The Rudolf Steiner Archive

It is especially important in our time that the reality of spiritual life is not confused with the way people interpret this reality. We live in an age when human understanding and human conduct are strongly influenced by materialism. However, it would be wrong to think that because our age is materialistic, spiritual influences are not at hand, that the spirit is not present and active. Strange as it may seem it is possible, particularly in our time, to observe an abundance of effects in human life which are purely spiritual. They are everywhere in evidence and, the way they manifest, one could certainly not say that they are either invisible or inactive. The situation is rather that people, because of their materialistic outlook, are incapable of seeing what is manifestly there. All they see is what is so to speak "on the agenda." When one looks at people's attitude to the spirit, at the way they react when spiritual matters are spoken of, it reminds one of an incident which took place several decades ago in a Central European city. There was an important meeting of an important body of people and the degeneration of moral standards came under discussion. Immoral practices had begun to have adverse influence on certain financial transactions. Naturally a large part of this distinguished body of people wanted financial matters to be discussed purely from the point of view of finance. But a minority—it usually is a minority on such occasions—wanted to discuss the issue of moral corruption. However a minister got up and simply tossed aside such an irrelevant issue by saying: “But gentlemen, morality is not on the agenda.”—It could be said that the attitude of a great many people today in regard to spiritual matters is also one that says: But gentlemen, the spirit is not on the agenda. It is manifestly not on the agenda when things of importance are debated. But perhaps such debates do not always deal with the reality, perhaps the spirit is present, only it is not put on the agenda when human affairs are under discussion.

When one considers these things, and has opportunity to talk more intimately with people, a situation emerges which is very different from what is imagined by those who feel embarrassed by talking about things of a spiritual nature. When one comes to discuss how people got the impulse to do what they are doing one finds again and again that they decided on a project because of some prophetic vision or because of some inner impulse. As I said, if one looks at these things and is able to assess the situation, more often than not things are done because of some spiritual influence, perhaps in the form of a dream or some other kind of vision. Much more than is imagined takes place under the influence of spiritual powers and impulses which flow into the physical world from the spiritual world. People's theoretical rejection of spirituality, based on present-day outlook, does not alter the fact that significant spiritual impulses do penetrate everywhere into our world. However, they do not escape being influenced by the prevailing materialism. There has always been an influx of spiritual impulses throughout mankind's evolution and one ought not to think that this has ceased in our time. But people responded differently when there was more awareness of the existence of a spiritual world than they do in a materialistic age like ours. Let us look at a particular example.

It is extraordinarily difficult to convey to the world certain facts concerning spiritual matters, the reason being that people in general are not sufficiently prepared; they cannot formulate the appropriate concepts for receiving rightly such communications from the spiritual world. Such communications are all too easily distorted into the very opposite. Therefore it often happens, especially at present, that those who are initiated into spiritual matters must remain silent in regard to what is most essential. They must because it cannot be foreseen what might happen if certain things were imparted to someone unripe for the information. Nevertheless certain situations do often arise. On occasions, in accordance with higher laws, discussions take place about spiritual matters. When it is difficult, as it usually is at present, to discuss such things with the living it can often be all the more fruitful to discuss them with those who have died. Seldom perhaps was there a time when conscious interaction between the physical plane and the spiritual world, in which the dead are living, was so vigorous as it can be at present.

Let us assume that a discussion takes place of a kind possible only between someone with knowledge on the physical plane and someone who has died. In this situation something very curious can happen, something that could be termed a "transcendental indiscretion" can take place. The fact is that there are those who listen at keyholes, so to speak, not only on the physical plane, but also among certain beings in the spiritual world. There are spirits of an inferior kind who are forever attempting to obtain knowledge of all kinds of spiritual facts by such means. They listen to what is being said between beings on the physical plane and those in the spiritual world. Their opportunity to listen to such a conversation can arise through someone who, being especially passionate, in the grip of his passion is, as one might say, “beside himself.” This kind of situation often arises through passion, through being drunk—really physically drunk—or through faintness. It gives the lower spirit opportunity to enter into the person with the result that the person either then or later has visions of some kind and can hear things he is not supposed to hear.

It is well known to those able to observe such happenings that countless things, obtained through indiscretion in spiritual communication, appear in distorted form in all kinds of literature, particularly those of a more dubious kind. Nothing is more effective than when some lower elemental spirit (Kobold) takes possession of the writer of a detective novel, especially if drunk and, entering into his human frailties, instills in him a particular sentence or phrase which he then introduces into his story. Later the novel reaches people through all kinds of direct or indirect channels; the particular sentence has an especially strong effect because, given the way people take these things in, it speaks, not to the reader's consciousness, but to his subconscious.

Another method which is very effective is when, in a spiritualistic seance, such a spirit may have the opportunity to insinuate, into what is related through the medium, the spiritual indiscretion he wishes put to effect. This is not to say anything against mediumship as such, only the way it is used. Many things occur in the course of human karma which, in order to come to light, need mediumistic communications. We are not dealing with this aspect today, however. The point I want to make at the moment is to emphasize that there are at the present time spiritual channels between the spiritual world and the physical plane. These channels are very numerous and far more effective than is supposed.—Having said this you will understand better when I now say something which may seem paradoxical but is nevertheless a reality.

The years between 1914 and 1917 will no doubt be written about in the future in the usual way of historians. They will scrutinize documents, found in archives everywhere, in order to establish what caused the terrible World War. On this basis they will attempt to write a plausible account of say the year 1914 in relation to events in Europe. However, one thing is certain: no documentary research, no report drawn up in the way this is usually done will suffice to explain the causes of this monstrous event. The reason is simply that according to their very nature the most significant causes are not inscribed by pen or printer's ink into external documents. Furthermore their very existence is denied because they are not, so to speak, “on the agenda.”

Just in these last days you will have read reports of the legal inquiries going on in Russia. The Russian minister of war Suchomlinoff,²⁰ the Chief of the Russian General Staff and other personalities have made important statements which have caused a great deal of indignation. Many feel moral indignation on learning that Suchomlinoff lied to the Czar; or that the Chief of the Russian General Staff, with the mobilization order in his pocket, gave the German Military Attache his solemn promise that this order had not yet been issued. He said this because he intended to pass it on to the proper quarters a few minutes later. Such things are certainly cause for indignation and moralizing but so much lying goes on nowadays that no one should be surprised that really fat ones are told in important places. But these incidents and what people say about them are truly not the real issue. That is something quite different. When one reads the full report carefully one comes across remarkable words which are clear indicators of what really took place. Suchomlinoff himself says that while these events were taking place he, for a time, lost his reason. He says in so many words: “I lost my reason over it.” The continuous vacillation of events caused this state of affairs. He was not alone, quite a few others in key positions were in similar states.

Imagine a person occupying a position such as that of Suchomlinoff: The loss of his power of reasoning gives splendid opportunity for ahrimanic beings to take possession of him and instill into his soul all kinds of suggestions. Ahriman uses such methods to bring his influence to bear, especially when no importance is attached to remaining fully conscious—apart from sleep. When we are fully conscious such spiritual beings have no real access to our soul. But when our spirit; i.e., our consciousness is suppressed then ahrimanic beings have immediate access. Dimmed consciousness is for ahrimanic and luciferic beings the window or door through which they can enter the world and carry out their intention. They attack people when they are in a state of dimmed consciousness and take possession of them. Ahriman and Lucifer do not act in inexplicable terrifying ways but through human beings whose state of consciousness gives them access.

Those who in the future want to write a history of this war must discover where such dimmed states of consciousness occurred, where doors and windows were thrown open for the entry of ahrimanic and luciferic powers. In earlier times such things did not happen to the same extent in events of a similar kind. In order to describe the causes of events during earlier times what professors and historians find in archives will suffice, whereas in the case of present events something will remain unexplained over and above what is found in documents however well researched. This something is the penetration of certain spiritual powers into the human world through states of dimmed consciousness.

I spoke in an earlier lecture about how, in a certain region of the earth, conditions were prepared for decades so that at the right moment the appropriate ahrimanic forces could penetrate and influence mankind. Something of this nature took place in July and August of 1914 when an enormous flood, a veritable whirlpool, of spiritual impulses surged through Europe. That has to be rightly understood and taken into account. One simply does not understand reality if one is not prepared to approach it with concrete concepts derived from spiritual insight. To understand what is real, as opposed to what is unreal, at the present time spiritual science is an absolute necessity. Nothing can effectively be done in the political or any other sphere unless wide-awake consciousness is developed concerning events which must be approached with concepts and ideas gained from spiritual knowledge. Not that everything can be judged in stereotyped fashion according to spiritual science. But spiritual knowledge can stir us to alert participation in present issues, whereas a materialistic view of events allows us to sleep through things of greatest importance. A materialistic outlook prevents us from arriving at proper judgement of what the present asks of us.

A recognition of what here is at stake is what I so much want to be present as an undercurrent in our spiritual-scientific lectures and discussions, so that spiritual knowledge may become a vital force enabling souls to deal appropriately with outer life. It is essential to recognize not only the issues of spiritual science itself but also those of external life as they truly are. One must be able to arrive at judgements based on the symptoms to be seen everywhere.

I recently described the incredible superficiality with which a professor of Berlin University attacked Anthroposophy. I told you of the misrepresentations and slanders delivered by Max Dessoir.²¹ That such an individual should be a member of a learned body is part and parcel of the complexities of life today. Max Dessoir once wrote a history of psychology and mentions in the preface that he wrote it because the Berlin Academy of Science had offered a prize for a work on the subject. The history of psychology written by Max Dessoir is such a slovenly piece of work, containing fundamental errors that he withdrew it and prohibited further publication. Consequently not many copies are in circulation, though I have a reviewers copy and could say many things about it. For the moment I refer to it in my forth coming booklet concerned with attacks on Anthroposophy.

As I said Max Dessoir wrote a history of psychology and then withdrew it from circulation. But the fact remains that the Berlin Academy of Science did award it the prize. Such things should not be overlooked; they are symptomatic of what takes place nowadays. One must ask: who are the people who award such prizes? They are the very people who educate the younger generation; i.e., they educate those who will become leading figures in society. They also educated the generation which brought about the present situation in the world. It is necessary to see things in their true context and to recognize that all the symptoms reveal the need for that which alone can make our time comprehensible.

This again indicates what I wish so very much could flow as an undercurrent through our movement so that spiritual science would shake souls awake and make them alert observers of what really takes place in their surroundings. The occasion for sleep is in our time considerable and naturally ahrimanic and luciferic powers make use of every opportunity to divert the alert consciousness aroused by spiritual knowledge away from the real issues. The opportunities for dulling man's consciousness are plentiful. Someone who studies exclusively a special subject will certainly become ever more knowledgeable and clever in his particular field; yet the clarity of his consciousness may suffer as a result.—In speaking about these things one is skating on very thin ice.

While it is true that there are many things of which an initiate cannot speak at present because it could have terrible results, it is also true that there are things of which one can and indeed must speak. To give an example, there is a professor at a German university of whom much good could be said and I have no intention to say anything against the man. I want to give an objective characterization. He is a distinguished scholar of theology, has studied widely and his research in the domain of theology has made him very learned. Yet it has not made him awake and alert to what constitutes true reality. As professor of theology his task is to speak about religion, scripture and also about veneration and supersensible powers. This, for a modern professor of theology, is a rather uncomfortable task. Such learned men much prefer to speak about experiencing religion as such, about how it feels merely to approach the spiritual. This professor, as others like him, has a certain fear of the spiritual world, fear of defining or describing it in actual words and concepts. I have often spoken about this fear which is purely ahrimanic in origin. This professor has an inkling that he will meet Ahriman once he penetrates the material world and enters the spiritual world. He would then have to overcome Ahriman.

Here we see someone who as a theologian looks upon the beauty and the greatness of nature as a manifestation of the divine. But this aspect of nature he will not investigate for it is the beings of the Higher Hierarchies who reveal themselves through nature and to speak of them is not “scientific.” Nevertheless he does want to investigate the soul's religious experiences. However, in attempting investigation of this kind, without any wish to enter the spiritual world itself, one very easily succumbs instead to the very soul condition one is apt to experience when confronting Ahriman: the condition of fear. The religious experience of this theologian consists therefore partly of fear, of timidity in face of the unknown. The last thing he wants is to make the unknown into the known. He presumes that timidity and fear of the unknown—which stems from ahrimanic beings—is part and parcel of religious experience.

It is because he wants to describe the soul's religious experience but refuses to enter the realm of the Hierarchies who live behind the sense world that Ahriman darkens his comprehension of the spiritual world. Through the ahrimanic temptation the spiritual world appears as “the great unknown,” as “the irrational” and religious experience is confused with the “mystery of fear.”—Nor is that all, for just as Ahriman is waiting without when one seeks the spiritual world through external nature so does Lucifer wait within. The modern theologian of whom we are speaking also refuses to seek the Hierarchies within. Here again Lucifer makes the realm of the Hierarchies appear as "the great unknown" which the theologian refuses to make into the known. Yet he wants to know the soul's experience, so here he meets the opposite of the mystery of fear, namely the “mystery of fascination.” This is a realm in which we experience attraction, we become fascinated. The theologian now has on the one hand the mystery of fear and on the other the mystery of fascination; for him these two components constitute religious life.

Naturally there are critics today who feel that it is a great step forward when theology has, at last, got away from speaking about spiritual beings; no longer speaks of what is rational but about what is irrational; i.e., the mystery of fear and the mystery of fascination, the two ways to avoid entering the unknown. The book: Über das Heilige (About the Sacred) by professor Otto²² of Breslau University is certain to attain fame. This book sets out to derationalize everything to do with religious experience. It sets out to make everything vague, to make all feelings indefinite partly through fear of the unknown and also through fascination for the unknown. This view of religious life is certain to attract attention. People are bound to say that here, at last, the old fashioned idea of speaking about the spiritual world is done away with.

Anyone knowing something of Anthroposophy will recognize that in the case of this scholar there is a condition of dimmed consciousness. Such conditions frequently occur; philologists and researchers often fall into states of dimmed consciousness, especially when their investigations are within a limited field. In such conditions Ahriman and Lucifer have access to them. And why should Ahriman not prevent such a researcher from beholding the spiritual world by deluding him through the mystery of fear? And why should Lucifer not delude him through the mystery of fascination? There is no other remedy than clear awareness of the roles played by Ahriman and Lucifer, otherwise one is merely wallowing in nebulous feelings. Certainly feeling is a powerful element of the soul's life which should not be artificially suppressed by the intellect, but that is something different altogether from allowing a surge of indefinite feeling to obscure every concrete insight into the spiritual world.

One is reminded in this connection of something said by Hegel,²⁴ though it was cynical and purely speculative. Hegel was referring to Schleiermacher's²³ famous definition of religious feeling which, according to him, consisted of utter and complete dependence. This definition is not false but that is not the point. Hegel, who above all wanted to lead man to clear concepts and concrete views and certainly not to feelings of dependence, declared that if utter dependence was a criterion for being religious then a dog would be the best Christian. Similarly if fear is the criterion for religious feelings then one need only suffer an attack of hydrophobia in order to experience intensely the mystery of fear.

What I am bringing up in these lectures must be considered, not so much according to its theoretical content but rather as an indication of the kind of inner attitude which is indispensable if one wants to observe the conditions in the world as they truly are. And it is so very important to do so. No matter where or how one is placed in life one can either observe appropriately or be inappropriately asleep. What surges and pulsates through life comes to expression in small issues as well as in big ones and can be observed everywhere.

We are at the beginning of a time when it will be of particular importance that things I have indicated in these last lectures are kept very much in mind. Many people do arrive at awareness of a universal Godhead or a universal spirituality. Yet, as I demonstrated when I spoke about his article “Reason and Knowledge,” even someone of the stature of Hermann Bahr does not arrive at any real awareness of Christ. He allies himself with the most prominent Christian institution of the day, that of Rome. But despite all he says there is no sign in his “Reason and Knowledge” of any conscious search for the Christ Impulse. Yet the most pressing need in our time is to gain an ever clearer understanding of the Christ impulse.

In the course of the 19th Century there was a great upsurge of natural-scientific thinking and all its attendant results. One of the first results was theoretical materialism accompanied by atheism. It can be said that the materialists of the 19th Century positively revelled in atheism. But such tendencies are apt to reverse and the same kind of thinking which made human beings atheists—due to certain luciferic-ahrimanic impulses at work during the first upsurge of natural science—will make them pious once the first glow has faded. The teachings of Darwin can make people God-fearing as easily as it can make them atheists, it all depends which side of the coin turns up. What no one can become through Darwinism is a Christian; nor is that possible through natural science if one remains within its limits. To become a Christian something quite different is required; namely, an understanding of a certain fundamental attitude of soul. What exactly is meant?

Kant said that the world is our mental picture, for the mental pictures we make of the world are formed according to the way we are organized. I may mention, not for personal but for factual reasons, that this Kantianism is completely refuted in my books Truth and Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom. These works set out to show that when we form concepts about the world, and elaborate them mentally, we are not alienating ourselves from reality. We are born into a physical body to enable us to see objects through our eyes and hear them through our ears and so on. What is disclosed to us through our senses is not full reality, it is only half reality. This I also stressed in my book Riddles of Philosophy. It is just because we are organized the way we are that the world, seen through our senses, is in a certain sense what Orientals call Maya. In the activity of forming mental pictures of the world we add, by means of thoughts, that which we suppressed through the body. This is the relation between true reality and knowledge. The task of real knowledge and therefore real science is to turn half reality; i.e., semblance, into the complete reality. The world, as it first appears through our senses, is for us incomplete. This incompleteness is not due to the world but to us, and we, through our mental activity, restore it to full reality. These thoughts I venture to call Pauline thoughts in the realm of epistemology. For it is truly nothing else than carrying into the realm of philosophic epistemology, the Pauline epistemology that man, when he came into the world through the first Adam, beheld an inferior aspect of the world; its true form he would experience only in what he will become through Christ.

The introduction of theological formulae into epistemology is not the point; what matters is the kind of thinking employed. I venture to say that, though my Truth and Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom are philosophic works, the Pauline spirit lives in them. A bridge can be built from this philosophy to the Christ Spirit; just as a bridge can be built from natural science to the Father Spirit. By means of natural-scientific thinking the Christ Spirit cannot be attained. Consequently as long as Kantianism prevails in philosophy, representing as it does a viewpoint that belongs to pre-Christian times, philosophy will continue to cloud the issue of Christianity.

So you see that everything that happens, everything that is done in the world must be observed and understood on a deeper level. It is necessary, when assessing literary works today, to keep in view not only their verbal content but also the whole direction of the ideas employed. One must be able to evaluate what is fruitful in such works and what must be superceded. Then one will also find entry into those spheres which alone enables one to stay awake in the true sense. The terrible events taking place in our time must be seen as external symptoms, the real change of direction must start from within.

Let me mention in conclusion that before 1914 I pointed out how confused were the statements made by Woodrow Wilson.²⁵ At that time I was completely alone in that view. What I said can be found in a course of lectures I gave at Helsingfors in May and June 1913. At that time Woodrow Wilson had the literary world at his feet. Only certain writings of his had been translated into other languages and much was said about his “great, noble and unbiased” mind. Those who were of that opinion speak differently now; but whether insight or something different brought about the change of view is open to question. What is important now is to recognize that because spiritual science is directly related to true reality it enables one to form appropriate judgements. This is an urgent need in view of the empty abstraction on which most judgements are based at present. An example of the latter is Der Geistgehalt dieses Krieges (The Spiritual Import of this War) by George Simmel. It is an ingenious presentation and a prime example of ideas from which all content has been extracted. To read it is comparable to eating an orange from which all juice has been squeezed out. Yet the book was written by a distinguished philosopher and innovator of modern views. At the Berlin university he had a large following; the fact that he never had a thought worthy of the name did nothing to diminish his fame.

• 20. Wladimir Alexandrowitsch Suchomlinoff 1848–1926 Russian General
• 21. Max Dessoir 1867–1947 Philosopher and Psychologist
• 22. Rudolf Otto 1869–1937
• 24. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770–1831 German Philosopher
• 23. Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768–1834 Theologian and Philosopher
• 25. Woodrow Wilson 1856–1924 Professor of Philosophy, President of the U.S.A. 1913–1921

My dear friends, today I will continue with the difficult chapter we have undertaken to take on. In doing so, it will be necessary to refer to the various things that I have already mentioned in the last two lectures. Then today I would also like to create the basic lines and basic concepts in order to [the more exact geometrical relationships as well as] the interesting practical aspects of theosophy, to make them our own.

