosol experience, lost today, in connection with the Moon, in connection with something dwelling as a force in the whole terrestrial globe, and materialized in the piece of silver.

Thus, the force lying in the silver has to be spread out over the whole earth. Naturally when this is said today it is regarded as absolute nonsense, yet, even from the point of view of modern Science it is not so. It is not nonsense at all, quite the contrary. For I will tell you something that science knows today although it is not often mentioned it. Modern Science knows that rather more than four lbs of silver, finally distributed, is contained in a cubic body the length of an English knot that you may imagine out of the ocean. So that, in all the seas surrounding the earth, there are two million tons of finally distributed silver. This is simply a scientific truth that can be proved today. The oceans of the world contain two million tons of finely distributed silver—distributed in an extreme homeopathic degree, one might say. Silver is actually spread over the whole earth. Today this must be substantiated—if one does so in the way of ordinary Science, by taking water from the sea and testing it by the most exact methods of investigation; then, with the means of modern Science itself it is found that there are two million tons of silver contained in the oceans. It is not that these tons of silver have been somehow dissolved in the ocean, or anything of that kind; they belong to it, belong to its nature and being. And this was known to the ancient wisdom through those delicate, sensitive forces originating in the old clairvoyance, at that time still in existence. The old wisdom also knew that the earth should not be looked upon merely in the way of modern Geology, but that in this earth, most finally dissolved, we have silver.

I could go further; I could show how gold is also dissolved, how, besides being materially deposited here and there, all these metals finely dissolved are really present. Ancient wisdom, therefore, was under no misapprehension when it spoke of silver; it is contained in the sphere of the earth. It was known, however, as a force, a certain kind of force. The silver sphere contains certain forces, the gold sphere other forces, and so on. More still was known of the silver that was dispersed throughout the earth-sphere; it was known that in the silver lies the force controlling the ebb and flow of the tides, for a certain force animating the whole body of the earth lies within this silver and is relatively identical with it. Without it there would be no tides; this movement, peculiar to the earth, was originally set in motion by the silver-content. It has no connection with the Moon, but the Moon is connected with the same force, and hence ebb and flow appear in certain relation with the movements of the Moon, because both they and the tides are dependent on the same system of forces. And these lie in the silver-content of the universe.

Even without clairvoyant knowledge we are able to see into such things, and to prove with a certainty unattainable in any other sphere of knowledge, unless it be Mathematics, that there used to be an old science knowing these things and knowing them well. With this knowledge and what it could do the ancient wisdom was connected, the wisdom that actually controlled nature has to be regained only through spiritual research, as it is today and as it goes on into the future. We live in the age in which an ancient kind of wisdom has been lost and a new kind only beginning to appear. What arose out of this ancient wisdom? Those consequences I have already indicated. If we knew the secrets of the universe we could make man himself more efficient. Think of it! By external means we could make man more efficient. It was possible simply by concocting certain substances and taking them in appropriate quantities, to acquire faculties which today we rightly assume to be innate in a man, such as genius, talent, and so forth. What Darwinism fantastically dreamed was not there at the beginning of earth-evolution, but the capacity to control nature existed, and from that to give man himself moral and spiritual faculties. You will now see that, for this reason, man had to keep the handling of nature within limits; hence the secrecy of the ancient Mysteries. The knowledge connected with these Mysteries, the secrets of nature, did not consist merely of concepts, ideas and feelings, nor merely of dogmatic imaginations. Whoever wished to acquire it had first to show himself wholly fitted to receive it; he had to be free from any wish to employ the knowledge selfishly, he was to use both knowledge and the ability derived from it solely in the service of the social order. This was the reason why the knowledge was kept so secret in the Egyptian Mysteries. In preparation for such knowledge, the one to whom it was to be imparted gave a guarantee that he would continue to live exactly as he had lived before, not taking to himself the smallest advantage but devoting the efficiency he would acquire, by his mastery over nature, exclusively to the service of the social order. On this assumption initiation was granted to individuals who then guided the ancient culture, of which the wonderful works are still to be seen, though, because men do not know their source, they are not understood.

But in this way men would never have become free. They would, through their nature-influences, have been made into a kind of automata. An epoch had to supervene in which man would work through inner moral forces alone. Thus, nature becomes veiled for him because in the new age, his impulses, his instincts, having become free, he has desecrated her. It is at most since the fourteenth, fifteenth, centuries that his impulses have been thus freed. Hence the ancient wisdom is growing dim; there is nothing left but the book-wisdom and that is not understood. For no one who really understood such things as the passage I have just read you would refrain from using them for his own advantage. That, however, would call forth the worst instincts in human society, worse instincts than those produced by the tentative progress of what today is said to be scientific, where, without insight into the matter, it is in a laboratory, without being able to see deeply into things, they obtain some result or other, perhaps that one substance affects another in a certain way—well, just what goes on today in chemistry. They go on trying this and find that but it is spiritual science that will have to find a way back into the secrets of nature. At the same time it must found a social order quite different from that of today, for men to be able, without being led away into a struggle with the most unruly instincts, to realize what nature conceals and her inmost depths.

There is meaning and there is wisdom in human evolution; I have tried to show you this in a whole series of lectures. What happens in history happens—although often by means of most destructive forces—in such a way that meaning runs right through historical evolution. It is often not the meaning man imagines and he has to suffer much on the paths history takes to its ends. Everything that happens in the course of time is sure to make the pendulum sometimes swing towards evil, sometimes towards the lesser evil; but by this swinging a certain condition of balance is reached. So then, up to the fourteenth, fifteenth centuries, a certain number of the forces of nature were known at least to a few; but this knowledge is now lost because the men of the newer age have not been attuned to it.

You see how beautifully it is pictured in the symbol standing for the forces of nature in the Egyptian legend of Isis. This image of Isis—what a deep impression it makes upon us when we picture it standing there in stone, but covered from head to foot with a veil, also of stone—the veiled Isis of Sais. It bears the inscription: “I am the Past, the Present in the Future; my veil no mortal man has yet lifted”. That has given rise to an unusually clever explanation—and a very clever people have accepted this clever explanation. We are told that the image of Isis is the symbol of a wisdom that can never be attained by man. Behind this veil is a being must remain eternally hidden, for the veil can never be lifted. Yet the inscription is “I am the Past, the Present and the Future; my veil no mortal man has yet lifted”. All the clever people then say: no one can fathom this being—are speaking about as logically as anyone who was to say: “I am John Miller you shall never know my name”. To say this is on a par with what you thus always hear said about the figure of Isis. To interpret the inscription: “I am the Past, the Present in the Future; my veil no mortal man has yet lifted” in this way, is as complete nonsense as to say: “I am John Miller, you will never know my name”. For what Isis is, stands written—Past, Present and Future; Time in its flight. Something quite different, therefore, from the clever explanation referred to is expressed in the words: “By veil no mortal man has yet lifted”. It means that this wisdom must be approached as those women are approached who have taken the veil, the vow of chastity; it must be approached with the same reverence, with a feeling that excludes all egoistic impulses. This is what is meant. It is like a veiled nun, this wisdom of ancient days. This is the feeling behind what is said about the veil.