You know that we have tried to imagine four-dimensional space in its potentiality for the very reason that we can at least create some kind of concept about the so-called astral realm as well as about the higher realms, about higher existence in general. I have already indicated that entering the astral space, the astral world, is initially something tremendously confusing for the secret disciple. For those who have not studied these things in detail, who have not even studied them theoretically, who have not even studied Theosophy theoretically, it is extremely difficult to even begin to form an idea of the very different nature of the things and entities that confront us in the so-called astral world. Let us once again point out how great this diversity is.

As the simplest thing, I mentioned that we have to learn to read every number symmetrically. The secret student, who is only accustomed to reading numbers as they are read here in the physical world, will not be able to find his way through the labyrinth of the astral. If you have a number in the astral, for example 467, you have to read it as 764. You have to get used to reading everything symmetrically, to seeing everything symmetrically (in a mirror image). That is the basic condition. This is still easy as long as we are dealing with spatial structures or numbers. It becomes more difficult when we come to time relationships. When we come to time relationships, the matter also becomes symmetrical in the astral, in such a way that what comes later appears to us first and what comes earlier appears later. So when you observe astral processes, you also have to be able to read backwards from front to back. These things can only be hinted at, because they sometimes seem quite grotesque to those who have never had an idea of them. In the astral, the son is there first and then the father; in the physical, the egg is there first and then the chicken. In the physical, it is different. In the physical, birth comes first, and then the birth is an emergence of a new thing from an old one. In the astral, it is the other way around. There, the old emerges from the new. In the astral, what is paternal or maternal nature devours what is filial or daughterly nature for the appearance.

In Greek, you have a pretty allegory. The three gods Uranus, Kronos and Zeus symbolize the three worlds. Uranus represents the heavenly world: Devachan; Kronos represents the astral; Zeus the physical. Kronos is said to devour his children.” So in the astral, one does not give birth, but is consumed.

But things get very complicated when we look at the moral aspect of the astral plane. This also appears in a kind of reversal or mirror image. And that is why you can imagine how differently things appear when we interpret things as we are accustomed to interpreting them in the physical. In the astral, for example, we see a wild animal approaching us. This is not to be understood in the same way as in the physical. The wild animal is choking us. This is the appearance that someone who is accustomed to reading things in the same way as external events has. But the wild animal is in truth something that exists within ourselves, that lives in our own astral body and that is choking us. What approaches you as a strangler is rooted in your own desire. So you can experience that when you have a thought of revenge, this thought of revenge appears to you as a strangling angel that approaches you from outside and harasses you.

In truth, everything radiates from us [in the astral realm]. We must regard everything that we see approaching us in the astral as emanating from us (Figure 18). It comes from the sphere, from all sides, as if from infinite space, it penetrates into us. But in reality it is nothing other than what our own astral body sends out.

We only really read the astral [and only then] find the truth when we are able to bring the peripheral into the center, to see and interpret the peripheral as the central. The astral seems to come at you from all sides. Think of it this way: in reality, it is something that radiates out from you in all directions.

I would like to familiarize you with a term that is very important in occult training. It appears in a wide variety of works on occult research, but is rarely understood correctly. Those who have reached a certain level of occult development must learn to see everything that is still karmically predisposed in them – joy, lust, pain, and so on – in the astral outside world. If you think theosophically in the right sense, you will realize that the outer life, our body, in the present age is nothing more than a result, an average of two currents coming from opposite directions and merging into each other .

Imagine a current coming from the past and one coming from the future, and you have two currents that merge and actually intersect at every point (Figure 19). Imagine a red current in one direction and a blue current in the other direction. And now imagine, for example, four different points in this intersection. [Then, at each of these four points, we have] an interaction of these red and blue currents. [This is an image for the interaction of] four successive incarnations, where in each incarnation something comes towards us from one side [and something from the other]. You can always say to yourself, there is a current that comes towards you and a current that you bring with you. Man flows together out of these two currents.

You get an idea of it if you think of it this way. Today you sit here with different experiences, tomorrow at the same hour you will have a different set of events around you. Imagine the events that you will have by tomorrow are already all there. It would then be the same experience as if you were looking at a panorama. It would be as if you were approaching these events, as if these events were coming towards you spatially. So imagine that the stream that is coming towards you from the future brings you these events, then you have the events between today and tomorrow in this stream. You allow the future flowing towards you to be carried by the past.

In every period of time, your life is an intersection of two currents, one from the future to the present and the other from the present to the future. Where the currents meet, a congestion occurs. Everything that a person still has ahead of him must be seen emerging as an astral phenomenon. This is something that speaks an incredibly impressive language.

Imagine that the secret disciple [comes to the point in his development where he] is supposed to look into the astral world, where the senses are opened to him so that he would see emerging around him as outer phenomena in the astral world that which he would still have to experience before the end of the present period. This is a sight that is very powerful for every human being. We must therefore say that it is an important step in the course of occult training for the human being to be confronted with the astral panorama, the astral phenomenon, of what he still has to experience until the middle of the sixth root race, because that is how long our incarnations will last. The path opens up before him. No secret disciple will experience it differently, except that he sees as an external phenomenon what he still has to face in the near future up to the sixth root race.

When the disciple has advanced to the threshold, the question arises: Do you want to live through all this in the shortest conceivable time? Because that is what it is about for the one who wants to receive the initiation. If you think about it, you have your own future life in front of you as an external panorama in a moment. That, in turn, is what characterizes our view of the astral. For one person, it is something that makes them say, “No, I'm not going in there.” For another, on the other hand, it is something that makes them say, “I have to go in there.” This point in the process of development is called the 'threshold', the decision, and the phenomenon that one has there, oneself with everything that one still has to experience and live through, is called the 'guardian of the threshold'. The guardian of the threshold is therefore nothing other than our own future life. It is ourselves. Our own future life lies behind the threshold.

You see in this another peculiarity of the astral world of appearance, namely, that when the astral world is suddenly opened to someone through some event – and such events do occur in life – that person must first face something incomprehensible. It is a terrible sight, which could not be more confusing for those people upon whom, unprepared, the astral world suddenly breaks in through some event. It is therefore eminently good to know what we have now discussed, so that in the event of the astral world breaking in, one knows what to do. It may be a pathological event, a loosening between the physical body and the etheric body or between the etheric body and the astral body. Through such events, a person may be unexpectedly transported into the astral world and gain insights into astral life. If this happens, the person will come and say that he sees this or that apparition. He sees it and does not know how to read it, because he does not know that he has to read symmetrically, that he has to understand every wild animal that approaches him as a reflection of what lies within himself. Indeed, the astral powers and passions of man appear in Kamaloka in the most diverse forms of the animal world.

It is not a particularly beautiful sight to see people in Kamaloka who have just been reaped. At that moment they still have all their passions, urges, desires and cravings. Such a person in Kamaloka no longer has his physical body or etheric body, but in his astral body he still has everything that connected him to the physical world, that can only be satisfied through the physical body. Imagine an average citizen of the present day who has achieved nothing special in his past life and has not made any effort to achieve anything, who has never done much for his religious development, who may not have abandoned religion in theory, but practically, that is, in his feelings and attitudes, has thrown it overboard. In that case it is not a living element in him. What then is in his astral body? There are only things that can be satisfied through the physical organism. For example, he craves palate enjoyment. But the palate would have to be there for that, so that this desire can be satisfied. Or man craves for other pleasures, which can only be satisfied by setting his physical body in motion. Suppose he had such a craving, but the body was gone. Then all this lives in his astral body. This is the situation in which man finds himself when he has died without astral purification and cleansing. He still has the desire for the pleasures of the palate and the other things, but not the possibility of satisfying them. This is what causes the torment and horror of the life in Kamaloka. Therefore, the desire must be laid aside in Kamaloka if man dies without astral purification. Only when this astral body has learned that it can no longer satisfy its desires and wishes, that it must unlearn them, is it freed.

[In the astral world] the instincts and passions take on animal forms. As long as the person is embodied in the physical body, the shape of their astral body is somewhat based on this physical body. But when the outer body is gone, then the instincts, desires and passions, as they are in their animal [nature], come into their own in their own form. So in the astral world, a person is an image of their instincts and passions.

Because these astral beings can make use of other bodies, it is dangerous to let mediums enter into a trance when there is no clairvoyant is present to avert evil.

In the physical world, the lion is a plastic expression of certain passions, the tiger is an expression of other passions, and the cat is an expression of yet other passions. It is interesting to see how each animal is the plastic expression of a passion, of an urge.

In the astral, in Kamaloka, man is therefore approximately similar to [animal nature] through his passions. This is the source of the misunderstanding regarding the doctrine of transmigration of souls that has been attributed to Egyptian and Indian priests and teachers of wisdom. You should live in such a way that you do not incarnate as an animal, says this teaching. But this teaching never speaks of the physical life, but of the higher life, and its only aim was to persuade people on earth to lead such a life that after death in Kamaloka they would not have to develop their animal form. Those who develop the characteristics of a cat will appear in Kamaloka as a cat. The fact that one also appears as a human being in Kamaloka is the meaning of the rules of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. The true teachings have not been understood by the scholars; they only have an absurd idea of them.

Thus we have to deal with a complete mirror image of what we actually think and do here in the physical world in every area – in the areas of number, time and moral life – when we enter the astral realm. We must get used to reading symmetrically, because we must be able to do so when we enter the astral space.

The easiest way for a person to get used to reading symmetrically is to build on such elementary mathematical ideas as we have hinted at in the previous lecture and as we will get to know more and more in the following discussions. I would like to start with a very simple idea, namely the idea of a square. Imagine a square as you are accustomed to seeing it (Figure 20). I will draw the square so that the four sides are drawn in four different colors.

This is the physical appearance of the square. Now I would like to draw the devachan aspect of the square on the board. It is not possible to do this exactly, but I would like to give you an approximate idea of what a square would look like in the mind. The mental counter-image [of a square] is approximately like a cross (Figure 21).

We are dealing here mainly with two perpendicular intersecting axes. Two lines that pass through each other, and that's it. The physical counter-image is created by drawing perpendicular lines on each of these axes. The physical counter-image of a mental square can best be imagined as a congestion [of two mutually intersecting currents]. Let us imagine these perpendicular axis lines as currents, as forces that act outwards from the point of intersection, and let us imagine countercurrents to these currents, only now in the direction from outside to inside (Figure 22). A square then enters into the physical world by imagining these two types of currents or forces - one from the inside, the other from the outside - as accumulating against each other. The currents of force are thus limited by accumulations.

With this, I have given a picture of how everything mental relates to the physical. Likewise, you can construct the mental counterpart for any physical thing. The square here is only the simplest of examples.

If you could construct a correlative for every physical thing that corresponds to the physical world in the same way that two perpendicular lines correspond to a square, then you would obtain the devachan or mental image for every physical thing. With other things, it is of course much more complicated.

Now imagine a cube instead of a square. The cube is very similar to the square. The cube is a body that is bounded by six squares. Mr. Schouten made these six squares that bound the cube specially. Now, instead of the four bounding lines that are present in the square, imagine six bounding surfaces. Imagine that instead of vertical lines we have vertical surfaces as a kind of congestion, and then assume that you have not two but three axes standing on one another [vertically], and you have the boundary of the cube. Now you can also imagine what the mental correlate of the cube is. You have again two things that challenge each other reciprocally. The cube has three perpendicular axes and three surface directions; we have to think of congestion effects in these three surface directions (Figure 23). We cannot imagine the three axes and the six surfaces, as before the two axes and four lines, in any other relationship than by thinking of a certain contrast.

Anyone who reflects on this will have to admit that we cannot imagine this without forming a certain concept of the opposition, namely the opposition of activity and an obstruction, a counter-activity. You have to introduce the concept of opposition here. The matter is still simple here. By entwining ourselves around geometric concepts, we will be able to construct the mental counter-images of more complicated things in an appropriate way. Then we will find the way and to some extent reach higher knowledge. But you can already imagine the colossal complexity that arises when you think of another body and look for its mental counter-image. Many complicated things come to light. And if you were to imagine another person and their mental counterpart, with all their spatial forms and their activity, you can imagine the complicated mental structure that this produces. In my book 'Theosophy', I was only able to give a rough idea of what mental counter-images look like.

We have three dimensions, three axes in the cube. On each axis we have the corresponding perpendicular planes on both sides. So you must now be clear about the fact that the contrast I have spoken of is to be understood in such a way that you imagine each face of the cube as having come into being in a way similar to the way I described human life earlier, as the intersection of two currents. You can imagine currents emanating from the center point. Imagine space in one axial direction, flowing outwards from the center, and in the other direction, flowing in from infinity, another current. And this [imagine] flowing in two colors, one red, the other blue. At the moment they meet, they will flow into a surface, a surface will arise, so that we can assume the surface of the cube to be the meeting point of two opposing currents in a surface. This gives a vivid idea of what a cube is.

The cube is therefore an intersection of three currents acting on each other. If you think about it, you are not dealing with three, but with six directions: forward-backward, up-down, right-left. So you have six directions. And indeed, that is the case. Then the matter becomes even more complicated by the fact that you have two types of currents: One in the direction of a point, the other coming from infinity. This will give you a perspective on the practical application of the higher, theoretical theosophy. I have conceived every direction in space as two opposing currents. And if you then imagine a physical body, then you have in that physical body the result of these two currents running into each other.

Let us now denote these six currents, these six directions, with six letters a, b, c, d, e, f. If you could visualize these six directions or currents — we will come to being able to do this next time — and you would imagine the first and last, a and f, erased, then you would be left with four. And that is what I now ask you to take into account: these four that remain are the four that you can perceive when you see the astral world alone.

I have tried to give you an idea of the three [ordinary dimensions] and of three [further] dimensions that actually behave in the opposite way. It is through the interaction of these dimensions and their counteraction that physical bodies arise. But if you think a little way away from the physical [dimension] and a little way away from the mental on the other side, you are left with four dimensions. These then represent the astral world existing between the physical and mental worlds.

The theosophist's view of the world is such that it necessarily has to work with a higher sense of geometry that goes beyond ordinary geometry. The ordinary geometer describes the cube as bounded by six squares. We must understand the cube as the result of six currents running into each other, that is, as the result of a movement and its reversal, of the interaction of opposing forces.

I would like to show you another such concept outside in nature, where a real contrast has taken place that contains a deep secret of the world's development before the eyes of man. In the “Fairytale of the Snake and the Lily”, Goethe speaks of the “revealed secret”, and that is one of the truest and wisest words that can be spoken at all. It is true, there are secrets in nature that can be grasped with hands, but are not seen by people. We are dealing with reversal processes in nature in many cases. I would like to show you one such reversal process.

Let us compare humans with plants. When compared to plants, humans behave as follows. What I am about to say is not a game, even if it initially seems like one. It is something that points to a deep mystery. What does a plant have in the ground? Its roots. And upwards it develops stems, leaves, flowers and fruit. The main part of the plant, the root, is in the earth, and the organs of reproduction it develops upwards, towards the sun, which we can call the chaste way of reproducing. Imagine the whole plant turned upside down, with the root becoming the head of a human being. Then you have the opposite of the plant in the human being, who has his head at the top and his reproductive organs at the bottom. And the animal is in the middle of it all, as a stowage. If you turn the plant upside down, you get a human being. That is why the occultists of all times draw this with three lines (Figure 24).

One [line] as the symbol of the plant, one as the [symbol] of the human being, and one in the opposite direction as the [symbol] of the animal – three lines that together form the cross. The animal has the transverse position, it thus crosses what we have in common with the plant.

You know that we speak of an all-soul, of which Plato says that it is crucified to the cosmic body, that it is chained to the cross of the cosmic body.? Imagine the world soul as plant, animal and human being, and you have the cross. By living in these three realms, the world soul is chained to this cross. As a result, you will find the concept of congestion expanded. You will find it expanded by something in nature. Two complementary, diverging, but interlocking currents form plants and humans, with congestion being the animal. Thus, the animal actually places itself between an upward and a downward current. In this way, the Kamaloka [astral sphere] interposes itself between Devachan and the physical world. Thus, something interposes itself between these two symmetrical worlds, between Devachan and the physical world, and acts between them, acting on both sides like a dam. The outer expression of this Kamaloka world is the animal world.

Those who already have organs for this world, which must be grasped with strength, will recognize what we see in the three kingdoms in their mutual relationship to one another. If you understand the animal kingdom as emerging from a congestion, if you understand the three kingdoms as mutual congestion, then you will find the position that the plant kingdom has to the animal kingdom and the animal kingdom to the human kingdom. The animal is perpendicular to the other two directions, and the other two are two complementary currents that merge into each other. The lower realm serves the higher realm as food. This is something that allows a small glimpse of the very different kind of relationship between humans and plants and between animals and humans. Those who feed on animals are therefore related to a congestion.

The real effect consists in the encounter of opposing currents. This is the beginning of a series of thoughts that you may later see in a strange and very different way.

We have seen that the square is created when two axes are intersected by lines. The cube is created by intersecting three axes through surfaces. Can you now imagine four axes intersecting through something? The cube is the boundary of the spatial structure that is created when four axes are intersected.

The square limits the three-dimensional cube. Next time, we will see whose boundary the cube itself is. The cube bounds a four-dimensional structure.

Answering Questions

[What does it mean to] imagine six currents, of which two must be imagined as having been extinguished, and so on?

The six currents must be thought of as two times three currents: three acting from the inside out according to the three axial directions, and the other three as flowing towards these from infinity. For each axial direction, there are thus two types, one going from the inside out, the other coming from the outside in the opposite direction. If we call the two categories positive and negative, plus and minus, we have:

math figur

And of this [in order to get to the astral space, we have to] imagine an entire direction, [for example the] inner and outer flow, erased, so for example +a and -a.

Emil Leinhas opens the meeting. Various speakers then take the floor, including Emil Grosheintz. Finally, Rudolf Steiner answers some of the questions raised.

Rudolf Steiner: So a number of questions have been asked. We can continue the discussion afterwards. I can take up some of the questions that have been asked here and would like to come back to the last one, the one from Dr. Grosheintz.

It is understandable that, especially in recent decades, efforts have repeatedly emerged from various social ideas to determine how much work humanity [as a whole] has to do if humanity is to make progress with this amount of work. Naturally, labor would be best utilized economically if only as much labor were performed as is necessary for what humanity wants to consume. And it is indeed very difficult to provide more than rough estimates of these things. But in various circles in which efforts have been made to get to the bottom of this question – it is not particularly easy – it has been possible to form an idea of how much manual labor, that is, simple human labor, is being squandered in the present. Of course, it is not possible to know for sure if one approaches the question not in a dilettantish but in a proper manner, but we can at least say the following for a part of human labor, for physical labor. If we assume that everyone would perform physical work according to their physical abilities, then it would be necessary for every person within the civilized world – excluding the “savages” – to work about 2½ to 3 hours a day. This means that if every person works physically about 2½ to 3 hours a day, the necessary labor for humanity would be provided. Of course, this is only an approximate principle to give a general direction, because in practice it turns out that some people have to work more physically and others less. For example, someone who has to do particularly intellectual work may not be burdened with physical labor; then someone else will have to work more. But if you compare that with the amount of physical labor that is done today, then it can be said that by far the greatest part of humanity has to work so long that much more is expended in labor than would actually have to be expended, probably — and again this is an approximation — five to six times as much physical labor. So you see how much human labor is actually wasted today due to the inefficiency that exists. Much more than one might think is wasted. This is what would come about today through the [realization of the] threefold social order and what those who have no practical sense are so reluctant to accept.

How little people today have a practical sense is evident at every turn, particularly in the judgments that are brought to bear on the impulse of the threefold social organism. What is not at all willing to be understood is that today, in the face of what is going under, it is necessary to develop new spiritual forces; and because it is not understood, these spiritual forces must today, I would say, penetrate through the cracks of the social order if they are to be effective at all. For no cultivation of the spirit can arise from that which a state can order and organize. It is a complete illusion to believe that any cultivation of the spirit can arise from state administration. All state decrees regarding intellectual life are partly a desire for recognition and partly commercial profiteering, and what is then actually achieved intellectually is achieved despite these decrees. Roughly speaking, if there are still children learning something today, they do not learn because of the state, but in spite of the state, because a great deal can still be done in schools against the school laws. And what happens in the sense of the school laws does not develop the spiritual forces, but hinders spiritual development. In a free spiritual life, on the other hand, the forces of human beings would first be revealed, above all by the fact that people who have been educated in such a free spiritual life and then introduced to legal and economic life would really have an overview of the individual areas of life, would be able to act economically and would be able to organize that which cannot be organized today. Today, one can indeed despair when one sees, for all I care, how businesses are organized. Anyone who can think a little and is forced to follow the way in which business is conducted will immediately see that in these cases ten times the amount of energy is wasted because there is nowhere enough will to contract and combine the forces economically, but because one approaches things as broadly as possible. Above all, it is a matter of really recognizing the people who work together through associative life – one must first recognize them if one wants to establish economic life. It is only through the threefold social organism that this economy becomes possible, and the waste of resources will gradually cease.

Some questions – especially those that have been put to me here – show how difficult it actually is for people to find their way into a way of thinking that is completely in line with reality, as it underlies the impulse of the threefold social order. You see, people today are actually as if they did not stand with their feet on the ground at all, but as if they were constantly hovering above reality and stretching their heads up so that they feel as little of reality as possible. The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore used a very apt image for today's Western European cultural man, comparing him to a giraffe, whose head extends far above its body and detaches itself from the rest of the human being. And so it happens that one cannot imagine how this impulse of the threefold social order is derived from a real life practice and how it can never depend on doing any kind of purely theoretical foolishness in these areas.

I would like to say this in advance when I now read the following question to you:

Could a form be conceived within the three-fold social organism that would be suitable for absorbing the feelings of that part of the people who, by the nature of their character, voluntarily submit to and trust a monarchical principle?

Were not the ideas of the threefold social organism first offered to the old regime?

Well, I would have to give a lecture if I were to answer the question appropriately. I will only hint at a few things: “Could a form be imagined within the threefolded social organism that would be suitable for absorbing the feelings of that part of the people who, by nature, voluntarily submit to and trust a monarchical principle?” I would like to know how much of the content of this sentence is taken from true, realistic thinking! If one wants to follow the impulse of the threefold social order, then one must think practically, that is, realistically. Now, of course, one must take something concrete. Let us take the former German Reich. Let us take the last decades of this former German Reich, of these people who “out of their feelings or out of their nature voluntarily bring subordination and trust to a monarchical principle”. I would like to ask you: where did they exist? Of course, there were those who, in the upper reaches of their intellect, gave themselves over to some illusions in this regard. But take the “monarchical principle” of the former German Reich: who ruled there? Wilhelm II, perhaps? He really could not govern, but it was more a matter of the fact that there was a certain military caste that maintained the fiction that this Wilhelm II meant something - he was, after all, only a figurant with theatrical and comical airs, who comically paraded all sorts of stuff in the world. It was a kind of theater play, maintained by a military caste, which did not act out of mere “nature” and “voluntary subordination and trust,” but out of something quite different, out of all kinds of old habits, conveniences, out of the belief that it just had to be that way - a belief that was not, however, deeply rooted in the human breast. So this whole thing lay, and it was held more than that it really ruled. That has become apparent in the last week of July 1914. I have only hinted at this in my “Key Points” by saying that everything had come to naught. But it is thoroughly grounded in the facts. Then, in addition to what came out of the military chests, this comedy was held together in the last decades by the even more disgusting nature of big industry and big business, which added up and which, from a completely internal point of view, was based on dishonest impulses and thus maintained this monarchical principle.

Now let us again take a single specific moment from which we can see what is actually meant in reality, apart from the conventional lies that maintain something like this out of people's prejudices – which is called the “monarchical principle”. On a certain day in 1917 – you all know it – Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was dismissed as German Chancellor. If you follow this dismissal down to the last detail, you will find who dismissed this man – this man who, of course, played an almost monarchical role in this ill-fated Germany for quite a long time before and after. Who actually dismissed Theobald von Bethmann? You see, it was the fat Mr. Erzberger – and not Wilhelm II, who did not play the slightest role in this. Very few people know what actually happened back then, what fat Mr. Erzberger actually did, how he actually exercised monarchical power in those days, because very few people actually care about what is really going on, but let themselves be lulled by all sorts of things.

When one reflects on something like the “principle of monarchy”, then one must start with the concrete facts, and then one must be clear about what reality consists of, whether it is monarchism or not. Do you think that in today's England, that personality reigns who, in the pictures we get to see, does not really make a very intelligent impression and who is always referred to in government decrees as “His British Majesty's Government”? No, look at England today, and see how the whole country is following Lloyd George and how he is actually exercising monarchical power. Please look at how things are in the so-called republics, see how things are really quite different from the way people believe them to be according to clichéd words and caricatured concepts. But it is essential that, if truth is to take the place of lies, questions must be asked from the basis of reality. Therefore, when speaking of the threefold social organism, the question cannot truly be raised: Would any Lloyd George with monarchical airs be conceivable? The threefold social order says something very definite about its three members: spiritual life, legal life and economic life. The things will already arise; just as the other people in such an organism get the position appropriate to their abilities, so will there also be “monarchs”.

But it seems as if the crux of the question lies in the last few lines: “Were the ideas of threefolding offered for the first time to the old regime?” Yes, but to whom should they have been offered? They had to be offered to those who could do something. What would have come of it is another matter. The point was to look for people from all over who could base what they did on the impulse of threefolding. Yes, what use would it have been, for example, when the Peace of Brest-Litovsk was in prospect, to somehow shout out to the world in those days: abstract principle! What use would it have been; it would not even have been possible. The point would have been to incorporate the threefolding idea into the actual deeds of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk; the point would have been to conclude this peace in such a way that it would have been concluded under the influence of this impulse.

My dear attendees, it was shortly after the Peace of Brest-Litovsk that I came to Berlin and spoke to a gentleman who was in many ways Ludendorff's right-hand man. At that time, it was already clear to those who could know such things what devastation the entire peace agreement of Brest-Litovsk would cause. Furthermore, it was clear that a major spring offensive would begin in the spring.

And I traveled to Berlin via Karlsruhe. It was in January. At that time, it was well known that if there was a crash in former Germany, Prince Max of Baden would become Chancellor of the Reich. I also spoke with Prince Max of Baden in January about the threefold

of the social organism, because it would have been a matter of the power of the impulses of the threefold social organism naturally having an effect on the directly concrete, real facts. Before the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a long time before, when there was truly still enough time, I put forward the whole idea of the threefold social organism to Mr. von Kühlmann in such a way that I made it clear: From America come the crazy ideas and proposals and crazy ideas, the crazy Fourteen Points, which are absolutely abstract and will lead the world into nothingness, and the only thing that could really be done from the European side would be to counter this with this great world program of the threefold social order.

I would have liked to have seen, my dear audience, what it would have meant in those days if someone in an authoritative position had had the courage to counter the zero program of the West with a real, substantial, real-political program, such as the impulses of the threefold social organism! And even if some people to whom I presented the matter said: “Well, write a pamphlet or a book about it!” – [So I had to answer:] ”What really matters is not whether things are published, but how they enter the world of facts.

Now, the conversation I had with Mr. von Kühlmann – the content of which can still be proven today, because the gentleman who was with me is still alive, thank God, and hopefully will be for a long time. The conversation ended with Mr. von Kühlmann telling me in his own way: I am just a limited soul. Mr. von Kühlmann meant, of course, that he also has other statesmen around him and that he is limited in his resolutions; but I thought of a different interpretation of this saying.

Well, I came to Berlin in the spring, and spoke with a gentleman who, as I said, was very close to Ludendorff, and I wanted to make clear what an absurdity it is to undertake the spring offensive, which he spoke of at the time as one was allowed to speak about it. I said: Of course one cannot and must not interfere in strategic matters if one is not a military man, but I am proceeding from all the preconditions that do not play any part in strategy. I assume that Ludendorff achieves everything he can possibly imagine achieving, or if all of Ludendorff's ideas are not achieved, then if he does not achieve them, the effect of the unfortunate war is still the same. At the time, it was possible to clearly show that the effect would have to be exactly the same; and that is what happened later; it is the case now. Then the Lord said to me, although I was constantly afraid that he would return to his chair, from which he had jumped up, he was so nervous: What do you want? Kühlmann had the threefold order in his pocket, and with it in his pocket he went to Brest-Litovsk. Our politicians are nothing, our politicians are zeros. We military have no other obligation than to fight, to fight. We know nothing else!

You see, in the old days things were really offered to the old regime first – it is not a matter of coming up with ideas out of the blue, but really of looking for ways in which they can be realized. Then, ladies and gentlemen, there was the time when I only had access to those parts of the world where it gradually became a rather impractical question to ask how one should behave towards monarchs and what one could do there in regarding the threefold order – other areas are not initially available to me; I am not yet allowed into pseudo-monarchical England, hyper-monarchical America and thoroughly republican-monarchical France, and so on. Those who are grounded in reality will truly not continue to discuss the highly impractical question of how one should behave towards the monarchical principle, because this monarchical principle will not be able to dominate in any way, it will sit in completely obscure corners and will certainly not necessitate a serious discussion in the near future - on the contrary, today completely different things are in need of discussion.

And I only ask you, dear readers, to read my essay on “Shadow Coups” in the threefolding newspaper, in which I tried to show how unnecessary the agitation of the more left-wing pages was against the whole Kapp comedy. Because ultimately, the way things were at the time, the left was no better than the right, and it didn't matter which side was doing the absurd. Now it is a matter of seeking reality only and exclusively, of bringing the threefold order into as many minds as possible, so that they can then carry the threefold order idea. That is the only reality. It may take a very long time if adversity does not shorten it. But more care will have to be taken to bring this threefold order idea into the minds of those who are capable of it. That it has not yet taken root in the minds of the leading figures is shown, for example, by the fact that on the German side, even in Spa, those who are still regarded as leaders are still those who were also regarded as leaders in the past and in whose heads the idea of threefolding certainly does not enter. So you see, it is really not a matter of wasting thought on asking such unrealistic questions, but it is really a matter of working in the spirit of the threefolding idea, so that this threefolding idea enters as many minds as possible. The question today is not whether we should think about how people voluntarily submit, not even to a monarch, but to a monarchical principle, placing their trust in it and so on; whether or not we think about it seems to me to be a matter of indifference. It is completely unnecessary to devote oneself to such false thoughts when one is really dealing with something that wants to work entirely out of reality. I will only touch on the other questions very briefly, as this closing statement has undoubtedly taken too long already:

Will it be possible to have associations without spiritual research? Is it possible to recognize whether someone will develop an invention after years or whether he is just a botcher?

Now, you see, these questions are not based on a proper examination of what the associations will be. Of course, the difficulties that lie in human nature will always be there. The pure belief that one can build earthly paradises is erroneous. Certain difficulties will, of course, always be there. But the decision as to whether or not an invention has any prospects of success must be made by the individual, today as much as in the future. The only difference is that today the individual is dependent on himself or on some traditions. If associations are present, however, he is connected with everything that is associated and what can come out of the people connected with him through their associations. So the judgment that has to be made about such things is essentially supported and carried by the fact that people are connected through associations.

Recently, I have often used an example to show how one can be a very clever person today without coming to a judgment about the capacity of this or that. I then gave the example that there have been people in all kinds of parliaments, educated in practice, who, from the mid-19th century onwards, advocated the gold standard by claiming and substantiating that the gold standard would lead to free trade and thus to such a configuration of trade that they imagined it would be particularly favorable for international human relations. The opposite has occurred: the gold standard has led everywhere to the system of protective tariffs. I have said that I do not claim that the people who predicted that the gold standard would lead to free trade were all stupid, even though it has led everywhere to protective tariffs. For the most part, they were very, very clever people. Read the parliamentary speeches that were delivered in large numbers in the most diverse parliaments about the gold standard, and you will see that very clever things were said about the gold standard. But the whole mechanism of public economic life was individualized, and the individual was not in a position to see the bigger picture. No matter how clever he was, he was not in a position to gain his own experience.

This experience can only come from being part of the whole fabric of associations, from knowing who knows something about this, who knows something about that, yes, who knows anything at all as an individual - not just because the person concerned has been appointed from some position, but because you have dealt with him in the fabric of associations in so-and-so many cases. The connecting element of this associative fabric is something that must arise out of trust. And so one can say: there is no either/or at all in life. But what makes it difficult for people today to recognize whether something that is invented will bear fruit in human life will, to a large extent, be lost in associative life. One must think of things in the big picture. It is truly disheartening when someone says to you, “Well, I agree; everything must become new, everything must take on different forms, and you tell me what these different forms should be.” But then tell me, what will my grocery store look like when these new forms are in place? Yes, my dear audience, it might perhaps be necessary to tell him that such a shop would no longer exist in that form. Then, of course, he would be quite dissatisfied with the answer. The threefold order is concerned everywhere with something that can be tackled directly every day and that will progress as quickly as the people capable of doing so are available. It could happen very quickly.

Only, if you want to tackle it practically, you cannot ask:

Where does a device begin to be a means of production, for example a sewing machine? Does it become a means of production only when I no longer use it just for my own use, and am I then no longer allowed to use it as something for myself?

Yes, my dear audience, when such big questions are at stake as they are today, you really cannot take the answer from a very limited circle; that is impossible. I guarantee you that when the threefold social order is realized, you will have a relationship to your sewing machine that is satisfying. For one usually does not even consider that the sewing machine and the like, for all I care hair combs or the like, can indeed be means of production, because means of production is everything that enables me to carry out my profession. So, you cannot limit the concept of means of production in that way. What it is about is that one should not think so narrowly at all. Just think about it, here is a church, here is the second church - I am choosing an example that is common in Catholicism. Let us assume that Father N lives here (he is drawn on the board). This priest says mass every day, says vespers on Sundays and so on; that is when he puts on his vestments. These vestments that he puts on as vestments all belong to the church. If the pastor N. is transferred, for example from church A to church B, he does not take any of the chasubles with him; it all stays with church A. And there, in church B, he again puts on the chasubles that belong to that church, if one can speak of “belonging”, but you know what I mean.

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When it comes to chasubles, you have a completely different relationship to the things associated with the profession than you do to a sewing machine or typewriter that you take with you when you travel from one place to another. I am not saying that the same order should be introduced for the sewing machine in the future as applies to chasubles. As you can see, there are various possibilities for getting what you need to do your work. So we should not think narrowly when it comes to the great issues of the world today. We should not let our concern for our sewing machine confuse our thinking about the threefold social order. The third question is even stranger:

What happens when someone does not want to step down, when they can no longer manage the means of production themselves? Or, if they do not want to step down, will they be forced out? Who will be able to see through it and tell them that they should leave?

Well, these are such terribly abstract questions that they do not arise for anyone who sees the course of events in the reality of the threefold social order. Read my “Key Points”; in the reality of the threefold social order there are innumerable means of forcing someone to resign. And besides, one must only bear in mind that with the threefold social order – and this is the essential point – the whole relationship of the human being to society changes. One thinks, doesn't one: How will it happen at all, that one now appoints one's successor? One should not ask such questions, which are so far removed from reality. One must ask such questions in a very concrete way, based on the experience of the facts. Let us say that someone becomes incapable, incapable due to mental deficiency, and due to this mental deficiency he reaches the point where he can no longer manage any business. Now, in most cases, someone who sees that he is reaching the point of mental deficiency and can no longer find his way around will hire someone to help him. Then the succession will already emerge from this relationship. If the situation is not as I have described, then in real life quite different, but always quite specific circumstances will arise. So if someone does not want to go, life will show him that he must. Because the one who is not capable will no longer find anyone who wants to work with him, and he will then no longer be able to run his business profitably.

So things turn out quite differently in real life than in theory. And that is why it is important to approach things with realistic thinking that puts oneself in the position of real, practical life. If you hear people talking about such things at a socialist meeting today, you will hear all sorts of things being said, because no one is talking about reality. And how could the proletariat, which had been allowed to grow up in this way, without anyone taking an interest in it, which had been put to the machine, which had not got to know real life, real connections, how could the proletariat have an understanding of anything other than completely unworldly theories? But that is the problem: the world has ended because of such unworldly theories, and no new structure is emerging. That is the problem: we must use every possible means to point to reality and grasp everything from reality. That is what matters.

[On the banks of the great river, swollen and overflowing after heavy rains, the old ferryman lay in his little hut, tired from the day's exertions, and slept.

The ferryman – the lower forces of nature – rests on the far bank – the mental plane – of the river – the astral desire plan.

Then two will-o'-the-wisps come along: people in whom only Kama-Manas lives, that is, the lower mind, which draws its knowledge from the lower material plane. The will-o'-the-wisps want to pay the ferryman with their gold, which they shake out of themselves. He has no use for that; the lower mind cannot control the lower forces of nature. The ferryman gathers up the gold knowledge in horror.

If a piece of gold had fallen into the water, the stream,

— the passion —

which this metal cannot endure,

— gold and knowledge stir up the passions —

rose in terrible waves, engulfing the ship and me. And who knows how it would have gone for you! Take your money back with you,

says the ferryman.

We cannot take back what we have shaken off,

say the will-o'-the-wisps. Quite right too; earthly wisdom cannot pick up what it has let go. The ferryman demands his reward from the will-o'-the-wisps: fruits of the earth; three cabbages, three onions, three artichokes. The will-o'-the-wisps cannot give them to him, but they promise to get them. The ferryman carefully collects the gold in his cap and sails along the river to a rocky area on the same side where the will-o'-the-wisps are, who call to him in vain once more, where the water can never reach it, and pours the dangerous gold into a huge crevice; then he returns to his hut.

In this crevice [was] the beautiful green snake,

— the higher Manas —

which was awakened from its slumber by the coin falling down.

She devours the gold with eagerness, which melts in her interior and illuminates her, causing her joy and pleasure. Then she seeks the giver of the gold, paying no attention to hardships and dangers.

Very tired, she finally came to a damp reed where our two will-o'-the-wisps were playing now and then.

She is pleased to find kinship in them. The will-o'-the-wisps also greet her warmly, but say that they are

only related by appearance.

The snake feels uncomfortable in the presence of her acquaintance; she cannot stretch up to them and fears losing her own appearance. She asks the gentlemen about the origin of the gold, which she believes came down from the sky as a shower of gold. The will-o'-the-wisps shake with laughter and scatter new gold, which the snake devours with greed and thus becomes ever more radiant, while the will-o'-the-wisps diminish and shrink, but always remain merry. The snake wants to show her gratitude and promises to serve them.

The will-o'-the-wisps ask for directions to the beautiful lily – the highest bliss – and learn to their dismay and sorrow that she lives beyond the water, where they come from. They ask the snake to call the ferryman for them so that he will take them back across. To their dismay, they learn that the ferryman is allowed to ferry anyone across, but no one back across. Into the [earthly] world we are transported by natural forces, but back to the higher world, man must transport himself.

The will-o'-the-wisps ask how this can be done. The snake gives them two options: she herself offers to ferry them across at noon. But this hour does not suit the gentlemen. The second option is offered by the giant – Death – whose body is powerless, but whose shadow – sleep, deep sleep, trance –

much, yes everything

can do. His shadow lies over the river in the evening and in the morning, and the gentlemen could use that as a bridge. The will-o'-the-wisps move away, the snake is glad to be rid of them. She returns to her rocky gorge. There she has already made a strange discovery. Through a crevice in the rocks, she had come to a place where she found things that were foreign to her. Until then, she had only encountered natural products, which she could easily distinguish by touch even in underground spaces: the pointed crystals, the

hooks and hairs of solid silver,

and she also brought many a precious stone up to the light. At the mentioned place, now, to her great astonishment, she found smooth walls and things made by human hands; beautiful columns and so on and human figures, around which she had wrapped herself and looked at them. She now wanted to examine these things, too, by means of her sight, now that she had become luminous, in order to get a complete idea of them. With her light she could not quite illuminate the cave in which she had entered by the familiar route, but she recognized the individual objects she came close to. In a niche stood the portrait of a king, made entirely of pure gold. Although depicted in superhuman size, it seemed to

the likeness of a little rather than a large man.

The golden king

asked, 'Where comest thou?' 'From the crevices,' answered the snake, 'where gold dwells.' 'What is more glorious than gold?' asked the king. 'The light,' replied the snake. 'What is more refreshing than light?' asked the king. 'Conversation,' answered the snake.

In the next niche sat a silver king - Budhi -

of long and rather slight build,

adorned with a magnificent robe,

crown, belt and scepter, adorned with precious stones. He wore the serenity of pride on his face and seemed about to speak when, on the marble wall, a vein that ran dark through it suddenly brightened and a pleasant light spread through the entire temple. In this light, the snake saw the third king, who sat there in the mighty form of a god, leaning on his club, adorned with a laurel wreath, and looking more like a rock than a human being. She wanted to look for the fourth king, who was standing at the greatest distance from her, but the wall opened up, with the illuminated vein flashing like lightning and disappearing.