Thus we see that in the days when the primal wisdom was a living thing, then either approached it in the proper way or had no access to it at all. But in the newer age men had to be left to themselves. They could no longer have this wisdom of old days, nor the forms of that wisdom. The knowledge of certain forces of nature was lost, those forces only to be known if experienced within—if they were at the same time lived inwardly. And at the time when materialism was at its height in the nineteenth century, at the beginning of the century, a force of nature appeared, the characteristic of which is recently expressed as follows: We have this nature-force but no one can understand it; it is even a secret for science.—You know how the force of electricity came to be used by man, and that electric power is such that no one can experience it inwardly through his normal forces; it remains an external force. And to a greater degree than one thinks that all the greatness of the nineteenth century arise through electricity. It would be quite easy to show how infinitely much in our present civilization depends upon electric power, and how much more, how very much more, will depend upon it in the future—even if it is employed in the present way without any inward knowledge. For in the evolution of human culture electric force has been put—as something by which man will be matured morally—in the place of the old, known force. Today in making use of electricity there is no thought of anything moral. There is wisdom in the progressive historical evolution of humanity. Man will mature by being able for a time to develop in his lower ego-bearer, in his uncontrolled egoism, what is deeply harmful—and in all conscience there is sufficient of this, as our own times clearly show. This would be quite out of the question should men have retained the ancient forces. It is electricity as a force in civilization which makes this possible. It is to a certain extent true of steam-power but to a lesser degree.

Now this is how the matter stands as I have explained to you. The first seventh part of our culture-period, that will last on into the third millennium, has passed; the peak of materialism has been reached. The social framework in which we live, that has brought about such lamentable occurrences in our days, is such that man cannot be subjected to it for another half-century without a fundamental change taking place in soul. For those having spiritual insight into world-evolution, this electoral age is, at the same time, the challenge to seek greater spiritual depth, a genuine spiritual deepening. For, to that force which remains outwardly unknown to sense-observation, there must be added in the soul the spiritual force line as deeply hidden as the electrical forces that also have to be awakened. Think how mysterious electrical power is! It was first drawn out of its secret hiding places by Galvani and Volta. And what dwells in the human soul, what is explored by Spiritual Science, that, too, lies hidden. The two like poles must meet each other. And as surely as the electric force is drawn out as the force hidden in nature, so surely will the force hidden in the soul,the force that belongs to it and is sought by Spiritual Science, also be drawn forth. This will be so, although today there are still many who look upon the endeavors of Spiritual Science as—well, almost as they might have looked upon the experiments of Galvani and Volta in the days they prepared their frogs and observed in the twitching of a leg that some force was at work. Did Science know that in the frog's leg lay the whole of Voltaic electricity, of Galvanism, all that is known today of electricity? Think back to the time when Galvani, it his primitive laboratory, was hanging his frog's leg to the window-latch; think of the moment when it began to twitch, and for the first time he was sure of this! It is true that it is not a question here of electricity itself being stimulated, but of contact electricity. When Galvani established this for the first time, could he suppose that the force that moved the frog's leg would someday be used by railways as a means of transport all over the world, or that with its aid thought would someday encircle the globe? It is not so very long since Galvani noticed this force in his frog's leg. If anyone had been expected such results to flow from this knowledge, he would certainly have been considered a fool. Thus, in our day, a man who presents the first beginnings of a spiritual science is considered a fool. A time will arrive when all that comes forth from Spiritual Science will be as important to the world, the moral world of soul and spirit, as a result of Galvani's experiment with the frog's leg for material civilization.

It is thus that progress is made in human evolution. It is only when we are aware of the things that we develop the will to collaborate in what can only be a beginning. If that other force, the force of electricity, which has been drawn out of its hiding place, has direct significance only for external, material culture, and only an indirect significance for the world of morality, what comes out of Spiritual Science will be of utmost importance in terms of its social significance. For the future, social institutions will be regulated by what Spiritual Science can give to humanity. Moreover, the whole of external, material culture will be indirectly stimulated by this Spiritual Science as well. I can only point to this today in closing.

Today we have seen Faust standing, as I said today, half in the old world and half in the new. Tomorrow we will expand this picure of Faust into one that will be a sort of worldview.

It affords me the deepest satisfaction to find that here in England you are ready to consider founding a school on Anthroposophical lines.¹ This may truly signify a momentous and incisive event in the history of Education. In pronouncing such words as these one may well be accused of lack of humility, but there really is something very special underlying all that is to come about for the Art of Education as based on Anthroposophy. And I am overjoyed that an impulse has arisen to form the first beginnings of a College of Teachers, teachers who from the depths of their hearts do indeed recognise the very special quality of what we call Anthroposophical Education. It is no fanatical idea of reform that prompts us to speak of a renewal in educational life, but we are urged to do so out of our whole feeling and experience of how mankind is evolving in civilisation and cultural life.

In speaking thus we are fully aware of the immense amount that has been done for education by distinguished persons in the course of the nineteenth century, and especially in the last few decades. But although all this was undertaken with the very best intentions and every possible method has been tried, we are bound to state that a real knowledge of the human being was lacking. These ideas about education arose at a time when no real knowledge of man was possible owing to the materialism that prevailed in all departments of life and indeed had done so since the fifteenth century. When, therefore, people expounded their ideas on educational reform they were building on sand or on something even less stable; rules of education were laid down based on all sorts of emotions and opinions as to what life ought to be. It was impossible to know man in his wholeness and to ask the question: How can we bring to revelation in a man what lies, god-given, within his nature after he has descended from pre-earthly life into earthly life? This is the kind of question which can be raised in an abstract way, but which can only be answered concretely on the basis of a true knowledge of man in body, soul and spirit.

Now this is how the matter stands for present-day humanity. The knowledge of the body is highly developed. By means of Biology, Physiology and Anatomy we have acquired a very advanced knowledge of the human body; but as soon as we wish to acquire a knowledge of the soul, we, with our present-day views, are confronted with a complete impasse, for everything relating to the soul is merely a name, a word. For even with regard to such things as thinking, feeling and willing we find no reality in the ordinary Psychology of today. We still use the words thinking, feeling and willing, but there is no conception of what takes place in the soul in reference to these things. What the so-called psychologists have to say about thinking, feeling and willing is in reality mere dilettantism. It is just as though a physiologist were to speak in a general way of the human lungs or liver, making no distinction between the liver of a child and that of an old person. In the science of the body we are very far advanced. No physiologist would fail to note the difference between the lungs of a child and the lungs of an old man, or indeed between the hair of a child and the hair of an old man. He will note all these differences. But thinking, feeling and willing are mere words which are uttered without conveying any sense of reality. For instance it is not known that willing, as it appears in the soul, is young, while thinking is old; that in fact thinking is willing grown old, and willing is a youthful thinking in the soul. Thus everything pertaining to the soul contains youthfulness and old age, existing in man simultaneously.