A man dressed in rustic clothes entered, holding a small lamp,

whose quiet flame one gladly gazed into and which, in a wonderful way, without casting even a single shadow, illuminated the entire cathedral.

The man with the lamp is religion.

“Why do you come when we have light?” asked the golden King, the Thinker. You know that I am not allowed to illuminate the dark.

The power of religion only has an illuminating effect when it is met by another power. Religion must be met by faith, otherwise it cannot illuminate people.

“Is my kingdom coming to an end?” asked the Silver King

— Budhi, the spirit of life, the spiritual body.

“It's either that or never,” replied the old man. “When will I arise?”

— that is, gain my sovereignty — the brazen king — the spirit man, Atma —

to ask. 'Soon,' the old man replied. 'With whom shall I unite?' asked the king. 'With your elder brothers,' said the old man. 'What will become of the youngest?' asked the king. 'He will sit down'

- an expression for the laying down of the rule -

said the old man. 'I am not tired,' cried the fourth king in a hoarse, stammering voice.

The fourth king is a symbol for the four lower, perishable basic parts of man; thus:

firstly, the physical body,

secondly, the etheric body – linga sharira,

thirdly, the sentient soul body – astral body, and fourthly, the mind soul – lower manas, kama manas – that is, the mind, the power of thought, which is still and desires, and is therefore incapable of recognizing the higher, the divine, the higher Manas, the real thinker, the true human being, and even less the spiritual man, Atma. Meanwhile, the snake had crept around the temple

and now saw the fourth king near by. He was leaning against a column, and his stately figure was rather heavy than beautiful. Only the metal from which he was cast could not easily be distinguished. On closer inspection, it was a mixture of the three metals from which his brothers were formed. But at the casting, these materials did not seem to have melted together properly; golden and silver veins ran irregularly through a brazen mass, giving the image an unpleasant appearance.

Meanwhile, the golden king said to the man, “How many secrets do you know?” — “Three,” the old man replied. “Which is the most important?” asked the silver king. “The Manifest,” answered the old man. ‘Will you then reveal it to us?’ asked the brazen king. ‘I will do so as soon as I know the fourth,’ said the old man. ‘What do I care!’ murmured the composite king to himself. ‘I know the fourth,’ said the snake, approaching the old man and hissing something in his ear. ‘It is time!’ shouted the old man in a mighty voice. The temple resounded, the metal statues sounded, and in that moment the old man sank to the west and the snake to the east, each sweeping through the crevices of the rocks with great speed.

The rock that is described here is a description of the ancient mystery temples, where the disciples were initiated into the mysteries of existence. The basic parts of the human being were symbolically depicted there. There are still many such temples in India, and since the spiritual life no longer permeates people as it did in ancient times, when the intellect and reason were not yet developed, they have been abandoned and destroyed and demolished by wild hands; even as ruins, they still make a magnificent, sometimes horrifying impression. The figures that are symbolically depicted there and that present a hideous image to our eyes were once, when viewed with the eye of the mind, a means to first understand the higher life and then, after reaching maturity, to see it for oneself. We Westerners see them only as hideous idols; the Oriental sees through the outer form to the meaning of the symbols. They have not yet developed a sense of beauty for form. In ancient times, when the grotesque images were created, the external form was so unimportant to them that they used it only to express an idea, just as we now use language, written language, as a medium to communicate to our fellow human beings the things we have grasped in our minds. The crude way in which we Westerners often judge these things, the proselytizing that sought its mission in the destruction of “idols,” testifies to a complete ignorance of these things.

The snake whispered in the old man's ear that it was ready to sacrifice itself completely, and then the old man cries:

It is time!

whereupon the temple resounds. We don't need oriental wisdom to understand this “resonance”. Goethe gives us an explanation in his “Faust” prologue in heaven:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In brotherly spheres of competitive song.

Heaven – the Devachan – is the plane where it resounds. Sound has its realm there.

Resounding for spiritual ears
The new day is already born!

The snake, the intellect that seeks enlightenment, goes east, the man with the lamp – religion – goes west.

All the passageways through which the old man walked were immediately filled with gold behind him; for his lamp had the wonderful property of transforming all stones into gold, all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and crushing all metals. But to show this effect, it had to shine all alone; if another light was beside it, it only had a beautiful, bright glow, and all living things were always refreshed by it.

The old man entered his hut, which was built against the mountain, and found his wife in the greatest distress. She sat by the fire and wept, and could not be consoled. “How unhappy I am,” she exclaimed; “I did not want to let you go today!”

In answer to the husband's question, the wife tells him that during his absence two gentlemen – the will-o'-the-wisps – had been with her and behaved very intrusively.

"And just look around you at the state of the walls; just look at the old stones that I haven't seen in a hundred years: they have licked all the gold off, you wouldn't believe how nimbly, and they kept assuring me that it tastes much better than ordinary gold.

Then they became more and more insolent, caressed her, and called her queen, shook herself so that a quantity of gold pieces were scattered about, and to make matters worse, her pug dog ate some of them, and now he was lying dead by the fireside.

“I only saw it after they had gone, otherwise I would not have promised to pay off her debt to the ferryman.” “What is she indebted for?” asked the old man. “Three cabbages,” said the woman, “

The old woman is the soul, the ordinary sensual life of man. The will-o'-the-wisps – rational science – lick up the gold – historical knowledge – and scatter it again. It flatters the lower nature, but has no invigorating power; the pug that eats of it dies. Natural science denies the power of life, and without the invigorating power of the lamp – the light that religion brings – life dies through dead knowledge. In the first round, the mineral kingdom contains the form for wisdom. Three times three is nine – human sensuality. Three cabbages, three onions, three artichokes. Man has passed through the three kingdoms. The woman pays for the torrent of passions with fruits of the earth. The cabbage, the shellfish, [represents] the leaves; the onion, the essence, which consists of covers, [represents] the root; the artichoke [represents] the fruit. She [the old man's wife with the lamp] has to pay this [tribute] to the stream.

“You may do them the favor,” said the old man; “for they will serve us again on occasion.”

[The old man] extinguishes the fire, carefully collects the remaining gold pieces,

and now his lamp alone was again shining in the most beautiful splendor, the walls were covered with gold, and the pug had become the most beautiful onyx. “Take your basket,” said the old man, “and put the onyx in it; then take the three cabbages, the three artichokes, and the three onions, place them around it, and carry them to the river! About noon let the snake carry you over, and visit the beautiful lily, and give her the onyx! She will bring it to life by her touch, as she kills everything alive by her touch; she will have a faithful companion in it. Tell her not to grieve, her deliverance is near, she may regard the greatest misfortune as the greatest happiness, for the time has come.” The old woman packed her basket and set off during the day. The rising sun shone brightly over the river, which glistened in the distance; the woman walked slowly, for the basket weighed heavily on her head, and yet it was not the onyx that weighed so heavily

, but the fresh vegetables.

She did not feel the dead weight she was carrying; but when she lifted her basket up, it floated above her head. But carrying fresh vegetables or a small, live animal was extremely difficult for her. She had been walking along discontentedly for some time when she suddenly stood still with a start; for she almost stepped on the shadow of the giant that stretched across the plain to her. And now she saw the enormous giant, who had bathed in the river, rising out of the water, and she did not know how to avoid him. As soon as he saw her, he began to greet her playfully, and his shadow's hands immediately reached into the basket. With ease and skill, they took out a cabbage, an artichoke, and an onion and brought them to the giant's mouth, who then went further up the river, leaving the woman the way free.

The old woman considered whether she should turn back and fetch what was missing from her garden, but she kept going until she came to the river and waited a long time for the ferryman. Finally he came. A young, noble, beautiful man got out of the boat.

What do you bring?

the ferryman called.

It is the vegetables that the will-o'-the-wisps owe you,

replied the woman. The ferryman did not want to accept it, as there was a shortage of each kind. Although the woman begged and pleaded to accept the gift, she could not go back the arduous way, but he refused,

by assuring her that it did not even depend on him. “What is due to me, I must leave together for nine hours, and I must not accept anything until I have given a third to the river [...] There is still a remedy. If you want to guarantee against the river and confess as a debtor, I will take the six pieces with me; but there is some danger in it.” “If I keep my word, I shall not be in any danger?” ‘Not the slightest.’ ‘Put your hand into the river, and promise that you will pay off the debt in twenty-four hours.’ The old woman did so, but how frightened she was when she pulled her hand out of the water, as black as coal!

The old woman is very unhappy that her beautiful hand has turned black and is even beginning to fade.

“It only seems so,” said the ferryman; “but if you do not keep your word, it may come true. The hand will gradually fade away, [...] without your losing the use of it. You will be able to do everything with it, only no one will see it.“ — ‘I would rather not be able to use it and not be recognized,’ said the old woman. However, that does not mean anything; I will keep my word to get rid of this black hand and this worry soon.”

Three times three is nine, the number of human sensuality; she has passed through all three realms. The woman pays for the torrent of passions with the fruits of the earth. She must pay the tribute to the torrent. The cabbage symbolizes the leaves, the onion the root, the artichoke the fruit. All three are shell plants.

The soul essence – the woman – loses some of the fruits and shoots that she has acquired through hard work in the garden through sleeping, dreaming and a lack of vigilance. But she has committed to paying the debt of the will-o'-the-wisps – the power of reason. Reason alone cannot produce leaves, flowers or fruits; it leaves that to the soul forces. But the lower natural forces – the ferryman – insist on their right; the stream of passions also wants to be satisfied. However, since the woman lacks the sufficient means to do so, she atones for it with her body. She does not lack the strength, but her body is very disfigured because she has dipped her hand into the stream. If a person gives in to passion, he will suffer damage. It is very indicative of man's low mentality that the woman is much more concerned about appearances – what will people say? – than about the loss of her ability to work, which, according to the ferryman, she does not actually risk.

The woman now picks up the basket again, which floats freely above her head,

and hastened after the young man, who walked gently and thoughtfully along the shore. His magnificent figure and strange attire had made a deep impression on the old woman. His chest was covered with a shiny armor through which all parts of his beautiful body moved. Around his shoulders hung a purple cloak, around his uncovered head waved brown hair in beautiful curls; his sweet face was exposed to the rays of the sun, as were his beautifully built feet. With bare soles, he walked calmly over the hot sand, and a deep pain seemed to blunt all external impressions.

The old woman tried to start a conversation with him, but he barely responded. This bored her and she recommended herself, saying that she had to hurry to cross the river via the green snake and deliver her husband's gift to the beautiful lily. When the young man hears this, he takes courage and runs after the woman.

“You are going to the beautiful lily!” he exclaimed;
“we are going the same way."

On the way, they exchange their fates. The youth describes his miserable state: his armor and purple robes have become only a useless burden and adornment for him, his crown, scepter and sword are gone, he is

naked and destitute as every other son of earth, for her [the lily's] beautiful blue eyes have such an unfortunate effect that they take away the strength of all living beings and those whom her touching hand does not kill feel transported into the state of living shadows.

He envies the pug dog, because it would gain life through her touch.

The youth represents humanity in general. It is sick with longing for life. The eternal feminine draws it on. When man strives for higher knowledge, paralysis overtakes him: without a firm moral foundation, it is dangerous to seek higher knowledge. The stormy assault results in death. Love kills life; but it kills so that true life may arise. Die and become.

He who does not die before he dies, will perish when he dies.

The lower self must die. Thus, death is the root of life.

They now come to the bridge, are amazed at the splendor of the green snake, which sparkles with jewels all over; high arched, it swings over the river. Once across, they notice that several other travelers have crossed over with them – the will-o'-the-wisps, which they cannot see, but whose presence is betrayed by their hissing with the snake, which joins them after the crossing. The woman, youth, and snake now go to the white lily, while the will-o'-the-wisps look around the queen's garden for a while until dusk falls.

The old woman approaches the royal maiden first and is so enchanted by her beauty and her lovely singing to the harp that she breaks out into enthusiastic praise. The lily speaks:

Do not grieve me with untimely praise! I feel only the more strongly my misfortune.

She says that her canary, her greatest joy and delight, was frightened by a hawk, fled to her bosom and died there. She is inconsolable, because the culprit, paralyzed by her gaze, is serving his sentence by the pond, and that cannot help her. Her bird – the prophetic power – is dead and must be buried.

“Be of good cheer, beautiful lily!” cried the woman, [...] “My age bids me tell you [...] that you shall regard the greatest misfortune as a harbinger of the greatest happiness, for the time is at hand.

Then she tells of her misfortune and asks the lily to give her the missing cabbage, onion and artichoke so that she can pay her debt and her hand will turn white again. The lily is happy to give the cabbage and onion [– roots and leaves –], but the garden, in which fresh greenery had sprung up on the grave of her favorite but which never bore fruit, does not have an artichoke – a fruit.

The woman pays little attention to the speech of the beautiful lily; she sees to her horror the hand growing blacker and blacker and fading more and more, and is about to leave when she remembers the pug, which she now gives to the lily.

The beautiful lily looked at the gentle animal with pleasure and, [...] with amazement. 'Many signs are coming together,' she said, 'that inspire some hope in me; but alas! is it not merely an illusion of our nature that when many misfortunes occur we imagine the best is near?'

What good are the many good signs to me?
The bird's death, the friend's black hand?
The pug of precious stone, does it have its match?
And didn't the lamp send it to me?
Removed from sweet human enjoyment,
I am only familiar with misery.
Ah! why is the temple not by the river!
Ah! why has the bridge not been built!'

Impatient with the long song, the woman wants to leave when she is stopped by the appearance of the snake. She approaches the beautiful lily and encourages her:

The prophecy of the bridge is fulfilled!

Much more gloriously than before, it rises above the river, shining with precious stones, says the woman. But the lily does not yet consider the prophecy fulfilled, since only pedestrians can cross the bridge; but the promise is that horses and carriages would also cross a solid bridge – whose pillars would rest in the river – that would rise out of the river.

The old woman, still gazing at her hand, is about to take her leave, when the lily begs her to take her poor canary with her.

"Ask the lamp to change him into a beautiful topaz; I will revive him with my touch, and he, with your good pug, will be my best pastime. But hurry, whatever you can, because at sunset, unbearable rot will take hold of the poor animal and tear apart the beautiful structure of his form forever.” The old woman laid the little corpse among delicate leaves in the basket and hurried away.

The snake continued the conversation:

“The temple is built,” said the Snake. “But it is not yet by the river,” said the Lily. “It still rests in the depths of the earth,” said the Snake. “I have seen and spoken to the kings.” “But when will they rise?” asked the Lily. The Snake said, “I heard the great words resound in the temple: It is time!” A pleasant serenity spread across the face of the beautiful woman. 'I have heard the happy words for the second time today; when will the day come when I hear them three times?'

Now follows the description of her retinue, the three lovely handmaidens. The pug comes to life at her touch, and even if there is only half life in him, he still likes to play with her.

The sad young man approaches, exhausted and pale, he approaches his beloved. He carries the hawk – the symbol of the diviner of the future, prophet of the mysteries – in his hand.

“It is not kind,” cried Lily, “to bring me the hated animal that [...] killed my little singer today.” “Do not scold the unfortunate bird!” replied the youth; “Rather, blame yourself and fate and allow me to keep you company in your misery.”

The young man, jealous of the pug with which the beautiful lily plays and presses to her bosom, awakens the last remnant of his courage. He makes a violent movement, the hawk flies up, but he rushes at the beauty, and the misfortune happens: he falls dead at her feet. In silent despair, the lily looks for help. The snake forms with her body

a wide circle around the corpse, grasped the end of her tail with her teeth and remained still.

The handmaidens, the first of whom brings the chair, approach again, the second lays a fire-colored veil around the head of the mistress, the third brings the harp. The lily had scarcely coaxed a few notes from the instrument when the first servant brought a mirror and held it before the lady, so that she saw her magnificent image, made even more beautiful by her mourning, in it.

Who will create us the man with the lamp,

the snake hissed. The beauty just sobbed. At that moment, the woman came running up, out of breath:

I am lost and maimed!

she exclaimed. Neither the ferryman nor the giant wanted to take her across.

Forget your troubles and help us here. Seek out the will-o'-the-wisps so that the giant's shadow can carry you and you can fetch the man with the lamp.

The lily waited with great sadness, the snake looked impatiently for help. Then,

high up in the air, she saw the hawk with its crimson feathers, whose breast caught the last rays of the sun. She shook with joy at the good omen, and she was not mistaken; for shortly afterwards, the man with the lamp was seen gliding over the lake, as if he were skating.

After he had explained his coming, he said:

“Be calm, most beautiful maiden! Whether I can help, I do not know; a single one does not help, but he who unites with many at the right hour. Let us postpone and hope. Keep your circle closed,” he said to the snake.

He himself sat down on a stone beside it, and let the light of the lamp fall on the corpse.

Bring also the dead canary.

It was laid on the corpse as well. The sun had set; the lamp, the snake, and the maiden's veil shone, each with its own light.

Sorrow and grief were softened by a sure hope.

Only the old woman, who had come with the will-o'-the-wisps, was full of apprehension for her hand. The will-o'-the-wisps chatted with the beautiful lily, and midnight came before anyone knew it.

The old man looked at the stars and then began to speak: 'We are together at a happy hour, each of us performing our duties, each doing our duty, and a general happiness will dissolve the individual pains in itself, like a general misfortune consumes individual joys.

The combined efforts of all were needed to provide relief. Each individual was absorbed in his task and spoke loudly about it, only the three maidservants had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“Take,” said the old man to the hawk, “the mirror, and with the first ray of the sun illuminate the sleepers and wake them with the reflected light from on high!”

The snake now untied itself and slithered towards the river, the will-o'-the-wisps followed quite earnestly. The old man and his wife stretched the basket, which had its own glow that had not been noticed before, put the body of the youth inside and placed the dead canary on his chest. The basket rose up and hovered above the head of the old woman, who immediately followed the will-o'-the-wisps.

The beautiful lily took the pug on her arm and followed the old woman, the man with the lamp decided the train and the area was illuminated by these many lights in the most peculiar.

When they reached the shore, the company looked in amazement at the wonderful arch that the snake had formed across the river. The gems shone and radiated in wonderful beauty. When everyone had crossed, the snake also moved to the shore and closed the circle around the body again.

The ferryman, who had been looking out from his hut in the distance, gazed in amazement at the glowing circle and the strange lights that passed over it.

The old man bowed to the snake and said:

“What hast thou decided?” — ‘To sacrifice myself before I am sacrificed,’ replied the snake; ‘Promise me that thou wilt leave no stone unturned!’ The old man promised, and then said to the beautiful lily: ‘Touch the snake with thy left hand, and thy lover with thy right hand.’ The lily knelt down and touched the snake and the corpse. In that moment, the body seemed to come to life; it moved in the basket, even rising up and sitting. Lily wanted to embrace him, but the old man held her back, helping the youth to stand up instead and guiding him as he stepped out of the basket and the circle.

The youth stood, the canary fluttered on his shoulder, there was life in both of them again, but the spirit had not yet returned; the beautiful friend had his eyes open and did not see, at least he seemed to look at everything without participation.

When the astonishment at this event had subsided a little, the change that had taken place with the snake was noticed with amazement. The body had crumbled into a thousand and one gems when the old woman had carelessly pushed against them while she reached for her basket. The old man and his wife carefully collected the gems in their basket, carried them to a high place on the bank of the river and poured them into the stream. The old man now led the procession to the sanctuary; he walked ahead with the lamp. The youth followed half mechanically. The lily timidly trailed behind, the old woman sought to bring her hand into the light of the lamp, the will-o'-the-wisps closed the procession. The path led through the rock that opened before them. Soon they came to a large, brazen gate,

whose wings were closed with a golden lock. The old man immediately summoned the will-o'-the-wisps, who [...] busily consumed the lock and bolt with their pointed flames.

The entrance to the higher levels of consciousness must first be sought through the mind.

The ore sounded loudly when the gates quickly sprang open and the dignified images of the kings, illuminated by the incoming light, appeared in the sanctuary. Everyone bowed before the venerable rulers [...]. After a pause, the golden king asked: “Where do you come from?” “From the world,” replied the old man. “Where are you going?” asked the silver king. “Into the world,” said the old man. ‘What do you want with us?’ asked the brazen king. ‘To accompany you,’ said the old man.