Naturally, even in the soul of a young child we have the old thinking and the young willing together at the same time. There they are contemporaneous, and indeed these things are realities. But today no one knows how to speak of these realities of the soul in the same way as he can of the realities of the body, so that as teachers of children we are quite helpless. Suppose you were a physician and yet were unable to distinguish between a child and an old man! You would of course feel helpless. But as there is no science of the soul the teacher is unable to speak about the human soul as the modern physician can of the human body. And as for the spirit, there is no such thing! One cannot speak of it, there are no longer even any words for it. There is but the single word “spirit,” and that does not convey much. There are no other words in which to describe it.

In our present-day life we cannot therefore venture to speak of a knowledge of Man. Here one may easily feel that all is not well with our education; certain things must be improved upon. Yes, but how can we improve matters, if we know nothing at all of Man? Therefore all the ideas for the improvement of education may be inspired by the best will in the world, but they possess no knowledge of Man.

This can even be noticed in our own circles. For it is Anthroposophy which at the present time can help men to acquire this knowledge of man. I am not saying this from any sectarian or fanatical standpoint but it is so that he who seeks knowledge of man must find it in Anthroposophy. It is obvious that knowledge of the human being must be the basis for a teacher's work; that being so, he must acquire this knowledge for himself, and the natural thing will be that he acquires it through Anthroposophy. If, therefore, we are asked what the basis of a new method of education should be, our answer is: Anthroposophy must be that basis. But how many people there are, even in our own circles, who try to disclaim Anthroposophy as much as possible, and to propagate an education without letting it be known that Anthroposophy is at the back of it.

There is an old German proverb which says: Please wash me but don't make me wet! Many projects are undertaken in this spirit but we must above all both speak and think truthfully. So if anyone asks you how to become a good teacher you must say to him: Make Anthroposophy your foundation. You must not deny Anthroposophy, for it is only by this means that you can acquire your knowledge of Man.

We have no knowledge of Man in our present cultural life. We have theories, but no living insight, either into the world, life or men. A true insight will lead to a true practice in life, but we have no such practical life today. Do you know who are the most unpractical people at the present time? It is not the scientists, for although they are clumsy and ignorant of life, these faults can be clearly seen in them. But in those who are the worst theorists and who are the least practical in life these things are not observed. These are the so-called practical persons, the commercial and industrial men and bankers, the men who rule the practical affairs of life with theoretical thoughts. A bank today is entirely composed of thoughts arising from theories. There is nothing practical in A; but people do not notice this, for they say: It must be so, that is the way practical people work. So they adapt themselves to it, and no one notices the harm that is really being done in life because it is all worked in so unpractical a way. The “practical life” of today is absolutely unpractical in all its forms.

This will only be noticed when an ever increasing number of destructive elements enter our civilisation and break it up. If this goes on the World War will have been nothing but a first step, an introduction. In reality the World War arose out of this unpractical thinking, but that was only an introduction. The point now at stake is that people should not remain asleep any longer, more particularly in the domain of teaching and education. Our task is to introduce an education which concerns itself with the whole man, body, soul and spirit; and these three principles should be known and recognised.

Now in so short a course as that to be given here, we can only speak of the most important aspects of body, soul and spirit, in such a way as will give a direction to education and teaching. That is what we shall do. But the first requirement, as will be seen from the start, is that my hearers shall really endeavour to direct their observation, even externally, to the whole man.

How are the basic principles of education composed in these days? The child is observed, and then we are told, the child is like this or like that, and must learn something. Then one thinks how best to teach so that the child can learn such and such a thing quickly. But what is a child, in reality? A child remains a child for at most twelve years, or possibly longer, but that is not the point. The point is that he must always be thought of as becoming an older human being some day. Life as a whole is a unity, and we must not only consider the child but the whole of life; we must look at the whole human being.

Suppose I have a pale child in the school. A pale child should be an enigma to me, a riddle to be solved. There may be several reasons for his pallor, but the following is a possible one. The child may have come to school with some colour in his cheeks, and have become pale under my treatment of him. I must admit this, and be able to judge as to why he has become pale; I may perhaps come to see that I have given this child too much to learn by heart. I may have worked his memory too hard. If I do not admit this possibility, if I am a short-sighted teacher, having the idea that a method must be carried through regardless of whether the child grows rosy or pale thereby, that the method must just be persevered with, then the child will remain pale.

If, however, I were able to observe this same child at the age of fifty, I should probably find him suffering from terrible sclerosis or arterial hardening, the cause of which will be unknown. This is the result of my having overloaded the memory of the child when he was eight or nine years old. For you see, the man of fifty and the child of eight or nine belong together, they are one and the same human being. We must know what the result will be, forty or fifty years later, of our management of the child; for life is a unity, it is all connected. It is not enough merely to know the child, we must know the human being.

Again, I take great trouble to give a class as good definitions as I can, so that the concepts shall be firmly grasped, and the child will know: this is a lion, that is a cat, and so on. But is the child to retain these concepts to the day of his death? In our present age there is no feeling for the fact that the soul too must grow! If I furnish a child with a concept that is to remain “correct” (and “correctness” is of course all that matters!), a concept which he is to retain throughout his life, that is just as though I bought him a pair of shoes when he was three years old, and each successive year had shoes made of the same size. The child will grow out of them. This however is something that people notice and it would be considered brutal to try and keep his feet small enough to go on wearing the same sized shoes! Yet this is what we are doing with the soul. We furnish the child with ideas which do not grow with him. We give him concepts which are intended to be permanent; we worry him with fixed concepts that are to remain unchanged, whereas we should be giving him concepts capable of expansion. We are constantly squeezing the soul into the ideas we give the child.

These are some of the ways in which we may begin to answer the challenge that in education we must take the whole human being into consideration, the growing, living human being, and not just an abstract idea of man.

It is only when we have the right conception of man's life as a connected whole that we come to realise how different from each other the various ages are. The child is a very different being before shedding its first teeth from what it becomes afterwards. Of course, you must not interpret this in crudely formed judgments, but if we are capable of making finer distinctions in life, we can observe that the child is quite different before and after the change of teeth.