The will-o'-the-wisps had approached the golden king. He fought them off and said:

Get away from me! My gold is not for your palate!

After they had lit the silver one, they crept past the brazen one to the mixed one.

“Who will rule the world?” the mixed king cried in a stammering voice. “He who stands on his feet.” answered the old man, “That is I!” said the mixed king. “It will reveal itself,” said the old man; “for the time has come.”

The beautiful lily fell around the neck of the old man and kissed him most warmly. “Holy Father,” she said, “a thousand thanks to you, for this is the third time I have heard the ominous word.” She had hardly finished speaking when she held even tighter to the old man, for the ground began to shake beneath them. The old woman and the youth also held on to each other; only the moving will-o'-the-wisps noticed nothing.

The temple first moved downwards, then passed under the stream, and during the ascent, the debris of the ferryman's small hut fell through the dome of the temple and covered the old man and the youth. The women had jumped aside.

The women screamed loudly, and the temple shook like a ship that suddenly hits the shore. The women wandered anxiously around the hut in the twilight; the door was locked, and no one heard their knocking.

To her amazement, the wood began to resound. Through the power of the closed lamp, the wood had turned to silver, and gradually expanded into a magnificent case of hammered work. Now there stood a small temple or altar in the middle of the large one.

By a staircase that went up from the inside, the noble youth now stepped up, the man with the lamp shone for him, and another seemed to support him, who came forth in a white, short robe and held a silver oar in his hand;

it was the ferryman, the former inhabitant of the transformed hut.

[By crossing the] bridge, which was necessary, the temple should apparently be, that could only happen through the interaction of all forces. Only through the sacrifice of the self was it possible to cross the stream of passions. The will-o'-the-wisps have to unlock the temple; one must have natural knowledge to penetrate the secrets.

The beautiful lily climbed the outer steps that led from the temple to the altar; but still she had to stay away from her lover. The old woman, whose hand

had almost completely disappeared, was very unhappy that with so many miracles, no miracle could save her hand.

Her husband pointed to the open gate and said: 'Behold, day is breaking; hurry and bathe thyself in the river!' – 'What advice!' she cried; 'I shall surely become quite black and disappear altogether; I have not yet paid my debt' – 'Go,' said the old man, 'and follow me! All debts are paid.' The old woman hurried away, and at that moment the light of the rising sun appeared at the crown of the dome; the old man stepped between the youth and the maiden and shouted in a loud voice: 'There are three who rule on earth: wisdom, appearance, and force'. At the first word the golden king rose, at the second the silver one, and at the third the brazen one had slowly raised himself, when the composite king suddenly sat down awkwardly.

The will-o'-the-wisps had been preoccupied with him for a long time and did not rest until they had also extracted the finest veins from his form. But that robbed him of all support and he collapsed, becoming an unformed lump.

The man with the lamp now led the beautiful youth, who was still gazing fixedly ahead, down from the altar and straight towards the brazen king. At the feet of the mighty prince lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The youth girded himself. '

— only for defense, not for attack —

“Right hand free!”

— to give blessings and peace —

the mighty king called out. They then went to the silver king, who inclined his scepter towards the youth. The youth seized it with his left hand, and the king said in a kindly voice: “Feed the sheep!” When they came to the golden king, he pressed the oak wreath on the youth's head with a fatherly, blessing gesture and said: “Recognize the highest!”

The old man, who had observed the youth closely during the proceedings, saw how, after the girding, his chest rose, his arms stretched and his feet stepped firmer;

By taking up the sceptre, his strength seemed to be softened and made even more powerful by an inexpressible charm; but when the oak wreath adorned his curls, his features came to life, his eye sparkled with inexpressible spirit, and the first word from his mouth was: “Lily.” 'Dear lily,' he cried, as he hastened up the silver steps towards her, [...] 'what more could a man, endowed with everything, desire than the innocence and quiet affection that your bosom bestows on me? Oh, my friend, he continued, turning to the old man and looking at the three sacred statues, 'glorious and secure is the kingdom of our fathers, but you have forgotten the fourth power that ruled the world even earlier, more generally, more certainly: the power of love. With these words he fell on his knees before the beautiful maiden; she had thrown aside her veil, and her cheeks were suffused with the most beautiful and most imperishable of all blushes. Then the old man said, smiling: 'Love does not reign, but it creates, and that is more.'

Unbeknownst to them, day had fully broken and the astonished eyes looked through the open gates:

a large square surrounded by columns formed the forecourt, at the end of which one could see a long and magnificent bridge that reached over the river with many arches.

This magnificent bridge was already teeming with all kinds of people on foot and in carriages. Happy in their mutual love, the king and his wife looked on the people with delight.

“Remember the snake with honor!” said the man with the lamp. ”You are its life; your peoples owe it the bridge by which these neighboring shores are first inhabited and connected. Those floating and glowing gems, the remains of her sacrificed body, are the pillars of this magnificent bridge; she built it herself and will sustain herself.” Just as one was about to ask him to explain this strange secret, four beautiful girls entered the temple gate. The harp, parasol and field chair immediately identified them as Lily's companions. But the fourth [...] was an unknown [...]. “Will you believe me more in the future, dear wife?” the man with the lamp said to the beauty. “Happy you and every creature that bathes in the river this morning!” The rejuvenated and beautified old woman [...] embraced [...] the man with the lamp, who accepted her caresses with kindness. ‘If I am too old for you,’ he said smiling, ”then you may choose another husband today; from this day on, no marriage is valid unless it is renewed.” “'Do you not know,' she replied, 'that you have grown younger too?' – 'I am glad if I appear to your young eyes as a worthy youth; I accept your hand anew and would gladly live with you into the next millennium.'"

The great giant, still recovering from his morning nap and staggering across the bridge, brought a disruption to the general happiness. As usual, he wanted to bathe in the river, drowsy as he was, and suddenly found the bridge, on which he clumsily stepped between humans and cattle. His presence was

by all wondered at, but felt by none; when, however, the sun shone in his eyes, and he raised his hands to wipe them, the shadow of his enormous fists passed behind him so powerfully and clumsily under the crowd that men and animals collapsed in large masses, were damaged, and risked being thrown into the river. The king, who saw this outrage, made an involuntary movement for his sword, but he recovered himself and looked calmly first at his scepter, then at the lamp and the oar of his companions. 'I divine your thoughts,' said the man with the lamp; 'but we and our powers are powerless against this powerless one. Be quiet! He is harming for the last time, and fortunately his shadow has turned away from us. Meanwhile, the giant had come closer and closer, had let his hands drop in amazement at what he saw with open eyes, was doing no more harm, and stepped into the forecourt, gawking. He was just walking towards the temple door when he was suddenly held to the ground in the middle of the courtyard. He stood as a colossal, mighty statue of reddish shining stone, and his shadow showed the hours, which were engraved in a circle on the ground around him, not in numbers, but in noble and significant images. The king was not a little pleased to see the shadow of the monster in a useful direction; [...] Meanwhile, the people had crowded around the giant, [...] and marveled at his transformation. From there, the crowd turned to the temple, which they seemed to have only just noticed, and pushed towards the door. At that moment, the hawk with the mirror hovered over the cathedral, caught the light of the sun and threw it over the group standing on the altar.

The hawk, the herald of the future, also teaches us to understand the laws. When these are understood, knowledge can be borne.

The king, the queen and their companions appeared in the twilight vault of the temple, illuminated by a heavenly radiance, and the people fell on their faces. When the crowd had recovered and stood up, the king and his party had descended into the altar to go to his palace through hidden halls, and the people scattered throughout the temple to satisfy their curiosity. They looked at the three upright kings with amazement and awe,

but when they came full of curiosity to the fourth, the shapeless lump was covered with a precious carpet that no one could lift. The people almost crushed each other in the temple if the will-o'-the-wisps had not attracted their attention. It was fun for them to shake off the gold they had sucked in as they moved away, which is why the people fell upon them with jokes and laughter.

The people ran eagerly back and forth for a while, pushing and pulling each other, since no more gold pieces were falling. Finally, they gradually dispersed, went their way, and to this day the bridge is teeming with travelers, and the temple is the most visited in the whole world.

There is still much to be interpreted. The snake that bites its own tail and encloses the dead youth is the Budhi principle, which must be lived and loved. The radiance of the divine - Atma - is peace, harmony, and universal consciousness. It has been achieved through the transformation of desire into love. Everything becomes young again.

The shattered hut of the lower forces is transformed by the spirit of life; now the lower forces can lead across and across. The giant - the forces of nature - have lost their destructive power; that is the conclusion that will only come after a certain period of time. The last enemy to be abolished is death. Then they [the forces of nature] only indicate the rhythmic measures of time. And the bridge over which the people can go unhindered back and forth to the temple? Is it not faith, independent faith, which has only become possible through the sacrificial death of Christ; faith that blesses, even without seeing the mysteries? But the highest is hidden from the eyes of the multitude. The king and queen descend from their throne and hide. All the glory will only become clear and evident to faith when wisdom is added to faith, only then can perfection be attained.

Let us briefly summarize what Goethe wanted to tell us with the “Fairytale”: It is the symbolic representation of the redemption of the individual as well as of the whole human race; the secret of becoming and passing away and of final bliss.

Many have ventured to interpret the “Fairytale”. People asked Goethe to provide an explanation himself. He promised to do so when a hundred explanations had been submitted. Thereupon all the explanations were collected and counted, but Goethe died before the number of a hundred was reached. Thus, a proper interpretation has been lacking until now. It was probably not yet time. The right interpretation can only be given by someone who knows the mysteries.

In order to reach the goal of our discussions, we shall have to endeavour to comprehend the whole nature of the fifth post-Atlantean period in all its deepest significance. It is impossible to come to an understanding of events as deeply important as those of the present day by refusing to enter into concrete matters, and by insisting on considering only general aspects of the universe and man in the way that can be done when one is not concerned with specific circumstances. Unfortunately, I have to stress that an understanding for the deeply important nature of these events is largely lacking today.

For certain quite definite reasons which will become apparent, I yesterday spoke to you about two matters. First of all I told you how the book by Brooks Adams had been launched on mankind, a kite flown to gauge the scale on which such things are understood, at least by a few individuals. This book describes how a nation should be seen as a living organism which comes into being and passes through phases of childhood, youth, maturity and decline in a similar way to a human being, though of course only similar, not identical. Furthermore it is pointed out that at certain stages of their development nations evolve two characteristics which belong together, namely, at one stage those of an imaginative and a warlike nature, and at another those of a scientific and an industrial or commercial nature. So it is assumed that nations which are imaginative and warlike by nature, and others which are scientific and industrial or commercial, live side by side and that in the mutual interplay of such nations the universal development of mankind proceeds.

I told you that this was a one-sided view. How do such views surface in the first place? What does it signify that they are launched on the public?

Views of this kind have made an impression on individuals of a certain standing and therefore have become part of the impulses working today. In such matters it is always a question of disconnecting portions of the overall spiritual knowledge of man's evolution and planting them in the world when needed or wanted. By taking a portion of the total occult picture of mankind's development it is possible to achieve definite things in the service of a particular group and its particular egoism. Knowledge of the whole picture always serves the whole of mankind. Portions taken out of context always serve the egoism of individual groups. It is significant and important to take into account that much that is launched on the public from occult sources is not untrue, but half true, a quarter true, an eighth true, and just because it bears within it a part of the truth it can be used to achieve one aim or another in a one-sided way. That is why those who see through these things gain a significant impression from the fact that, on the part of America, the twentieth century is introduced by the launching of certain ideas in the world via some channels of the bookselling trade serving certain movements which make use of occult means.

The second matter about which I spoke was the remarkable treatise by the noble Thomas More on the best form of public adminstration in the state and on the island of Utopia. Out of this treatise by Thomas More I quoted to you yesterday the passage in which More says through the mouth of a stranger what he wants to say about Utopia. This stranger is presented as a fictitious person; perhaps we shall get to know him better today, but he is not fictitious, as you will see. Out of a certain mood of his time, which I described yesterday, he develops the theme of his feelings and then describes Utopia itself.

This description of Utopia by Thomas More, who flings these particular ideas into the midst of human development at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, is indeed quite remarkable. I have found a number of people who have read Utopia, but not a single one who has read it carefully enough to become even partly aware of all the extraordinary ins and outs and unlikely details the book describes. People simply take the description of the island of Utopia as that of an imaginary island and just read on, page after page. This is understandable in the present age, which is void of all spirituality. But at least one should notice either that Thomas More is describing something incomprehensible, even if it is only meant to be imaginary, or that he must have been a complete idiot, an absolute fool. But such logical conclusions are not drawn in our time; people far prefer to pass over things by means of superficial judgements. I shall now call up before our souls an outline of the content of this work. If you want all the details, you must read Utopia yourselves.

It is significant that Utopia is described as having reached a certain maturity in its institutions. It is expressly stated that the situation being described did not exist in the beginning but has taken 1,760 years to achieve, so that we are now presented with a kind of finished product of some maturity.

The first point to be particularly stressed is that property is common, nobody owns anything. The state is divided into certain families who, if we can put it like this, elect elders, and from among the elders a prince is elected. From time to time a council is called at which public matters are discussed in accordance with the instructions of the different sections of the population. Here we immediately come to an extraordinary arrangement: Public affairs may only be discussed in the prescribed manner. Anybody who privately discusses public affairs is liable to be condemned to death. Further, we discover a highly sensible arrangement: When a suggestion is made during the council meeting it may never be discussed immediately; people must first go home and think about it and it is then brought up again on a subsequent occasion. The one who is telling us the story says that in this way people have an opportunity to think about things, and do not make hasty judgements which they would naturally defend with stubbornness and egoism, just because they have become attached to their own judgement instead of thinking carefully and coming to the right conclusion.

In Utopia everyone has to learn farming while still a child. Later they also learn a trade, usually that pursued by their parents, though they may choose another if they have the skill for it. Work is strictly regulated and nobody need labour for more than six hours a day.

Everything else is also arranged in the best way; there are three hours of work in the morning but, before this, at sunrise, those who wish may gather to learn about spiritual and similar things. Games such as those we know outside Utopia do not exist there. They have, however, a competitive game something like chess, a kind of arithmetical battle, and also another competitive game, again similar to chess, in which the vices and the virtues compete with one another.

Under the supervision of the elected representatives those who are suitable are declared scholars. From among their number the ambassadors and the priests are elected. The dirtiest work is performed by slaves who are either recruited from amongst conquered peoples or else are criminals. Every true Utopian is free. There is another arrangement in Utopia which we, who are not from Utopia, have only just come to enjoy: no journey may be made without permission from the appropriate authority. A passport is necessary for even the shortest journey. Money does not exist. Anything available for consumption is taken to the markets where anybody can help himself. Since this is so well arranged that no one takes more than he needs, there is no necessity to pay anything, for everyone receives what he requires. Money or anything like it is simply not necessary.

The only metal of any value is iron. Please take note of this, for it is very significant. Silver is valued less and gold least of all. Gold is not fashioned into the articles non-Utopians would use it for, but mainly into chains for criminals, and for similar objects. Gold is forged into chains for criminals; they have to wear them as a symbol of their shame. Certain receptacles which one does not mention in polite company are also made of gold, and so on. This had a curious consequence once, when some foreign diplomats visited Utopia and sought to impress the Utopians by festooning themselves in gold chains and jewellery. The Utopians thought them to be of very lowly origin, since such things were only used as toys for children, who discarded them as they grew older. When the diplomats came, the children watched them pass by in the street and said: Look at those old fogeys still wearing children's playthings!

No value is attached in Utopia to the wearing of fine clothes, for they say: How can anyone fancy it matters whether his clothes are made from this wool or that wool? The sheep were the first to wear them. How can you fancy there is anything special in wearing what the sheep first wore naturally!

In Utopia there is also another peculiarity; good and evil, virtue and vice are only judged in connection with religious ideas. A goal to be striven for in life is a kind of epicureanism in the pleasures one enjoys. The more fun one has in life, the more virtuous one is considered to be. The Utopians believe in the immortal soul of man and have a kind of religion of reason. They consider that everybody may use his common sense to see that God rules the world like an overseer, that man has an immortal soul and that after death this will enter into a spiritual world where there will be reward and punishment for virtue and vice.

The Utopians think nothing of jewels for they say: When somebody buys a jewel he has to seek the assurance of the seller that it is genuine; why on earth should something be valuable if you cannot see with your own eyes whether it is a genuine or a counterfeit jewel? This could only happen in Utopia. Hunting is also scorned as something undignified. Only butchers are allowed to hunt, and theirs is not an esteemed profession.

The man who tells all these things explains that he himself introduced the Utopians to Greek literature and art and that they proved to be extraordinarily intelligent. Indeed their language seems to have affinities with Greek, and their culture is unusual in that it seems to remind one of that of Greece mingled with something of Persia. The manner in which husband and wife are selected I shall not describe for reasons which you will understand if you read the book. There are no lawyers in Utopia; they are considered to be the most harmful people. Contracts are not entered into because the Utopians believe that if someone wants to keep an agreement he can do so without a contract, whereas if he does not, he can break it even if he has a contract.

In war, they avoid bloodletting if at all possible; it is considered the most shameful thing. They say: If one spills blood in war, one is no better than wolves and tigers. Other methods must be sought, for man has intelligence. Only in absolute extremity, if there is no other hope, will they spill blood. They set about the matter of making war on another nation by sending out scouts whose task it is either to bring about confusion among the enemy so that they start to quarrel among themselves, or to murder one or another member of the enemy force, or something similar. In other words they seek to use ‘love and good sense’ to bring about discord and dissension as well as mutual irritation among those on whom they wish to make war, and only if this fails will they decide to shed blood. And even then they use quite special methods which show that they intend to cease the bloodletting at the first possible opportunity.

Another point is that religious tolerance is a fundamental characteristic of the Utopians. So long as he does not break the law, anybody may belong to any sect or represent any religious view he likes. This was instituted by the founder of Utopia, Utopus himself. However, all must believe in a highest being, whom they call Mythra. The one who tells us this has himself attempted to introduce Christianity there. The A-94-Utopians proved to be most open to it and recognized it as being indeed the best religion. The utmost religious tolerance prevails, and all may believe whatever they will, except that someone who is a materialist or who does not believe in the immortality of the soul forfeits all civil and other rights, indeed is declared to be without rights.

There is a sect which holds animals to be creatures who have souls like people. There are priests who teach in special mystery churches and perform cultic rites. Festivals are celebrated at the end and the beginning of each year. Musical instruments differ somewhat from those in other countries, for they are particularly suited to expressing in music what the human soul feels in its various moods. And so on.

I have told you all this just as it is described in the book. You will have noticed I said on the one hand that the Utopians have a religion of good sense, in which each individual believes what his good sense tells him is right; and yet, on the other hand, we are told that Christianity has been introduced and that all believe in a kind of Mythra. Further, it is said that tolerance prevails, and yet those who are materialists forfeit their rights as citizens. In short, you will find in the book one contradiction after another.

So what is this book really about? What is it describing? We can indeed only understand it on the basis of spiritual science. We must understand that Thomas More, like Pico della Mirandola and others, is a man who stands with part of his being in the fourth post-Atlantean period while another part already projects into the fifth. But he is also a man who knows that this is so and develops it in full consciousness because he possesses a certain spiritual life.

Thomas More spent many hours every day in meditation, and with his meditations he achieved certain quite definite results. But these results came about because, as I said, part of his being still lived in the fourth post-Atlantean period, so that atavistic elements joined in him with a conscious raising of his soul into the life of the spiritual world. Yet he lived a whole century after the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period and in his soul everything lived which was characteristic of that fifth period: intellectuality and reasoning as we know them today—which did not yet exist during the fourth period, contrary to the opinion of those whose view of history is utterly fantastic. All this worked and mingled in his soul. You can discover what must have gone on in such a soul if you study Pico della Mirandola and also the relationship of Pico della Mirandola to Savonarola.

We have, then, a man into whose soul we must penetrate a little if we are to understand what he meant with his description of Utopia. Such a man as this knew that occult impulses work and weave in the evolution of mankind, and also that at the turn of the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period it was necessary to provide the right impulse for many people. Whether they then make use of it is another question. What did such people know? We have often discussed that things are different nowadays, but this is what it was like then; so what did such people know? They knew that mankind must grow decadent if only those things were developed which were, let me say, unspiritual, thought-out, merely reasoned. Such people know that human beings must become desiccated even down to their physical bodies—of course not during the course of a few centuries but over a long period—if only dry reasoning, if only that spiritual element is developed on which materialistic views are founded. Such people have quite a different concept of the truth from that which gradually evolved during the fifth post-Atlantean period. They know that thoughts must be thought which do not relate to the physical plane, because, quite apart from the truth of such matters, human beings, if they do not wish to wither, must think thoughts which do not relate to the physical plane. These are the thoughts which bring life, which make life possible and help it to make progress. This is why what is spiritual is so important, quite apart from the aspect of truth.