Before the change of teeth we can still see quite clearly at work the effects of the child's habits of life before birth or conception, in its pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world. The body of the child acts almost as though it were spirit, for the spirit which has descended from the spiritual world is still fully active in a child in the first seven years of its life. You will say: A fine sort of spirit! It has become quite boisterous; for the child is rampageous, awkward and incompetent. Is all this to be attributed to the spirit belonging to his pre-earthly life? Well, my dear friends, suppose all you clever and well-brought-up people were suddenly condemned to remain always in a room having a temperature of 144° Fahrenheit? You couldn't do it! It is even harder for the spirit of the child, which has descended from the spiritual worlds, to accustom itself to earthly conditions. The spirit, suddenly transported into a completely different world, with the new experience of having a body to carry about, acts as we see the child act. Yet if you know how to observe and note how each day, each week, each month, the indefinite features of the face become more definite, the awkward movements become less clumsy and the child gradually accustoms himself to his surroundings, then you will realise that it is the spirit from the pre-earthly world which is endeavouring to make the child's body gradually more like itself. We shall understand why the child is as he is, if we observe him in this way, and we shall also understand that it is the descended spirit which is acting as we see it within the child's body.

Therefore for one who is initiated into the mysteries of the spirit there is nothing that can fill him with such wonder and delight as to observe a little child. In so doing one learns not of the earth, but of heaven; and this not only in the so-called “good children.” In their case, as a rule, the bodies have already become heavy, even in infancy. The spirit cannot properly take hold of the body; such children are quiet; they do not scream and rush about, they sit still and make no noise. The spirit is not active within them, because their bodies offer such resistance. It is very often the case that the bodies of the so-called good children offer resistance to the spirit.

In the less well-behaved children who make a great deal of healthy noise, who shout properly, and give a lot of trouble, the spirit is active, though of course in a clumsy way, for it has been transported from heaven to earth; but the spirit is active within them. It is making use of the body. We may even regard the wild screams of a child as most enthralling, simply because we thereby experience the martyrdom the spirit has to endure when it descends into a child-body.

Yes, my dear friends, it is easy to be a grown-up person—easy for the spirit, I mean, for the body has then been made ready, it no longer offers the same resistance. It is quite easy to be a full-grown person but extremely difficult to be a child. The child himself is not aware of this because his consciousness is not yet awake. It is still asleep, but if the child possessed the consciousness he had before descending to earth he would soon notice this difficulty: if the child were still living in this pre-earthly consciousness his life would be a terrible tragedy, a really terrible tragedy. For you see, the child comes down to earth; before this he has been accustomed to a spiritual substance from which he drew his spiritual life. He was accustomed to deal with that spiritual substance. He had prepared himself according to his Karma, according to the result of previous lives. He was fully contained within his own spiritual garment, as it were. Now he has to descend to earth. I should like to speak quite simply about these things, and you must excuse me if I speak of them as I would if I were describing the ordinary things of the earth. One can speak of them thus because they are so. Now when a human being is to descend, he must choose a body on the earth.

And indeed this body has been prepared throughout generations. Some father and mother had a son or a daughter, and these again a son or a daughter, and so on. Thus through heredity a body is produced which he must now occupy. He must draw into it and dwell therein; but in so doing he is suddenly faced with quite different conditions. He clothes himself in a body that has been prepared by a number of generations.

Of course, even from the spiritual world the human being can work on the body so that it may not be altogether unsuitable, yet as a rule the body received is not so very suitable after all. For the most part one does not fit at all easily into such a body. If a glove were to fit your hand as badly as the body generally fits the soul, you would discard it at once. You would never think of putting it on. But when you come down from the spiritual world needing a body, you just have to take one; and this body you retain until the change of teeth. For it is a fact that every seven or eight years our external physical substance is completely changed, at least in the essentials though not in all respects. Our first teeth for instance are changed, the second set remain. This is not the case with all the members of the human organism; some parts, even more important than the teeth, undergo change every seven years as long as a man is on the earth. If the teeth were to behave in the same way as these we should have new teeth at seven, fourteen, and again at twenty-one years of age, and so on, and there would be no dentists in the world.

Thus certain hard organs remain, but the softer ones are constantly being renewed. In the first seven years of our life we have a body which is given to us by outer nature, by our parents and so on; it is a model. The soul occupies the same relation to this body as an artist to a model which he has to copy. We have been gradually shaping the second body out of the first body up to the change of teeth. It takes seven years to complete the process. This second body which we ourselves have fashioned on the model given us by our parents only appears at the end of the first seven years of life, and all that external science says today about heredity and so forth is mere dilettantism compared to the reality. In reality we receive at birth a model body which is there with us for seven years, although during the very first years of life it begins to die out and fall away. The process continues, until at the change of teeth we have our second body.

Now there are weak individualities who are weakly when they descend to earth; these form their second body in which they live after the change of teeth, as an exact model of the first. People say that they take after their parents by inheritance, but this is not true. They make their own second body according to the inherited model. It is only during the first seven years of our life that our body is really inherited, but naturally we are all weak individualities and we copy a great deal. There are, however, also strong individualities descending to earth, and they too inherit a good deal in the first seven years. That one can see in the teeth. Their first teeth are still soft and subject to heredity, but when children have good strong second teeth that can crack things easily, then they are strong individualities, developing in the proper way. There are children who at ten years of age are just like children of four—mere imitators. Others are quite different, the strong individuality stirs within them. The model is used, but afterwards they form an individual body for themselves.

Such things must be noted. All talk of heredity will not lead you far unless you realise how matters stand. Heredity, in the sense in which it is spoken of by science, only applies to the first seven years of man. After that age, whatever he inherits he inherits of his own free will, we might say; he imitates the model, but in reality the inherited part is thrown off with the first body at the change of teeth.

The soul nature which came down from the spiritual world is very strong in us, and it is clumsy at first because it has to become accustomed to external nature. Yet in reality everything about a child, even the worst naughtiness, is very fascinating. Of course we must follow the conventions to some extent and not allow all naughtiness to pass unreproved; but we can see better in children than anywhere else how the spirit of man is tormented by the demons of degeneracy which are there in the world. The child has to enter a world into which he so often does not fit. If we were conscious of this process, we should see what a terribly tragic thing it is. When one knows something of Initiation, and is able to see consciously what lays hold of this body in the child, it really is terrible to see how he must find his way into all the complications of bones and ligaments which he has to form. It really is a tragic sight. The child himself knows nothing of this, and that is a good thing, for the Guardian of the Threshold protects him from any such knowledge.

But the teacher should know of it. He must look on with the deepest reverence, knowing that here a being whose nature is of God and the spirit has descended to earth. The essential thing is that we should know this, that we should fill our hearts with this knowledge, and from this starting point undertake our work as educators.