Through his meditations Thomas More had come to experience pictures of the higher worlds in a partly atavistic and partly conscious way, but these were mingled with the material aspect of the dream worlds. Out of these actual experiences arose what he relates in Utopia. It is not something he has thought out, it is not fantasy, but something he really experienced as the fruit of his meditation. He placed it before us just as he experienced it, in order to say: Behold! A man who lives in England under King Henry VIII, a man who is even a servant of Henry's state, a man who bears in his soul the feelings, the desires, the intimate goals of England at this time—when his visions stir up his inner being, he experiences what is here described to be a kind of ideal state. He wanted to express what are the wishes, the goals, the ideas lurking in the subconscious of those who are dissatisfied with the external world. This is what he wanted to express.

So it can be said: this is the astral self-knowledge of a man of that time. A wise man such as Thomas More does not simply set before his contemporaries a fantastic ideal for the future. He sets before them what he himself experiences because, through this, in his own way and in keeping with his own time, he wants to present them with the great truth that the external world perceived by the senses is maya and that this external world of the senses must be seen in conjunction with the super-sensible world. But if one sees them in conjunction in this way—so that all the desires, all the wishes which belong to a particular age and are in keeping with that age, are allowed to play their part—then the outcome is something which, if looked at closely, is by no means a proposition that could be considered ideal. For I must admit, if I were to be born in Utopia I would probably see it as my primary task to overcome the prevailing conditions as quickly as possible and replace them with others. I might even consider the conditions prevailing here or there on our earth—apart from those of the immediate present—to be more ideal than those in Utopia. But it was not Thomas More's aim to describe ideal conditions. His intention was to show what he really experienced under the conditions as I have described them. He wanted to say to people: If you could see your wishes, if you could see before your eyes what you imagine to be ideal conditions, you would find that you were not in agreement with them at all.

Now we have made the acquaintance of the stranger who describes Utopia: he is the astral self of Thomas More. These things must be seen as being much more real than is usually supposed. At certain points of human evolution the fundamental facts must be sought out if one wants to understand this human evolution. A judgement cannot be made simply by taking the few facts closest to hand. A valid judgement cannot be based on these, for it would merely relate to sympathies and antipathies. These are valid, of course, but they take us no further, and mankind cannot be served by them.

My purpose here—and we shall return to these things later—has been to place before you a man who is particularly typical of the turning point between two ages, namely, between the fourth and the fifth post-Atlantean ages: one who is able to bring to the surface what is characteristic of his deeper soul life in such a way that he has an experience of self. Let me just leave this as a fact for the moment.

In order to gain an understanding of the kind for which a number of our friends here have expressed a wish, we must now also work on achieving a comprehension of the concrete reality of a folk soul. For our materialistic age and way of feeling tends to make us confuse the folk soul with the individual soul. I mean, when we speak of a people, a nation, we believe that this has something to do with the individuals who constitute this nation. To use a rather rough-and-ready, though graphic comparison: To say that an Englishman or a German can be identified with the folk soul of his nation is, for the spiritual scientist, as nonsensical as saying that a son or daughter can be identified with father or mother.

This is a rough-and-ready comparison, as I said, because on the one hand we are dealing with two physical people, whereas on the other we mean one physical and one non-physical being, which differ totally from one another when examined concretely. Not until there is an understanding of the mysteries of repeated earth lives and of the karma which these involve will there really be a comprehension of what underlies all this, which it is highly necessary to understand if one wants to speak on a firm basis about these things. An immensely important truth lies in the fact that one lives within a certain folk spirit only for a single incarnation, whereas one bears within one's own individual being something quite different, something immeasurably greater and yet also immeasurably smaller than that which lives within a folk soul. To identify oneself with a folk soul is, in reality, totally devoid of meaning once one goes beyond what is described by such words as love of the fatherland, love of the homeland, patriotism and so on. We shall only understand these things properly, once we can look earnestly and deeply at the truths of reincarnation and karma.

I have spoken recently in various places about the connection between the human soul between death and rebirth and what comes into being when man enters a new existence through birth. I pointed out that between death and rebirth man is linked with the forces which bring people together over many generations. Through the ever-repeated union of different pairs of parents and all that leads to descendants, as well as other aspects of the succession of generations, it comes about that the human being between death and rebirth finds himself within a whole stream which, in the end, leads him to the parents through whom he can incarnate. Just as in physical life one is linked with one's physical body, so between death and rebirth is one linked with the conditions which prepare for birth through a particular pair of parents. One is immersed in the forces which bring one to particular parents, and which brought father and mother to their parents, and so on back through the generations, in all their offshoots and ramifications, and whatever works together here in the most varied ways—in all this one is immersed for centuries!

Consider the imposing number of centuries one would remain within all this in order to pass through a mere thirty generations. The period from Charlemagne to the present day encompasses approximately thirty generations, and over all that time, in all that has taken place in the way of meeting, falling in love and begetting descendants which at last led to our own parents—in all this we have ourselves been involved, all this we have ourselves prepared.

I am repeating this because in connection with those personalities one calls leaders, those who can be recognized as leading personalities in some respects, it is important to understand that what makes them significant for mankind comes about through all that I have just described. I shall draw your attention now to a leading personality, and the climax of what I have to say about him will be expressed in the words of another. You will see in a moment why this is so.

We see in Dante a most eminent personality who lived at the end of the fourth post-Atlantean period. We may juxtapose such an eminent personality with those personalities who gained a certain eminence after the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, such as, for instance, Thomas More. Let us look closely at what may be recognized in general in a personality such as Dante. A personality such as Dante is of far-reaching significance, gives far-reaching impulses. It is therefore interesting to consider, or at least to guess, how such a soul before entering through birth into a physical existence that is to be significant for mankind, puts together—excuse this rather peculiar expression—what he is to become, in order to be born in the right way through the right parents. Obviously these conditions are brought about out of the spiritual world, but they are realized with the help of the physical tools. In a certain sense the spiritual world guides this blood to that blood, and so on.

As a rule, a personality like Dante cannot be born of homogeneous blood. To belong to a single nation is impossible for such a soul. It needs a mysterious alchemy; various blood streams must flow together. Whatever those over-patriotic people might say who claim great personalities for a single people, there is no great reality behind it!

As regards Dante, so that you do not think I am taking sides I shall now let another, who knows him intimately, describe what is clearly apparent in his being. It would be easy to imagine that I might be carrying on politically, which is actually furthest from my intentions. So for this reason I have made enquiries of Carducci, the great Italian poet of today, who is an expert on Dante. Behind Carducci—and this is why I am quoting him—stand what are called ‘Massonieri’ in Italy, and what is connected with all those secret brotherhoods to whom I have drawn your attention. Because of this, Carducci's theoretical arguments about the actualities of life are, to a certain extent, based on some deeper knowledge. I would not maintain that he has flaunted this deeper knowlege all over the market place or that he is in any way an occultist. But what he says does contain a certain amount of what has come to him via all kinds of secret channels.

Carducci says: Three elements work in Dante, and it is only because these three elements work together that Dante's being was able to become what it was. First, through certain branches of his lineage, there was an ancient Etruscan element. This gave Dante whatever it was that opened the super-sensible worlds to him; because of this he was able to speak so profoundly about the super-sensible worlds. Secondly, there was in him a Roman element which gave him a proper relationship to the life of his time and a basis of certain legal concepts from which to proceed. And thirdly, says Carducci, there was a Germanic element in Dante. From this he gained the boldness and freshness of his views, a certain candour, and the courage of his convictions in what he had set himself. These three elements, says Carducci, made up the soul life of Dante.

The first element points to the ancient Celtic influence which pulses through him like blood in a certain way, leading him back to the third post-Atlantean period; for the Celtic element in the North leads back to what we have come to know as the third post-Atlantean period. After this we find the fourth post-Atlantean period in the Roman, and the fifth in the Germanic element. Carducci maintains that the elements in Dante's soul are composed of these three periods and their impulses, so that we really have three layers lying side by side—or rather one above the other—the third, fourth and fifth post-Atlantean periods: Celtic, Roman, Germanic. Dante experts of some stature have gone to great pains to discover how, from the spiritual world, Dante managed to mingle his blood in such a way as to obtain the final composition with which he was born. Of course, they did not express this in these words, but they went to great pains and came to believe that much may be put down to the fact that a great many of Dante's ancestors are to be found in the Grisons area of present-day Switzerland. This is borne out to some extent by history. The chain of Dante's predecessors points in every direction of the compass, including this district, where so much mixing of blood streams took place.

We now see how, in a single personality, the remarkable working together of the three layers of European human evolution is revealed. We also see how a man like Carducci, whose judgement is based on a certain objectivity and not on present-day nationalistic madness, points to the foundation on which Dante stands.

Herewith we touch on conditions which are well-known in circles familiar with the realities of life, conditions which may be reckoned with and which may be used as forces if one wants to do certain things. These conditions are by no means unknown to the secret brotherhoods, neither in their rightful use, nor in that other direction which uses secret knowledge in one way or another in the service of some group egoism. For the secret of how the three consecutive layers—which are exceedingly meaningful, mainly for Europe—work together, is discussed most carefully in all secret brotherhoods worthy of the name, though naturally in some cases in a manner which deflects from what might be termed the good direction.

Please be sure not to forget that knowledge about such things exists, and that it is taught—even though, in the external, clever world no one wants to know much about it—very systematically and with great care, especially in the western and American secret brotherhoods.

Having now prepared the way and brought to your attention the teaching about what is, in a certain way, a mystery of evolution and which is taught, albeit with the most varying aims, I shall now point to some further teachings simply by describing them to you. These teachings formed the content of the instruction given in certain occult schools, particularly towards the end of the nineteenth century. They continued into the twentieth century, but it was particularly in the nineteenth century that they were taken up, at which time they gained a considerable degree of influence. Efforts were made to bring them into all kinds of situations in which it was felt necessary to use them for certain ends. So to start with I shall simply report, quite uncritically, on certain teachings from the secret brotherhoods of England, whereby I shall be alluding to what I have prepared.

The following was taught and is still taught: The evolution of Europe can be comprehended if, to start with, one looks at the transition from the Roman, the fourth post-Atlantean period, to the fifth post-Atlantean period. The teaching was—please remember that I am merely reporting—that the mystery of the transition from the fourth to the fifth period or, as was said in these brotherhoods, from the fourth to the fifth sub-race, must be understood. You know that we cannot use the term ‘sub-race’ for the reasons I have frequently expressed, for to use this term means to pursue one-sided group aims, whereas group aims can never be our concern, but solely the general aims of mankind. So the teaching was that the fourth sub-race is represented mainly by the Roman, the Latin peoples. Throughout human evolution it is the case that when things develop in sequence it is not a question of what comes after taking its place behind what came before. What came before remains and takes its place side by side with what comes afterwards, so that they remain side by side in space. Thus, the stragglers of the fourth sub-race, consisting chiefly of the Roman and Latin elements, have remained during the period of the fifth sub-race.

The fifth sub-race, which began at the start of the fifteenth century, is composed of those peoples who are called upon to speak English in the world. The English-speaking peoples represent the fifth sub-race, and the whole task of the fifth post-Atlantean period consists in conquering the world for the English-speaking peoples. It will be evident that the stragglers of the fourth sub-race, the peoples touched by the Latin element, will fall more and more into a certain materialism. They bear within themselves the element of their own inner dissolution, and even in the physical sense bear their own decadence within them. As I said, I am merely reporting and not saying anything which I myself maintain to be true. Further, it is said that the fifth sub-race bears within it a germ of spirituality, of a capacity to comprehend the spiritual world. It is necessary, it is said, to understand how the fourth sub-race affected the fifth, and for this purpose one must look back to where the Nordic peoples, who later became the Britons, the Gauls, the Germans, came towards the Roman Empire. The question was asked: What were these peoples at the time when the Roman Empire was making war on them; in other words, when the conflict between the fourth and the fifth sub-race began? As peoples they were at the stage of infancy! The important point is that the Romans, the Roman element, the fourth sub-race, came in order to be their wet-nurse. These expressions are needed to enable us to draw the analogy between the folk element and the element of the individual human being. So the Romans became wet-nurses and they remained so for approximately as long as they maintained their dominance over the peoples of the North who were going through their infancy.

Infants grow to be children. This is the age in which the Papacy is founded in Rome and in which the Pope in his reign becomes the guardian of the child, just as the Roman Empire was the wet-nurse of the infant. Again, I am merely reporting, and not maintaining that this is the case. So now we have the interplay between the Papacy and what is going on in the North, what developed through Central Europe right out as far as Britain. This is the education of these people under the guardianship of the Papacy, out of which the Roman element from the fourth post-Atlantean period is still working. Round about the twelfth century, when the Papacy began to be no longer what it had been, the youth of these various people commenced, this being characterized by the awakening of their own intelligence. The guardian now withdraws. The youth of these peoples continues until roughly the end of the eighteenth century. As a rule, when such things are taught the present is omitted, because for certain reasons this is thought to be a good thing to do. People must not be told too clearly what one thinks about the present time; they learn about this more through suggestion.

Thus, in the course of time in the North, under the rule of the wet-nurse, the guardian, and so on, the present mature condition grew. This bears within it the germ of rendering Britain the ruling nation of the fifth post-Atlantean period, in the same way as were not only the Romans but also the Roman element in the form of the Papacy, which was derived from them. So, according to this doctrine, while the remains of the Latin element crumble away from the human race, a new fruitful element expands from the factor in which lives the British element. Now it is hinted that all external actions and measures which are to serve any purpose and be fruitful, must be made under the sign of these views. Anything that is undertaken without these views, anything that does not take into account that the Latin element is in decline and the British element ascending, is doomed to wither. Of course such things may be undertaken, say these people, but they are condemned to remain meaningless, they will not grow. It is like sowing seeds in the wrong soil.

In the doctrine I have sketched for you we have a foundation which seeped into all the brotherhoods, even the more esoteric ones—those who worked in the West as so-called high grade Freemasons and suchlike. These things were insinuated into public affairs by people who had either close or loose connections with these brotherhoods, often in such a veiled way that those concerned had no idea how they had come by their knowledge. Particularly since the sixteenth century these things have been carried from the West into much that can be experienced in human evolution.

Other things are also taught. It is said: Just as those people in the North during the time of the Roman element were preparing themselves to be the fifth sub-race, so today, in a similar way, the Slav people are coming towards the West as the developing sixth sub-race; in the same way the Germanic peoples came out of the North to meet the Roman element. Thus it is said that living in the East, under a despotic rule that is doomed to destruction, are a number of individual peoples who, like the Germanic peoples when the Roman Empire started to spread northwards, are not yet nations as such but still tribal peoples. These tribal peoples constitute the separate elements of the so-called Slav people, which for the moment is only held together in an external way by a despotic government which is to be swept away. I am using the terms which are customary within these secret brotherhoods.

After saying so many positive things about the Slavs, let me just add in parentheses: It is true that these peoples are still tribal in a certain way. This became evident at the Slav Congress in Prague in 1848. Each group wanted to speak in their own language, but this proved impossible because they were then incomprehensible to the others; so they were forced to use standard German instead. I do not say this to amuse you but in order to show that what is taught in the West about the Slavs does have a certain basis of truth.

It is said further in the English brotherhoods that the Poles have evolved ahead of the other Slavs, for they have developed a homogeneous cultural and religious life of a relatively high calibre. The destinies of the Poles are described to some extent, but it is then maintained that they really belong to the Russian Empire. Then the Balkan Slavs are discussed. Of them it is said that they have thrown off the yoke of Turkish oppression and formed themselves into individual Slav states which, however—and this is repeated over and over again—are destined to remain as they are only until the next great European war. In the nineties particularly, these brotherhoods held this great European war to be imminent, and it was linked especially to evolutionary impulses which were to emanate from the Balkan Slavs, born of the fact that these states, which had come into being as a result of their disengagement from the Turkish Empire, had to undergo a transition to new forms. Only until the next great European war, it was said, would these Balkan Slavs be able to maintain their independence. After that they would meet with quite other destinies.

These peoples are at present, so it is taught, in their infancy. So it is hinted that since they are the future sixth sub-race, while the Britons are the present fifth sub-race, the Britons will have to play a role towards them similar to that played by the Romans towards the northern Germanic peoples, namely that of wet-nurse; to be a wet-nurse to these peoples is their primary task. This role of wet-nurse will cease to be necessary, it is said, at the moment when these peoples will have reached a point when the Russian Empire no longer exists and they have succeeded in creating their own forms out of their own dawning intelligence. But gradually the wet-nurse must be replaced by the guardian. This means that in the West a kind of papacy must develop out of those who form the fifth sub-race. For this, a strong spirituality must develop and, just as the Papacy stood in relation to Central Europe, so a configuration will have to come about which works comprehensively from the West over towards the East. This must result in the East being used as a place where certain institutions can be created in a manner similar to that in which the Papacy created its institutions in Europe.

Of course we have now progressed by one sub-race. The Papacy created churches and religious communities of all sorts. But now the western ‘papacy’, which is to develop out of the British element, will have the task of carrying out certain quite definite economic experiments, that is, of instituting a certain form of economic society of a socialist nature which, it is assumed, cannot be founded in the West because there the fifth and not the sixth sub-race has its being. The East, experimentally at first, must be used for such experiments for the future. Political, cultural and economic experiments must be carried out.

Of course these people are not so stupid as to maintain that the dominance of the West will last forever, for no serious student of spiritual matters would believe that. But they are quite clear about the fact that just as at first the services of the wet-nurse were offered, so must these be metamorphosed into the role of the guardian—in other words a kind of future ‘papacy’ on the part of western culture.

I have been reporting, my dear friends! These things are buried deeply in the teachings of western Freemasonry and it is a matter of recognizing whether the ones I have mentioned, which are very influential, are really justified as being for the good of mankind in general in its evolution, or whether it is necessary to think of them as needing correction in some way. This is what we are concerned with. We shall return to all this again.

Now I want to point out that certain stages of evolution are really not mere fantasy, but that the more deeply one enters into the real facts, the more does it become possible to prove in the external world what was found at first by spiritual means. External science, even today, is occupied with the search for theories which prove that evolution takes place in stages which follow one another. That there is really something correct in what the spiritual scientist says can today be confirmed in some of the symptoms of ordinary science, if only one has the good will to search for them.

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Let me mention in this connection something of which I have repeatedly spoken already. Although external culture cannot comprehend these things there is, in spiritual development, something which is expressed in laws which are as definite as the laws of nature. I once drew your attention to a linguistic law. Human evolution from the fourth post-Atlantean period up to the present shows that Greek and Latin represent a particular stage of linguistic development; the next stage was then Gothic, and the one after that New High German. Evolution takes place here in a perfectly regular manner. I can only sketch this for you, but these things follow laws which are every bit as absolute as those of nature, and exceptions merely seem to be so.

The sound D in Greek or Latin is transmuted into T and this again into Th which, because of certain language laws, can also be Z. A Greek Th or Z becomes a Gothic D, and this becomes T in New High German. A Gothic Th or Z becomes a New High German T, and so the circle continues. Similarly, a Graeco-Roman B becomes a Gothic P, and this in turn a New High German F or Pf. A Greek F or Pf would be a Gothic B and a New High German P. There is another circle which goes from G to K to Ch. Take for example treis, three, drei: T / Greek; Th / Gothic; D / New High German. This is so in every case and exceptions can be explained by special laws which complement the main laws.

We have three stages, one above the other: Greek-Latin, Gothic—which corresponds to the time when the Roman Empire was coming up against the Germanic tribes—and the further stage of New High German. The strange thing is, as I have said before, that English has remained behind at the Gothic stage. So if you want to find the English for a New High German word, you have to go back a stage. Take ‘Tag’; to find the English for this you have to go, not forwards, but backwards: ‘day’. Take ‘tief’; again you have to go backwards to ‘deep’; take New High German ‘zehn’; if you want the English you have to go backwards: ‘ten’. Take ‘Zahn’; you have to go backwards if you want the English: ‘tooth’; take ‘Dieb’, here too you have to go backwards: ‘thief’. New High German ‘dick’, if you go backwards, becomes ‘thick’. So, to go from New High German to English, the direction is opposite to the normal.