There are great differences between the manner of man which one is in the spiritual-soul life before descending to earth, and that which one has to become here below. The teacher should be able to judge of this because he has before him the child in whom are the after-effects of the spiritual world. Now there is one thing which the child has difficulty in acquiring, because the soul had nothing of this in the spiritual life.

On earth man is very little able to direct his attention to the inner part of his body; that is only done by the natural scientists and the physicians. They know exactly what goes on inside man within the limits of his skin, but you will find that most people do not even know exactly where their heart is! They generally point to the wrong place, and if in the course of his social life today it were required of a man to explain the difference between the lobes of the right and left lungs, or to describe the duodenum, very curious answers would be given. Now before he comes down into earthly life a man takes but little interest in the external world, but he takes so much the more interest in what he may call his spiritual inner being. In the life between death and a new birth man's interests are almost entirely centred on his inner spiritual life. He builds up his Karma in accordance with experiences from previous earth-lives and this he develops according to his inner life of spirit. This interest which he takes in it is very far removed from any earthly quality, very far removed from that longing for knowledge which, in its one-sided form, may be called inquisitiveness. A longing for knowledge, curiosity, a passionate desire for knowledge of the external life was not ours before our birth or descent to earth; we did not know it at all. That is why the young child has it only in so slight a degree.

What he does experience, on the other hand, is to live right in and with his environment. Before descending to earth we live entirely in the outer world. The whole world is then our inner being and there exist no such distinctions as outer and inner world. Therefore we are not curious about what is external, for that is all within us. We have no curiosity about it, we bear it within us, and it is an obvious and natural thing which we experience.

So in the first seven years of life a child learns to walk, to speak and to think, out of the same manner of living which he had before descending to earth. If you lay stress on arousing curiosity in a child with regard to some particular word, you will find that you thereby entirely drive out the wish he had to learn that same word. If you count on a longing for knowledge or curiosity you drive out of the child just what he ought to have. You must not reckon on a child's curiosity, but rather on something else, namely that the child becomes merged into you as it were, and you really live in the child. All that the child enjoys must live and be as though it were his own inner nature. You must make the same impression on the child as his own arm makes on him. You must, so to say, be only the continuation of his own body. Then later, when the child has passed through the change of teeth and gradually enters the period between the seventh and fourteenth years, you must observe how little by little curiosity and a longing for knowledge begin to show themselves; you must be tactful and careful, and pay attention to the way in which curiosity gradually stirs into being within him.

The small child is still but a clumsy little creature, who does not ask questions, and one can only make an impression upon him by being something oneself. He questions his environment as little as a sack of flour. But just as a sack of flour will retain any impressions you make upon it (especially if it is well ground), so too does the little child retain all his impressions, not because he is curious, but because you yourself are really one with him and make impressions on him as you would do with your fingers on a sack of flour.

It is only at the change of teeth that the situation alters. You must now notice the way the child begins to ask questions. “What is that? What do the stars see with? Why are the stars in the sky? Why have you a crooked nose, grandmother?” The child now asks all these questions; he begins to be curious about the things around him. You must have a delicate perception and note the gradual beginnings of curiosity and attention which appear with the second teeth. These are the years in which these qualities appear and you must be ready to meet them. You must allow the child's inner nature to decide what you ought to be doing with him; I mean, you must take the keenest interest in what is awakening with the change of teeth.

A very great deal is awakening then. The child is curious, but not with an intellectual curiosity for as yet it has no reasoning powers; and anyone who appeals to the intellect of a child of seven is quite on the wrong lines; but it has fantasy and this it is with which we must deal. It is really a question of developing the concept of a kind of “milk of the soul” For you see, after birth the child must be given bodily milk. This constitutes its food and every other necessary substance is contained in the milk that the child consumes. And when he comes to school at the age of the changing of the teeth it is again milk that you must give him, but now, milk for the soul. That is to say, your teaching must not be made up of isolated units, but all That the child receives must be a unity; when he has gone through the change of teeth he must have “soul milk.” If he is taught to read and write as two separate things it is just as though his milk were to be separated chemically into two different parts, and you gave him one part at one time and the other at another. Reading and writing must form a unity. You must bring this idea of “soul milk” into being for your work with the children when they first come to school.

This can only come about if, after the change of teeth, the children's education is directed artistically. The artistic element must be in it all. Tomorrow I will describe more fully how to develop writing out of painting and thus give it an artistic form, and how you must then lead this over artistically to the teaching of reading, and how this artistic treatment of reading and writing must be connected, again by artistic means, with the first simple beginnings of Arithmetic. All this must thus form a unity. Such things as these must be gradually developed as “soul milk” which we need for the child when he comes to school.

And when he reaches the age of puberty he will require “spiritual milk.” This is extremely difficult to give to present-day humanity, for we have no spirit left in our materialistic age. It will be a difficult task to create “spiritual milk,” but if we cannot succeed in creating it we shall have to leave our boys and girls to themselves at the so-called hobbledehoy stage, for there is no “spiritual milk” in our present age.

I just wanted to say these things by way of introduction and to give you a certain direction of thought; tomorrow we will continue these considerations and go more into details.

• 1. “The New School,” Streatham Hill, London, S.W.16, was opened in January 1925. In 1935 the name was changed to “Michael Hall.” In 1945 the school was moved to Kidbrooke Park, Forest Row, Sussex.

Dr. Steiner: Today, we have come together to discuss the results of the official school inspection. From what you told me over the telephone, I have formed a picture. Before I take any position, though, I think it would be a good idea to hear what each of you who participated in the inspection has to report, so that we all have a complete picture. I have repeatedly said that I am willing to meet with the man, but that has not occurred as yet.

We need to discuss all this to attain a perspective from which we can ward off any blows that may come from the public. It is unnecessary, and it would be fruitless, to make objections to the officials. If such things could be successful, we would not need a Waldorf School. The reason the Waldorf School exists is because the official bureaucracy does not understand our methods and our direction.

Let us go through the classes, then each of you can say what occurred in your class.

The teachers report about the inspection in each of the classes. The inspector had asked only very superficial questions..

Dr. Steiner: A boy in Zurich told me that he does not want to go to the school any more because the teaching through illustrative material was too dumb. When I gave the course in Berlin, I spoke about learning to read.1 Such things are very current and should be put into the Threefold newspaper and be used. For instance, how children learn to read, or the fact that our children—this is something I say everywhere—thank God, learn to read only at the age of eight or nine. We need to put such things right under people’s noses. They are certainly more important than some essay about a convention in Honolulu. We should also criticize the practice of failing children. We should mention that, too.

A teacher: He wanted to have quick answers in arithmetic.

Dr. Steiner: If children cannot do arithmetic quickly, their body is still slow.

A teacher: My perception is that what we teach children about grammar is something still foreign to them. Do we have to do that in the second grade?

Dr. Steiner: It depends upon how you do it. You do not always need to teach them the terminology, nouns and verbs, but use them only for yourself to form an objective polarity. A child of seven and a half can certainly differentiate between an activity and a thing. You do not need to emphasize the terminology. You could begin with stories and make the difference between a thing and an activity clear. That is something a child at that age can grasp. They should be able to grasp the difference between running or jumping and a human being or something of that sort. We do not need to follow the form of a pedantic grammar. In particular, with children in the lower grades, you should completely avoid using definitions.

There are further reports.

Dr. Steiner: (Laughingly, to a teacher who was happy about a positive remark made by the school inspector) Yes, you will certainly need to improve there.

The subject teachers report also.

Dr. Steiner: He will come to handwork class only with some old lady.

It is clear that this sort of inspection is an example of something that could never lead to an understanding of what actually happens in a school. When you think of the goodwill this man could have brought to understand at least a little about the Waldorf School, you will see that he had none whatsoever. He simply tried to determine to what extent the children meet the requirements of a regular school. He would need to know that he could learn something about what is actually going on only if he asks himself questions. He would have needed to ask himself how to question the children about what he wanted to know. His primary task should have been to find out from the children what they have learned, and the children would have needed to provide him with the possibility of asking the proper questions.

No one can learn very much if they simply ask the teachers questions, listen to the answers, but lack a firm foundation for forming a judgment about them. I make no assumption about that. There are a large number of psychological reasons why children answer their own teacher well or not. You need only recall how it is at the university for people who do their major examinations with the same professor they had for their seminars. It is easy for them. For the students who have not worked with the same professor, it is more difficult. Those who know the professor have an easy time. Having simply heard the professor’s lectures is not sufficient, since you could not discover his method of asking questions.

It is quite important to make the public aware of the things we consciously had to forego. We should use the space available to us in the “Threefold Social Organism” to present such things to the public. The different anthroposophical organizations here should work together, otherwise everything will dissipate. Everything is already falling apart, becoming unglued. We must work together. We need to publish articles, but of course, we should not obviously direct them at this particular point. That would be quite false. Nevertheless, the official inspection of the school could play a role. We should publish an article presenting, from various perspectives, how important it is for a child to learn to read only around the age of eight or nine. We could give examples like Goethe, who could not read and write until the age of nine, or Helmholtz, who learned to read and write only much later. We could, in contrast, give examples of people who learned to read and write at the age of four or five, then became complete idiots.

This is what we must do. If we do this properly, so that when we see ourselves in danger, and people everywhere are talking about these things, then we will have an effect. Then people could also not say that our intent is aimed at a very limited group. In this way, we can bring many of the weird judgments of the present into line. The actions of a person like the school inspector are simply an extract of the general perspective. If you turn to the entire civilized world using someone like that as an example, what you do will be good. The school inspection shows us what should not be done. Now we can turn to the world and try to make clear what should have been done.

A teacher: I have written an article for “Die Drei.”

Dr. Steiner: Make it short and sweet, don’t write ten pages about it. There is nothing to prevent something that appears in “Die Drei” from also appearing in “The Threefold.”

We’ve already talked about these things. A careful presentation of the impossibility of determining what a school is like by using such inspection methods could be one topic for discussion. Then we would have to defend against all the objections to teaching according to historical periods. When the inspector made his judgment, he said something very characteristic of our times, namely, that life requires people to do arithmetic quickly, and, therefore, we should teach that to the children.

Nearly everything you have said today offers wonderful examples of the way things should not be and how we can improve them. For instance, flunking children. The fact that he referred to the children as bright and dumb in front of the children is absolutely impossible.

He will probably also do what bad teachers always do. He will ask questions that require an exact answer and ignore everything else. He will have no sense of the way children express things. It is really very nice to receive a response from the children in their own way. It would be interesting to know what part of the poem he misunderstood.

You reported his remark that our method of teaching foreign language leads to a mechanical understanding.

These are the things we need to put out in public: Learning to read and write at a not-to-early age; a defense of teaching foreign language at an early age; flunking children; the manner of asking children questions; and, assuming that children will answer in exactly the way you expect them to. We should also mention superficial questions, senseless questions.

This is all connected to modern culture. These methods are decades old, and modern people have developed a spirituality, an attitude within their souls, that shows how they were mistreated as children. Today, only those who are more or less healthy, who have a counterforce within them, can hold up against that. The physical and psychological condition of modern people is often quite sad. That comes from such incorrect forming of questions. You can even see that in the physical body, that is, whether the forces of the soul have become incoherent. Many people take leave of their senses later. Many who still have their senses notice through their heart or lungs that they were mistreated by such things.

We need to be clear that if we did things to satisfy the education authorities, we would have to close. We could then simply put the children in any other school. They see the Waldorf School as an attack.

It is not so important to develop the letters the way they historically developed, since they developed differently in different regions. What is important is a renewal of the artistic path of work. We do not need to use historical forms. We must make that point very clear. From such events, we should learn what we must make clear.

A teacher: I asked the children in my seventh-grade class why they went along and behaved so well. They replied that they did not want to get me into trouble.

Dr. Steiner: That is wonderful behavior on the part of the children.

We should make notes of all of this so we can publicize it. There is so much interesting material that we could fill our publications with it. External activities and specific questions. We need to see that people pay more attention to us and learn more about our way of thinking if we want the Waldorf School movement to spread.

During the course I gave in Berlin, there was something that could also have been published. (Speaking to Dr. von Heydebrand) You remember you had said some things and then someone with an education background said that you had overemphasized the dark side. We should have stepped in then. We should have shown that you were not too extreme, that, in reality, things are very much worse. Experimental pedagogy is reasonable only in its basic ideas, but regarding other things, it is quite unreasonable. It is something only for professors who have to do as many experiments as possible.

The situation in Berlin was impossible. A discussion of barely an hour. There was sufficient time for many people to say really dumb things, but not enough time to defend yourself. In such cases, it would be better not even to speak. We should not leave our people out on a limb. It would be best not to give such presentations. We cannot allow only our opponents to be heard. The situation there was the best possible for those who want to hurt anthroposophy.

Our outside activities are, of course, connected with the outside, but they also belong here in the faculty.

A teacher asks whether they should start teaching Greek and Latin at the same time.

Dr. Steiner: The best, the ideal, would be to begin Greek earlier and then begin Latin after two years. However, that is difficult to do in practice. Then, we would have to drop something else for Greek, and that would be difficult. Our plans are designed to correspond to the individual and to development, so that doesn’t work out. Latin is required for external reasons. It is helpful to do things the way I described in my lecture in Berlin in order to slowly understand the language.