So we can say quite objectively: If we seek to find the evolution of language as a folk element in respect of English, we have to go back to the Gothic stage. New High German has risen in evolution to become a special element. This is not said out of any patriotic or nationalistic feeling but simply because it is true, just as there is no need to say the polar bear is white out of any sympathy or antipathy for him. The law I have demonstrated to you is a well-known linguistic law, Grimm's law. I have only demonstrated it with regard to some voiced and unvoiced plosives and some aspirated sounds, but it can be done for the whole system of sounds. The evolution of language proceeds in accordance with strict laws and it corresponds to the impulses that rule in human evolution. Little by little natural science discovers these things, though sometimes only sporadically. In spiritual science you may find the deeper foundations for all these things.

We shall come to other aspects of spiritual and cultural life which will show that what applies to the realm of language holds sway in other fields as well. Something unconscious, when it is brought to light, bears witness to objective laws. This cannot be turned and twisted according to sympathy or antipathy!

Do not imagine that this Grimm's law on sound-shifts is unknown to those secret brotherhoods of whom we have spoken. Tomorrow we shall see how they come to terms with such matters and how they have relevant things to say about them too. What they have to say is not foolish but perfectly in keeping with a certain kind of occultism. It will be up to you to decide, when you know more about it, how you want to judge it and whether it is something legitimate or not. Through the karma of human evolution it will come about that certain things are made more easily accessible to the public at large, in particular as a result of the circumstance that a certain amount of confusion has entered into the Masonic orders. Because of these circumstances a variety of things are coming to light for the outside world. We, however, want to understand, above all, the deeper foundations of all this.

Some quite bizarre symptoms are indeed coming to light. For instance there exists today an interesting dissertation by a man who met his death—this too is a remarkable karmic circumstance—on the battlefield of the present war. It is about the parallelism that exists between French politics and French secret societies, and it shows how the two run entirely parallel, how the same forces live in both. Much more intimate and concealed are the circumstances of English politics which are totally under the influence of what lies hidden behind them in this way. Here the main concern is to find ways of placing suitable people in the right places. The people in the background who are involved in occult manipulations are often like a number one; they do not amount to much on their own. They need something else: a nought. Noughts are not ones, but the two together make ten. If more noughts are added, so long as there is a one somewhere as well, a great deal can result—for instance a thousand—though every nought remains a nought. And if the one remains hidden, then only the noughts are visible. So the aim is to combine the noughts in a suitable way with the ones, whereby the noughts have no need to know much about the way in which they are combined with the ones.

There is, for instance, a certain man who is a perfectly honest fellow. I have often said that I in no way look on him as the wicked ogre—for which many in Central Europe want to take him. I think he is an honest, nice man who, in his own way, longs to speak the truth. Yet this does not prevent him from being a nought. This man's education began at Winchester public school, whence he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. Then he won something very important, the Marlylebone Cricket Prize, followed by the Queen Anne Tennis Prize. At the age of twenty-three he became a member of parliament. At that age one is susceptible to all kinds of influences. At thirty he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He had long been Foreign Minister when he set foot outside England for the first time in order to accompany the King of England on a journey to Africa. He also wrote a little book on angling entitled Fly Fishing. Sir Edward Grey then ascended the social ladder before sinking into obscurity. A fellow student at Oxford, ten years his senior, was Asquith, with whom he spent his years there.

This is how those appear who are the visible accomplices. We shall proceed thus far today and carry on tomorrow.

It is a time, in which in quick succession as a result of many deaths the connection of the human being with the spiritual world approaches us. It is the world the human being enters when he goes through the gate of death. Under quite special circumstances these quick successive, almost simultaneous deaths face us. These special circumstances are given because numerous earthly people go through the gate of death that could have lived still for decades on earth under the circumstances that one may assume for earthly people. And whenever the human being goes through the gate of death prematurely as it were, extraordinary conditions come also into being.

We know that the human being going through the gate of death leaves behind, hands over as it were what falls off as his physical body from him to the earth element. We know that then the so-called etheric body is considered as the second that, however, also separates from the individuality. Then the individuality, consisting of astral body and ego, passes the spiritual regions between death and new birth. The etheric body, however, keeps on working, detached from the ego and astral body. This etheric body, which now enters the spiritual world next to us, the etheric world, is different with each human being. You may imagine that an etheric body of somebody who passes the gate of death prematurely looks differently as that of somebody who has lived his life till old age. For the etheric body which has to go with an early deceased human being through the gate of death would have the power to supply the physical body with life under normal conditions still for many years, decades. Now a force does not get lost in the spiritual world just as little as in the physical world. This force which supplies, otherwise, the physical body with life continues to exist. So that we can say: if now thousands go through the gate of death, nevertheless, almost every day, etheric bodies enter into the elemental world which are still capable of surviving, which have other forces in themselves than older etheric bodies have. What happens now with these etheric bodies still capable of surviving?

Yesterday, I spoke of the real folk-soul in the public lecture. This folk-soul is a real being. It needs quite particular forces just in our time. It needs such forces also at other times, of course, but particularly in our time. This folk-soul takes up these etheric bodies still capable of surviving. The human being himself goes other ways with his ego and astral body—those ways which prepare him then for his next life on earth. But these etheric bodies separate from the human individualities, they go over into the being, the substance of the folk-souls. After such a destiny-burdened time as we now experience we go towards a time when the folk-soul contains the etheric bodies in itself—like forces living in it—which have been handed over by those who have gone in the battles through the gate of death. A time comes near when the spiritual scientist can know that that is not lost which was sacrificed on the altar of the big events. A time comes near when effective strength emits from the folk-soul into the individual souls, that simultaneously goes out from that which in the first, second, third decades of youth numerous people have taken up here on earth, which they could still have kept for many decades, which they have handed over, however, to the folk-soul. This is in the forces in future the folk-soul drips into the individual souls; that is not lost.

Let us take that really to heart. Imagine how our consciousness of the connection with the spiritual may be enlivened in our feeling life if we keep in mind that we can speak of the folk-soul in future that the fruits of the sacrificial deaths are in it as effective forces. That is particularly important in the next time. In other times this would be different, for the next time; however, it will be significant because of a quite special reason.

We lived in a bad time of materialism. The souls, who could not approach spiritual science, were immersed in a strong aura of materialism. To fight against this aura is the task of the folk-soul in the next time. Forces will flow towards this folk-soul for the fight of materialism by the fact that the etheric bodies of the early dead linger on in this folk-soul, just linger on as forces. These etheric bodies—sacrificed on the altar of human evolution—will be the strongest fighters against materialism.

So we have to make a distinction between that which moves as a single human being through the regions of the spiritual world and remains united with the human individuality, from that which the etheric body delivers on its detour to the general community; which keeps on working in the spiritual general community in the sense cited here, in the substance of the folk-souls.

That may stamp itself especially deeply in our souls if we put two human types concerning this spiritual difference before our souls: the warrior killed on the battlefield who goes, completely devoted to the task of his people, through the gate of death—who as it were at the moment when he enters the battlefield when he only resolves to enter the battlefield must also resolve to face death. Compare this human type with the ascetic. Just if you consider what the forces of the etheric body signify in human life, you get an idea of the difference of the warrior killed on the battlefield and the ascetic. The ascetic works on himself. He tries to work on himself in such a way that he overcomes the physical in himself completely, that he becomes still free from this physical during his lifetime. Since the ascetic works that way, a significant transformation also takes place in his etheric body. He uses up, so to speak, the forces of this etheric body the strongest to incorporate them in his ego and astral body. What makes the ascetic free from the physical, this is of benefit completely for his individuality, and this serves the transformation of his individuality. So that such a human being who becomes an ascetic can serve humankind only on the detour of that which he makes out of himself. He, however, who frees himself from the physical body in early youth, because he has to surrender to the requests of war, hands over the forces of his etheric body to the general community; he incorporates them to the general work. You have to feel this difference, it is a significant difference. It points us again a little bit to that which prevails as a reality in the human life. It is also significant to look just at the path through the gate of death concerning the etheric body.

At the moment when the human being goes through the gate of death, he is still united with his etheric body. We have often described what happens to this. This connection with the etheric body gives the human being the possibility to live in all ideas that the last life aroused in him to merge completely like in a mighty tableau in everything that the last life has given him. But this is a kind of vision that lasts for a relatively short time; it fades away with the liberation of the etheric body from the ego and astral body. Yes, you can say, it immediately begins to fade away after the moment of death. The impressions become weaker and weaker which are still due to the possession of the etheric body. Then that makes itself felt which is authoritative after the physical death. What is authoritative there is properly imagined only to a lower degree by the people who want to get ideas about the life after death. It is even difficult to coin words for those quite different conditions, compared with the conditions we experience in our physical bodies. One thinks simply that the human being after he has gone through the gate of death has only again to get a consciousness for himself. It is not really that way. The human being experiences no lack of consciousness when he passes the gate of death. On the contrary, his soul experiences a superabundance of consciousness. He lives and weaves completely in consciousness, and as well as the strong sunlight dazes the eyes, he is dazed at first by consciousness, he has too much consciousness. First, this consciousness must be dampened, so that he can orientate himself in the life, into which he has entered after death. This lasts for a longer time; more and more moments happen in which the consciousness makes such an orientation possible. The soul becomes conscious for a more or less short time and then it again enters into a condition similar to sleep as you may call it. Then such moments become gradually longer and longer, the soul comes more and more in such conditions, until it is able to orient itself entirely in the spiritual world.

Also this makes difficulties to get clear ideas of the way how the soul perceives his environment after it went through the gate of death. We buried a dear anthroposophical friend in the last week, and on account of the wish of the dead I had the task to make a funeral celebration for her friends at the place where she died. In the time I spoke and directed my words to the dead person, the dead person was as it were like sleeping. Then the heat had an effect, the flames seized the body, and at this moment a moment of consciousness came over the soul, like a moment of orientation. The dead had the whole image of the funeral celebration and the funeral speech before herself, as somebody has something spatial at the same time before himself. Time becomes there really space. You do not see the past as you see the past running in time during life, but you see the past as something spatial before yourself. So that that which had already run off, which had happened a quarter of an hour before, then stood before the soul of the dead like the first lighting up moment of consciousness. Then a state of daze came again in the flooding light of consciousness to go in this condition towards those other conditions in which the soul gradually learns to orientate itself in the spiritual world.

It is important if we want to really get good ideas about the life after death for ourselves that we understand these quite different conceptions of time, that we see how there time is not something of which one can say, it has passed, and one remembers of the matters that happened in time, but the past stands there. Like the desk stands there and this desk does not go along with me when I go over there and look back at it, in the same way that remains after death which happened, which can be just only reminded, stands there; and the dead looks back at it as one looks back in the body at the spatial objects. This is very important to understand. Furthermore, that is of particular importance to understand that we really remain in connection, that our life on earth remains in connection with that what we experience between death and a new birth; at least it remains in close connection up to the point in time I called midnight hour in my last mystery drama.¹

Nevertheless, I would not like to fail to give our friends ideas of these relations to be difficultly described bit by bit. At that which we as earthly people have experienced between birth and death the soul, which has gone to death, looks back—but not, as if that which one has experienced there only would be there, but some conditions of life of the dead play a part in a peculiar way. The condition of life of the dead is not the same as the condition of life between birth and death of living people. The condition is such a one that the human being feels enclosed by his skin and looks out into the world by means of his senses. As soon as one enters as a dead the spiritual world, he/she has flowed out into the whole spiritual world. The soul feels like fulfilling the whole spiritual world bit by bit. What the human being has experienced during his physical earth existence, he feels like something that remains to him—not as a physical body, of course, but as that which constitutes the form, the forces of the physical body. This remains after death, but the soul has it as somebody has the human eye in the physical body. As you have the eye for seeing, you have then yourself, the life on earth, which you have experienced, as a cosmic sense-organ to perceive the world with it. What our eye is now for our body, this is our life on earth for our spiritual life after death.

Our life on earth is implanted to us as it were as an eye, as a sense-organ. You will understand gradually only after longer meditation what significant, actually, is pronounced that our life on earth becomes a sense-organ for our life between death and a new birth. That resembles to the process when the human being falls asleep and leaves the physical and etheric bodies with his ego and astral body. When initiation comes into being and the human being starts beholding in the spiritual world outside his physical and etheric bodies, then he knows: in the spiritual world you perceive like by means of a sense with the spiritual part of your physical body, and you think in the spiritual world with your etheric body. Your etheric body is real like your brain in the spiritual world and your former physical body is a sense-organ. However, you yourself are poured out with all your vital forces over the spiritual worlds. You have spread, you do not feel crowded together to one place because of your skin, and you feel poured out, extended over the spiritual world.

This is a quite different existence. With it is connected that somebody who himself enters the spiritual world, either by death, or by initiation, lives united with the other beings of the spiritual world, with beings of higher hierarchies or with human souls, which live between death and a new birth. However, he lives united with them in such a way that he does not experience them as you meet earthly men outside where you are separated spatially from them. But he experiences them as being contained in a common spiritual space, penetrating each other. What another soul experiences one does not experience by the fact that it says something, like with earthly people, but that one settles in the other soul and witnesses its thoughts. Hence, it is also that you can only be certain to experience that in yourself really what, for example, a dead experiences if you know: you are as it were in the dead, you do not only report something that you hear after the model of something which you experience on earth, but you hear: the dead himself speaks through your being.

I would also like to explain that to you by an example².

Into cosmic distances I will carry
My feeling heart, so that it grows warm
In the fire of the holy forces' working;

Into cosmic thoughts I will weave
My own thinking, so that it grows clear
In the light of the eternal life;

Into depths of soul I will sink
Devoted meditation, so that it grows strong
For the true goals of human activity;

In the peace of God I strive thus
Amidst Life's battles and cares
To prepare myself for the higher Self;

Aspiring for work in joy-filled peace,
Sensing cosmic being in my own being,
to fulfil my human duty;

May I live then in anticipation,
Oriented toward my soul's star
Which gives me my place in spirit realms.

I would like to put this before your souls as a clear example of the mysterious course which the human soul takes just through the point in time which separates the life between birth and death from the life between death and a new birth, where everything that was still external experience to us in the life on earth becomes internal wealth of the soul and lives in us that way. Here one takes on spiritual science still as something external. Immediately after death, however, it appears how it lives in the soul, yes, we say, as well as muscular strength now lives in our physical bodies. You have to feel that once if you want to grasp the internal sense, the internal meaning of that which spiritual science can be for the human soul. Then bit by bit you get a conception—you must have patience—of the quite different relations in the spiritual world. If we form words and concepts of the relations in the sensory world, we can give symbols at most of that what is in the spiritual world. You must work in patience towards concepts and sensations and feelings which express that fairly correctly and truly what the relations of the spiritual world are.

The logic of the life on earth—yes, there is only one logic of the life on earth—is already sometimes rather fragile for the life on earth. I have already stated how one can pass the real facts using the logic of the life on earth. I have often stated the example: assuming a person is walking along a brook. We see him falling into the brook. We rush over and find out that he is already dead. We see a stone where the person has fallen into the brook, and can now form a quite logical, but superficial judgment. We can say: the person has tripped over the stone, has fallen into the brook and drowned. He has died the death of drowning.—But this can be quite wrong. If one examines the matter purely anatomically, it can become apparent that the person had experienced a heart failure; thereby he fell in the water. The heart failure is the cause of his death. With the everyday correct logic we conclude wrongly. Such conclusions—this would be noted, only by the way—are made perpetually in human life and in particular in science. Science is full of such conclusions where cause and effect are mistaken.

But the matter becomes important when questions of human destiny are considered. We have experienced such a stroke of fate in Dornach in autumn, which is instructive in the most important sense. One evening the little, seven-year-old son of our member, Theo Faiss, who was an exceptionally dear, bright child, was reported missing. It was just during an evening lecture. The mother searched for the child, it was not to be found. When the lecture was over, one heard, actually, only that the mother misses her boy, and one could imagine nothing else that the death of the boy were in connection with a removal van, which had toppled over. A member of our society had let send his pieces of furniture in a removal van, and this removal van had toppled over in the evening where the boy stood. It was ten a quarter clock in the evening and we applied everything to lift the carriage. The mobilised military met us to help, to lift this removal van. The removal van was lifted, and one found the boy crushed under the carriage. Now think, in this area a removal van did never go generally before; nor thereafter. The boy was here, one could state this later by all possible things one calls incidents and chances, just in the time—it has concerned only minutes, around a moment—where the removal van toppled over. However, it was strange that first of all those who were here where the carriage had toppled over were only concerned to bring the horses to safety. One had no idea that the removal van had fallen on the little boy.

The child was dead. The materialist view may say: well, the removal van toppled over by chance there at this hour; the child got under it and was crushed. The materialist view will say that, of course. Before the spiritual view this is completely nonsense. For that what is there is the karma of the child, and this karma of the child steered all single circumstances. It has also steered the removal van there just at the hour when the child needed the death because the karma of the child wanted it. The karma of the child had expired. We deal here with the necessity to reverse cause and effect.

By such relations and the view of them one is able to ascend bit by bit to the real view of life which persuades us to reverse that what the external appearance presents to the senses. We must often turn around this. But the matter becomes quite significant when one experiences after that what comes into being by such a fact. The soul of a human being goes through the gate of death. This soul was embodied for seven years in a physical body. Why could the little Theo not have become also seventy, eighty, ninety years, externally considered if the karma had not made it impossible? An etheric body is there which could have supplied life still for decades; an etheric body which was really filled by forces of the eternal, of the good. It was an excellent boy.

You know that then the real individuality, the ego and astral body, go on their way. But the etheric body frees itself, this etheric body, in which all tender, nice forces are woven which have developed in the childhood, in which, however, all forces also live which come from the former incarnations. Now imagine what you have before you facing such an etheric body. The individuality comes from the former incarnations. It embodies itself anew in this incarnation; it implies what comes from previous incarnations. The life of this incarnation is as it were the fruit, realising that what was cause in a life in previous incarnations. Through the whole life these fruits could have enjoyed life to the full. Then everything would have gone into this etheric body what comes from the fruits of the former incarnations. This has not happened. In return everything is in this etheric body what still has causes in the former incarnations. And now the strangest thing is: somebody who tries to explore the aura of our Dornach construction finds this etheric body of the little Theo in the aura of the Dornach construction. There he is, there he hovers over, lives around the Dornach construction. He who has to deal with the Dornach construction or will still deal after that late autumn afternoon in which the little Theo went through the gate of death knows what has been changed in the spiritual aura of the Dornach construction by the fact that that etheric body was incorporated into this aura. This etheric body contains the forces which would else have been used for decades for the supply of a physical human body, and this etheric body is just poured out in this aura of the construction.

So mysterious are the ways that wisdom flooding through the world has to experience with its creatures. There are only correct ideas of the kind how the whole human life runs—to which in the most remarkable sense the life between death and a new birth belongs—if one goes into details of these matters. Because our anthroposophical movement should really be not anything abstract, but something in which we are with our whole being, in which also those are who just belong to us, we are also allowed to speak of such matters. We unite not only like other societies with a certain program, but we want to be with our whole souls in our spiritual-scientific movement. We want to conceive this spiritual-scientific movement as a concrete stream to which everybody belongs who really bears witness to it in a feeling way. We can say: there we speak as somebody just speaks in an enlarged family about the relatives there or there. For that what touches us, so to speak, in an informally familiar way gives us the highest, the most significant, the most important explanations of the spiritual world at the same time.

From such an attitude I would like to mention the death of one of our friends who are just often affected by deaths in the last time. Our infinitely dear friend Fritz Mitscher has recently gone through the gate of death. The necessity arose to me to subsume in words what the own soul felt, while it leant to the soul, which has just gone through the gate of death. Notice the difference between the preceding words which I have read out to you, and the words which I want to read out to you now. The words that I have read out just here are out of the soul of the dead. The words which I will read out to you now are stimulated in my own soul at the sight of the dead Fritz Mitscher, who was still combined with his etheric body. It is the impression which the dead made that is reported now in these words. Perhaps, you know that Fritz Mitscher was already as a young teacher at the most different place, especially in Berlin, active for our Anthroposophical Society. And many of us also know that he was just inclined in such a nice way to combine everything that he could acquire of earthly science and learning with the noblest, nicest anthroposophical consciousness. This also expresses itself after his death when in his whole being was combined what he was, and what shines now again after his death from the soul relieved of the body which still had its etheric body. And it seems to me that this had to be expressed what Fritz Mitscher was after death with the words, which I had to send on to him at the cremation.