I based the entire development of language upon an imagination, but K. spoke of inspiration and intuition. People today have no sensibility for exact listening, and we need to take such things into account. The things I discussed need to be felt. That is something that can be taught through Greek. Latin is not as important because it does not teach feeling in the same way as Greek.

A teacher: How can we determine which children should attend that class?

Dr. Steiner: As long as we are only a single school, we cannot do much. Only when there are more schools could we make a decision of that sort according to their characteristics, that is, when we can influence the further course of the child’s life. That we have thirty percent who participate in this class is still too few to justify changing our plans for them. We need everything we have.

A teacher requests help with students in the upper grades, N.G. and F.S.

Dr. Steiner: With such difficult cases as N.G., we can approach him with understanding if he still has some belief in a person who can be completely objective about the life he has experienced. He grew up as an extremely lively little spirit from the very beginning. He gave many insightful answers. Now he is growing up with a mother who is the personification of a lie. She is one of those people who falls down with a heart attack, but on the soft carpet, not next to it. She is completely untrue. She is a woman who always wanted to bring Anthroposophy to her husband, a very superficial and trivial person. The children knew about this at an early age. This is one of the comedies in life that have such a tragic effect upon children that they lose all trust in life.

Now, the boy knows all this. He needs only the fulfillment he so much desires. He needs to be able to believe in a person. That is an opportunity he should have, namely to have people in his surroundings who are interested in telling the truth about even the most mundane of things.

A teacher: He says that he smells anthroposophy everywhere.

Dr. Steiner: In such cases, you can help him form a sound judgment if you take everything into account. The beliefs of such boys as N.G. are based upon the idea that everyone lies, but that can be cured. It could be difficult for him because he knows he was forced into the Waldorf School. For that reason, he now asks what is right. That is one thing.

Now that he is here in the Waldorf School, he must be able to find something that he can believe in anthroposophy. This is a truly Herculean task. It would have been quite normal for him to attend a school where life approached him from outside. The worst thing for such a boy is to place him in the Waldorf School. A child does not have to be in the Waldorf School. A school that pleases the school board could be a good school in which to spend your time from the age of six until fourteen. The Waldorf School is not necessarily the right school for everyone, but one day, there he was.

I am not sure it is pedagogically proper that F.S. is here. In 1908 I held a course about the Apocalypse. He occupied himself by digging deep holes in the garden soil. If you came close to him, he stood up and kicked you in the stomach. He never gave an answer. Once, an older lady wanted to do something nice for him, but he took some sand and threw it in her eyes. He broke nearly all of the coffee cups. He called himself “you” because people told him, “You did it.” If he is still behaving the same way, but at a higher level, then things have not improved. Now he would call himself, “I,” but for a different reason.

Somehow, we will have to come to grips with F.S. and N.G. Someone who has never been involved with his situation and in whom he can trust, will need to take over N.G. In the case of “you,” only someone who impresses him can help. He never knew his father very well. He needs someone who would impress him. (Speaking to a teacher) Can’t you do that? You have impressed many people. You certainly gave X.Y. the idea that you are impressive.

While I was in Berlin, someone approached me and told me about this boy. From that, I had an impression that the real reason for these things lies in his living conditions. We should try to avoid having anyone lodge there. X. does not like the Waldorf School. I promised the woman to ask you if he could live with one of you. He posed some questions concerning Schopenhauer, and that is quite positive. He also greets me very warmly.

A teacher asks about a child with curvature of the spine.

Dr. Steiner: He should be in the remedial class for a time. Let him do only what he wants, and discover what he does not want to do.

A language teacher complains about difficulties in the 7b English class.

Dr. Steiner: That is not at all surprising when you consider how their class teacher keeps them under control. That certainly calls forth a comparison. He knows what he wants. If she did not have him, but someone else instead, then (speaking to the language teacher) it would be much easier for you. You have a rather uncertain nature, and your own thoughts sit within the form of the children’s thoughts. These are things that would not occur to such an extent if you had a colleague more like yourself. The class teacher impresses the entire class because he is so much a part of things. You will have to break your terrible, vaguely lyrical, sentimental attitude when you go into the class.

The language teacher says something about boxing children’s ears.

Dr. Steiner: If you give them a slap, you should do it the way Dr. Schubert does.

Dr. Schubert: Did somebody complain?

Dr. Steiner: No, you are always slapping them.

Dr. Schubert: When did I do that?

Dr. Steiner: Well, I mean astral slapping. There are physical slaps and astral slaps. It doesn’t matter which one you give, but you cannot slap a child sentimentally.

The class reflects our thoughts. You need to be firmer in your own thoughts. If I were in your class, I would do the same. I would certainly behave terribly. I wouldn’t understand what is happening. I wouldn’t know what you want. You must be firmer in your thinking. The battle of a whole class against the teacher is not actually real, it is not something you can touch. We can talk about individual children, but not about a whole class. Look at the things Baravalle has written. Keep them until Whitsun. We cannot hold some lyrical discourses about a class. You seem to me today to be like one of those books from Husserl. Break your habit of thinking like that. It is a picture of your own inner nature.

We have to strongly integrate the art of teaching with the subject, but at the same time selflessly integrate it with the subject. Those are not common characteristics.

The 7a class has become quite good, and you can work well with them. The effectiveness of teaching depends upon the overall impression the teacher makes upon the children and not upon some small misdeeds or acts against authority. It is easy for a teacher to become laughable through some piece of clothing, but that will recede after a time. Perhaps you have a hole in your boot, but that is not very important. You cannot change those things. What is important is the humanity of the teacher.

The context of the following is unclear.

Dr. Steiner: They had the audience in their control. In the Vienna hall, Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony was presented in 1887. I attended a concert by Schalk. That was the first performance of Bruckner’s symphony.

A question is asked about four students in the 7a class.

Dr. Steiner: Will the children go into an apprenticeship? They are all nearly the same type. I would hope that things would become better if, with these children, you were to introduce a reading of a speech by Buddha objectively and formally, with all the repetitions, and then had them memorize short passages. You could also use The Bhagavad Gita. You could do that with the whole class. Go through it with the whole class and have those children copy it, then do it a second time and they should be able to present it. You should particularly aim at those children. This could also be done in teaching history and language. You could do that every day.

A teacher asks about a girl whose parents do not want her to participate in eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: Convince the parents. She should not interrupt the eurythmy lessons.

A teacher asks about P.R., a student with a crippled hand.

Dr. Steiner: We should think about what profession we should direct him toward. He is not very dexterous with that hand. He writes poorly. He should become something like a bookkeeper, or some other job where that is not important. He certainly cannot become an actor. The best would be if we could bring such children so far along that they could then participate in the normal morning instruction, and then have some continuation of their education following elementary school. We need to try to bring him along so that he overcomes his self-consciousness and participates in handwork. He should certainly learn bookkeeping. We need to find a teacher for him.

A teacher: The elementary schools here have more periods of handwork.

Dr. Steiner: So much handwork is unnecessary.

A teacher: R.L. in the fourth grade is not coming to school.

Dr. Steiner: We cannot force the children if parents don’t want it.

We need to work practically with the things you mentioned today. There is no doubt that we have to take over a greater responsibility toward extending the movement so that the movement is not torn apart by some small thing one day. The whole world is looking at the Waldorf School, the whole civilized world. We must do a number of things well in the school that the movement is not doing very well in other areas. The main thing is that everyone in Stuttgart work together, that all the different groups connected with the movement, that is, really connected, find some way of working with one another.

When you are active in the anthroposophical movement on a broader scale, you will find that elsewhere people do not know how to relate to Stuttgart and what is happening here. It is important that the Waldorf School movement keep its promises. In particular, even though we may fail in other areas, the cultural areas need to be particularly strong in the world. The Waldorf School and its faculty need to always be careful to spread an understanding of themselves. Lectures like those given by Schwebsch, Stein, and Heydebrand are particularly effective. Answers to specific questions are often misunderstood.

The Waldorf teachers should not slide into that mistaken behavior so common today, that is, to write articles like the one X. wrote about the article from S.G. We will slowly die if we engage in normal journalism and a non-objective treatment of our work. It, the lecture from S.G., was certainly unbelievable, wasn’t it? I like S.G. quite a lot, but he needs to gradually learn what is important. For now, he is simply in his baby shoes. It makes our movement laughable. It is a hymn sung out of tune with the worst journalistic attitude. I would prefer to have said that when X. was here. It is a sad day, a very sad experience. We must remain above all that. There is not one uplifting thought in the entire article aside from those dealing with declamation and recitation. If we do such things that show so little goodwill to remain with the subject, if such habits enter our work, we will soon have a complete demise.

Concerning the education conference.

Dr. Steiner: It should be in a broader context that would enable us to work not from compromises, but toward the real perspective of our pedagogy. We do not want to do what was done at previous conferences and simply talk about things. We should discuss things in such a way that people genuinely understand them. We must create a feeling that our people already know what others want to say. Our people should not simply stand there while someone else says something we do not know. We must know which of the questions could arise in the conference. We cannot allow people to say we are poking our noses into everything, but when experts come along, you can see how little we know. We need to arrange things so that someone cannot come along and say something and there not be enough time for us to reply.

That must not happen. It was a real problem in Berlin since people went away thinking that we spoke about Einstein, but knew nothing about him. Aside from that, the discussion leader thought that idiot was right. The others who put on the symposium also thought the same thing. In any event, it happened—something that had a detrimental effect upon the whole scientific mood from the very beginning. The first problem was that Rittelmeyer came along and said we had done poorly. Such things simply must not happen. If that were to happen here with pedagogy, it would be terrible. The listeners should perceive that our work and each speaker is of a high level.

We have put enormous effort into setting something up. The conferences have had an enormous success, but no one lets the results of the conferences be truly effective. If we could only find a way to let what we accomplish have a practical effect. What you have to say does not actually affect people. Afterward, no one actually knows what you have to say. Our work needs to be used more. We need to affect opinions. However, I am convinced that this thing with X. will be forgotten. For example, we have long had the problem that we have an economic movement, but we cannot get any economists to speak about it. The economic perspective is important. Leinhas’s lecture was good, and people will not forget it. The same is true for Dr. Unger’s essay about valuation. That is the beginning of something we should further develop in economics. Now, however, we must talk about the existence of three pillars that should in some way be comprehensive.

Everywhere I went in my long series of lectures, I mentioned the lectures given by you, Dr. von Heydebrand, and Leinhas. I spoke of them everywhere. We must create opinion. Our work must speak to people. Pedagogy needs an opinion connected with the substance of our movement. We can ignore negative opinions. We must do what is good.

That is something that is painful for me, but I want you to know it because the Waldorf School has developed that good spirit. This does not need to be said to the Waldorf School itself. The Waldorf School has a great task because there is no leadership in other areas. The school is moving along well, but it has a responsibility to take up some things that have an even larger responsibility associated with them. When something negative occurs now, with the increasing number of followers, then it is a negative event that is actually gigantic. That would, of course, not happen with the Waldorf School. Such things can tear a spiritual or cultural movement apart. For that reason, those working in the Waldorf School need to be the primary support for the whole movement. That is how things are today. The Waldorf School has a broad basis because it has kept all its promises. It can, therefore, be the primary support for the entire anthroposophical movement. We need such a support today. Your responsibility is quickly growing. That is something each of you needs to take to heart. We haven’t the least reason to be happy when the number of followers increases. We should be aware that every increase in interest is also an increase in our own responsibility.

A teacher asks about a pedagogical conference in Kaiserslautern.

Dr. Steiner: We have already decided against the proposal for Bremen. I looked at the big picture. We cannot accomplish much by systematically discussing pedagogy before there is any possibility of seeing some movement in regard to pedagogical questions in modern times. The seventy or so people who would come there would come only out of politeness. They would not know what is needed. We would first have to tell them that something is happening in the world. We would first have to hold a cultural and historical lecture on pedagogy. That would be necessary. Giving a three-day course for people whom you cannot help any further would mean too much wasted strength.

We saw that here. The teachers were the least interested. They all said they could not attend. I am uncertain if that has gotten better, but what else could happen?

We must awaken people’s awareness of what needs to be done. I’m afraid people believe we should begin the threefold. I think that if two or three of you want to give a lecture there on the return trip from Holland, that would be good. People need to be aware. God, there was a conference in Stuttgart and then one in Berlin. Now things need to be made more well known, otherwise we will be running to every village giving lectures. It is enough when we do that in some of the central areas. It is not efficient if we are running everywhere. We must improve the efficiency of our work.

A teacher: Is there something concrete we could do in Berlin?

Dr. Steiner: Quite a lot. We could discuss a large number of questions there and essentially nowhere else in the world today, but theology is too strong there. There were a large number of questions that could be treated nowhere else in the world. We need to make the lectures more well known. The question is, how? Steffen printed the “Christmas Conference” in Das Goetheanum in such a way that I would almost prefer to print his report than my lectures. He did a wonderful job there.

When such dry reports are published, the kind people are used to seeing in academic journals, then people have difficulty getting through them. Not just my own lectures, but also those of others, were written in an indescribably pedantic way. In that case, I can only say there is not much goodwill behind them. R. could do it better. When he gives a lecture, it is really very good, but when he writes something, it would drive you up the walls. Here, we see no goodwill. Such things wash the ground away from under our feet.