A hope, filling us with happiness:
You entered the field
Where, through the power of soul being,
Earth's spirit blossoms
Reveal themselves to investigation.

Your longing was bound from the beginning
To pure truth-loving being;
To create out of spirit-light
Was the earnest life goal
For which you strove without rest.

You nurtured your beautiful gifts
To tread with steady steps
Bright paths of spirit-knowledge
As truth's true servant
Unperturbed by worldly contradiction

You trained your spirit-organs
That, with courage and persistence,
On both sides of the path
Repelled error for you
And made a space for truth for you.

For you, to form your Self
For the revelation of pure light
So the soul's sun-power
Might shine mightily within you
Was your life's concern and joy.

Other cares, other joys
Barely touched your soul,
For knowledge seemed to you to be
The light that gives existence meaning,
Seemed to your life's true value.

A hope, filling us with happiness:
You entered the field
Where, through the power of soul being,
Earth's spirit blossoms
Reveal themselves to investigation.

A loss that pains us deeply,
You disappeared from the field
Where the Spirit's earthly kernels
In the womb of soul being
Ripened your senses for the spheres.

Feel how we lovingly gaze
Into the heights that now
Call you to other works.
Give to the friends left behind
Your power from spirit-realms,

Hear our soul's entreaties
Sent to you in confidence and trust:
For our earthly work here we need
Strong forces from spirit-lands,
For which we thank dead friends.

A hope, filling us with happiness,
A loss that pains us deeply:
Allow us to hope, that you, far-near,
Unlost, light our life
As a soul-star in spirit-realm.

These are the words which were sent to the dead out of the being of the dead. And then some time passed after these words were spoken at the cremation, and out of the being of the dead, not yet out of the well-organised consciousness, but like from the being sounding, there the following words sounded now from the dead in the night after the cremation.

For me, to form my Self
For the revelation of pure light
So the soul's sun-power
Might shine mightily within myself
Was my life's concern and joy.

Other cares, other joys
Barely touched my soul,
For knowledge seemed to me to be
The light that gives existence meaning,
Seemed to my life's true value.

The words sounded back that way. Only after that I myself found out that two stanzas which are in the middle can be converted immediately from “you” to “I” and from “to you” to “to me.” I did not know that before. Since I heard the stanzas as I read them to you first. And now they came back from the being of the dead, spoken by him:

That shows that as well as in the time in which the consciousness does not yet have the shape which the soul has then again after this time through the whole realm between death and new birth, it shows as even in lively transformation, in meaningful transformation the words come from the dead. You have only to feel the spiritual-scientific world view becoming really alive creating the connection between the physical and the spiritual worlds. For it may run like a shiver through our souls when we feel at such an example how the words are called to the dead—and he returns them changed to us. Like we feel on one side that they went to the dead because they resound from him, not only like an echo, but meaningfully changed by him.

These are matters that give us the certainty, the confidence also for our present that the souls living here in earthly bodies are connected with the spiritual powers weaving and prevailing in the world. In this stream of prevailing and weaving spiritual powers the deceased are woven, are in it, because in it they experience their further postmortal destinies.

If we allow the connection of the physical and spiritual worlds to have an effect on our souls, we can contemplate various things. I pointed already once also here to the fact that with this cooperation of the physical and spiritual worlds proceeding in the concrete sense also the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha comes near to us. We know that now we only start contemplating the sense and meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha and Christ Being by spiritual science completely. Up to now the human beings did that by means of reason. And what did result from this reason? If the effectiveness of Christ had depended in the human earth-life on that what the human beings have understood of it, the effectiveness of the Christ Impulse on earth could had been not very strong. The human beings have understood theological squabbling, all kinds of disputes in their reason, that was they understood of Christianity. But Christ has had an effect out of lively power.

I have probably stated also here the example of the battle which Constantine fought against Maxentius, by which the fate of Europe was decided at that time. Thus Christianity was only accepted, actually, and became then the ruling power in Europe. This battle was not won through the art of strategy nor by the armies of Constantine. Maxentius had to defend Rome. By looking up in the Sibylline Books and by a dream, which he had, it was put in his head that he should lead his army out of Rome. Then he would destroy the enemies of Rome. His army was five times stronger than that of Constantine, who approached Rome. Now he really led his army out of Rome, strategically the most inept what he could do. Since according to strategy everything spoke well of letting his army in Rome and letting the hostile armies approach. However, he led his army out of Rome. Also on the side of Constantine who led his armies against Rome these were not warlike-scientific reasons which gave him the strength, but he also had a dream. The dream said to him: if you allow bearing the monogram of Christ in front of your army, you will defeat Rome.—At that time and still for later the whole map of Europe was transformed through the victory of Constantine with his weaker army. Also the spiritual life of Europe has thereby become different. That what people could understand in those days would not have been sufficient to accomplish these achievements. The Christ Impulse had an effect in the subconsciousness of the human beings, in that what lived in the depths of the souls what people only could dream of, what came up to them at most in dream pictures.

We have a later, quite important example of the effectiveness of the Christ Impulse with the Maid of Orleans.³ Who studies history really, not as one often studies history today, but that one tries to recognise the real connections, he can know that again the fate of Europe was absolutely determined for the next centuries through that what the Maid of Orleans did. Neither strategy, nor the wisdom of the politicians, but that what the shepherd girl of Orleans did was vital for the destiny of Europe, especially also for the destiny of France. Now, however, the Christ Impulse worked in the Maid of Orleans, through its Michaelic representative. It worked into the soul of the Maid of Orleans. Her soul was completely infiltrated, inspired by the Christ Impulse. Exactly in the same way as in those days when the battle was decided between Constantine and Maxentius the Christ Impulse worked, without people knowing about it in their upper consciousness. The Christ Impulse also worked there, when the Maid of Orleans sent the French armies against the English armies. The whole continent would have changed, also England if at that time France had not won. Also England would not be that what she has become if she had not been defeated. However, the subconscious forces which came up in dream pictures caused the victory. The abilities of the Maid of Orleans were inspired by them. So that you can say: what the Maid of Orleans did was influenced through a more or less unaware initiation. It is of course an unaware, you may also say, an atavistic initiation. A clean psychic vessel had to be seized just unconsciously, as it was the Maid of Orleans through whom the Christ Impulse could work, by his Michaelic representative—a clean vessel.

Let us look at the matter more exactly. If anybody today goes consciously through an initiation—there are rules for that. The ABC is in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” There are rules by which one is able to develop gradually. One cannot speak of such a conscious initiation in the case of the Maid of Orleans. But a spirit which is otherwise not united with the human soul had to take its place in this human soul, to permeate this human soul. Especially favourable circumstances had to come into being. A spirit of higher spheres cannot always intervene in the souls who are enabled for it. Especially favourable circumstances must occur, so that a single human being comes in connection with higher worlds without initiation, without conscious work on himself. Especially favourable circumstances exist in the time when as it were the spirit of the earth is particularly awake: in the time from the 25th December to the 6th January. When in summer the sun stands highest, when the physical heat radiates mostly to the earth, then the conditions of initiation are the worst because then the spirit of the earth is sleeping. The spirit of the earth is the most awake in the winter darkness, at the winter solstice.

Hence, it is not only a legend, but corresponds to a truth when it is told in old legends that during the thirteen nights which precede the 6th January certain particularly suitable souls were initiated, so that they could go into the spiritual world, that they could experience there what we call Kamaloka and devachan. We here in Hanover probably remember that the legend of Olaf Åsteson⁴ was once reported who—sleeping for these thirteen nights—went through the whole way which can be the way through Kamaloka and devachan. Olaf Åsteson tells then what he experienced during these thirteen days.

If the external physical darkness of the earth is the strongest, the conditions are the most favourable to lead a soul into in the spiritual world. It would have been the most favourable for souls like the Maid of Orleans, who are initiated for the whole humankind for such an action not by directly conscious exercising but by especially favourable circumstances, if she could have slept during the thirteen nights. Thus she could have been brought into connection with the spiritual world; if she could have accomplished that in a sleeping state. The Maid of Orleans went really through such a sleeping state. For the Maid of Orleans spent these thirteen days up to the 6th January in the body of her mother in a condition in which the human being still sleeps. Since the human being only wakes up for the physical life when he is born and does the first gasp. With the Maid of Orleans the last sleeping nights of the embryo fall in the time of the thirteen nights, because she was born on the 6th January. There you have a deeply significant internally historical connection. There you have the basis of the mission of the Maid of Orleans, who was chosen to receive the initiation as this clean soul before her first gasp during the last thirteen nights of the pregnancy of her mother, in this sleeping state, just under the especially favourable circumstances of the earth-life. The calendar shows it simply to you. Open the calendar: on the 6th January you find the birthday of the Maid of Orleans. The calendar shows you how here a deeply intimate connection exists between the physical world and the processes in the spiritual world. Of course, it was necessary that the soul of the Maid of Orleans was prepared by her preceding incarnations. During the thirteen nights this soul and that what could come from this soul made it possible just at this point of the human development that the spiritual world was able to influence the physical world.

The spiritual world with its ingredients is always there. The spiritual world is always among us. The ways of working in the physical world are manifold, which the spiritual world selects. And our consciousness of the connection with the spiritual world becomes stronger and stronger, the more we express the connections between the physical and spiritual worlds especially deeply in such details, while such connections stand vividly in front of our souls.

On the other side, one must say: also that what happens here in the physical world may prepare a kind of connection with the spiritual world and our physical world. And if anybody who has taken up that as intensely as Fritz Mitscher what flows through our spiritual science, and then went across in the spiritual world in the thirtieth year of his life—on the 26th February his thirtieth birthday would be—and has infiltrated his soul with that what can penetrate as a strength into the soul by our spiritual science, then we have a powerful individuality who will further stay together with us in the spiritual world who is an assistant of the most immense kind. And if you imagine how difficult the striving for spiritual science is just in our time, in this time which is, nevertheless, completely impregnated with materialism. Then one may also say that he who is connected with all the fibers of his life with the spiritual world has the biggest hopes for those who can become spiritual assistants who become spiritual assistants after they have laid down their physical bodies. One does not need to say, of course, that the passage through the gate of death is never allowed to be a personal decision, but that it must be caused only by karma. These spiritual assistants are those who give us consolation and hope if we see how difficult it is, just in the present, to provide for our spiritual-scientific movement because of the manifold inhibitions. However, we know how higher spiritual forces have an effect on earth, so that the current of the spiritual worlds flows into the purposes of the physical earth. Thus the unused forces of the human souls come up to the spiritual worlds to work there just with their forces, combined with other forces. Hence, I said the words to our Fritz Mitscher in my obituary really from the bottom of my heart:

Hear our souls' entreaties
Sent to you in confidence and trust:
For our earthly work here we need
Strong forces from spirit-lands,
For which we thank dead friends.

When we try to advance our spiritual movement to its purpose honestly, then we are aware that in the forces which we apply here on earth also those forces are working which our friends already brought through the gate of death into the spiritual world.

We summarise now all that also for the understanding of the general situation of the world. On one side, the human souls who go now due to the destiny-burdened events through the gate of death carry their etheric bodies to the folk-souls. On the other side, they carry everything that they have summoned up in sacrificial devotion, while they have gone just by these events through the gate of death with their individualities. And all that will be poured out as effectiveness into the coming age. It is the matter of the human beings who then experience peace to produce the connection with that what will be there in the spiritual world. Those who today experience as mothers and fathers, as brothers and sisters or other relatives the death on the battlefield of a human being dear to them can take up the fact in their consciousness that with the etheric body something extremely significant passes over into the general effectiveness of the earthly humankind for the future. Not only that they can know that the individualities go invigorated by death to a later stronger life on earth, but they can also know: that what the warrior after death has handed over to the folk-soul weaves and lives really. Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers have those who have gone young through the gate of death twice, one must say, now in the folk-soul and also as individuality. This idea will only be of great value when it has completely become feeling, so that one does not only speak of immortality, but that one knows in the feeling: the dead are there, are among us. If this bond is such a strong one that also for our feeling death will be, actually, an untruth. Since the dead can appear even more real than often in the physical embodiment if he can take together everything of his being and if he does no longer have his physical body as an obstacle. Immense currents of consolation, currents of internal strength of self-consolation go out from that what spiritual science can give to the souls in lively consciousness and lively sensations. When this is felt that way, then in particular those who bear witness to spiritual science can look full of consolation into the future. They can feel something like twilight in the turn of an era during these present, destiny-burdened events after which a time of sunny peace will also follow. But important will be in the spiritual effectiveness of this time of sunny peace that what is won through the sacrificial deaths of so many people.

That can be made fruitful here on earth particularly creating a bridge, a connection between the living human beings who are incarnated in physical bodies here on earth and the souls who are above and want to radiate down that which they have taken with them. Here it is where the real understanding of spiritual science knocks on our hearts and asks us to do that what we can do from the consciousness we have gained by spiritual science what we can do feeling, so that the great, destiny-exciting, painful events of the present time, as far as we are concerned, contribute to the fertility and welfare of humankind. Those who know something about spiritual science can know feeling and feel knowing by which means the bridge is built up into the spiritual world: because the souls, who remained on earth, send the thoughts and sensations which can be enkindled by spiritual science. The horizon for that will be a horizon of peace. Above, the souls will be who send down spiritual beams of light. Below, human beings must be who have learnt to send such thoughts and feelings out of their souls from below which are stimulated by spiritual science. If there are really souls who turn their senses conscious of spirit to the spirit land, then the bridge will be built, then the time will have come when just through such painful, destiny-burdened events, as they happen in our time, an intimate bond must be woven between the physical and spiritual worlds, for which we strive by our spiritual science.

So we summarise what should be our knowledge and our task and what should arouse confidence in the words:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit land.

• 1. The Soul's Awakening in Four Mystery Dramas, volume 14 of Steiner's Collected Works
• 2. Lina Grosheintz-Rohrer
• 3. Maid of Orleans (1412-1431)
• 4. Cosmic New Year. The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. Lecture (Hanover, 1st January 1912) in The Connection Between the Human Being and the Elemental World … volume 158 of Steiner's Collected Works

Dear attendees, already in earlier years I was allowed to give lectures in this city on questions of world view, which are based on what I dare to call “spiritual science”. And also in this fateful time of ours, the friends of our spiritual scientific world view here in this city thought that it would be possible to talk about some things in the field of this spiritual science here. And that should be appropriate for this time as well; after all, what is called spiritual science here is about the deepest, most fateful things in human beings, about that which leads people to the bitterest disappointments of life, but also to those feelings that we see unfolding so powerfully in our time in terms of courage and willingness to make sacrifices.

Now, dear attendees, what is called spiritual science in the sense of tonight's reflections is by no means something that can find any approval or recognition in wide circles of our present time. And it must be said that precisely the person who is completely and with all his soul immersed in this spiritual-scientific world view will find it self-evident that precisely the most highly educated people in our time raise objections against what this spiritual science presents. And it will appear to them much more understandable when it is said that this spiritual science is a collection of dreams, fantasies or even worse, than when someone who is completely immersed in the thought patterns that completely immersed in the thought patterns that have emerged over the past few centuries, is immersed in a scientific training that is in line with the times, if he could immediately agree with this spiritual science at first hearing.

In particular, it is quite obvious and understandable that objections, perhaps even ridicule and scorn, will be raised against what this spiritual science has to say, especially from three sides. First of all, from those who believe that they are standing on the firm ground of a scientific worldview in the present day. They will have to say – and I say expressly – they will still have to say today that this spiritual science denies everything that the so admirable natural science has achieved for humanity in the course of the last three to four centuries in the most careful way, both theoretically and practically, in human development. And from another side, objection after objection will have to be raised against this spiritual science from the side that believes that everything possible from old superstition and old prejudices is to be listed by what this spiritual science has to bring forward.

And still a third may always arise against this spiritual science. It is the opinion that the most valuable, the most profoundly significant thing that the human soul can hold and carry in life, that the religious element could be endangered by what spiritual science has to say.

Now, esteemed attendees, I hope that even if I do not directly address the refutation of the objections from these various sides, this evening's remarks themselves will show how unfounded and based on misunderstandings what is being said against spiritual science is. Above all, what does this spiritual science want to be? It wants to be one for our time, one for the present path of development of humanity, appropriate continuation of that which the so admirable natural science has brought to humanity. Only, however, it wants to be that which natural science is for external life and external sense observation, it wants to be that for the observations, for the insights of the spiritual world. And precisely for this reason, because it wants to be the genuine, true successor of natural science in the field of spiritual science, it must, in a certain way, in order to be just as scientific as natural science is in its fields, take different paths and methods than natural science.

And to get straight to the point, I would like to discuss the relationship between what a spiritual researcher is, a researcher in the field of the spiritual worlds, in contrast to the natural scientist, who extends his sensory observations, his experiments, his thinking to that which is spread out in time and space. Particularly if spiritual science wants to be truly scientific, it must, in a sense, continue its research where natural science, where all the thinking and feeling and sensing of everyday life ends. And here we immediately come to what runs directly counter to the thinking habits of by far the largest circles of educated people in our society today.

When you are immersed in everyday life, when you let your senses roam over this everyday life, when you think, when you feel about this everyday life, then you are rightly satisfied when you think, feel, sense, imagine, and have ideas about what is out there in space and passing through time. And one recognizes, again with full justification, that one has knowledge, that one has something that can satisfy people, that one has, so to speak, images in concepts and ideas of what takes place in space and time. One remains, so to speak, with the concepts and ideas, one preserves them as that into which one has transformed the outer world.

As a spiritual researcher, one has to start at the point where one stops with one's perceptions and ideas in order to find one's way into the spiritual worlds. I would like to say: the spiritual researcher also has his laboratory and experimental methods, just like the natural scientist and the chemist. But his laboratory is situated entirely within the soul itself. His methods are not such as are used by the chemist, the physicist, the clinician, who carry out their work in space and time and whose work involves listening out for the laws of space and time. The work of the spiritual researcher involves intimate processes that take place entirely within the soul itself. While in everyday life, while in ordinary science, one stops at representations and concepts, in spiritual research one must begin with concepts, ideas and perceptions. And one must not store these perceptions, which one receives in the outer world, in the soul, but one must live intimately with what the soul develops in the life of perception and feeling, living together in a different way than one is accustomed to in the ordinary existence of the day. And since I do not want to talk in abstract terms, but really want to show what the spiritual research path is, I would like to get straight down to specifics.

A person's soul must become something quite different from what it is in everyday life if it wants to observe that which is in the spiritual world. And it can become so if it gets used to living inwardly with that which otherwise merely ... Let us assume that we place some arbitrary idea, a concept, from our own inner soul power into the center of our consciousness and now, instead of asking ourselves, as we do in everyday life, as we do in ordinary science, “What does this concept express to us?” Instead, as spiritual researchers, we try to live with the concept, the idea, the feeling, and also with the impulse of the will, to live in meditation; I mean to live for minutes or for half an hour. In doing so, it is even advantageous if we use not concepts and perceptions that depict something external for this, I would say, inner laboratory work of the soul, but if we use perceptions, ideas that are symbols that do not depict anything external.

What I mean is, take for example the idea: “In the light that permeates and governs the world, living wisdom lives.” Of course, someone might say: this idea does not depict anything real. It is purely the product of the imagination. That is not the point. The point is that we now place this idea at the center of our consciousness, that we now withdraw our attention from everything else that is around us in everyday life or that constitutes the subject of science. This means that all impressions of the senses, all representations that depict something external, memory images, emotions, must be forgotten in the moments when we place such a representation at the center of all our soul activities, as it has just been characterized. Then we gather together all the powers of our soul, which we otherwise distribute among external perceptions and external experiences; we concentrate them and fix them on this single idea. Now it does not depend on what we have in mind. That is why I said: such an idea can be better formed through the exercise of the will. It does not depend on what we imagine, but on the fact that we apply inwardly those strong forces that the soul must apply in order to concentrate everything that is in it through inner willpower in this inner work towards this one point. Doing this only once or twice has no influence at all on the human soul. But it is different when we make what has just been characterized the continued exercise of the soul. Depending on the disposition of the person, one person may have to concentrate their inner soul life on one point for only a few weeks, while another may have to do so for years, always for short periods of time. What matters is that we always repeat the same idea in the right way or also alternate it with other ideas.

Of course, I can only discuss the principles here; you can find more details in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and also in the second part of my “Occult Science”, where I discuss how to carry out this, I would like to say again and again, this laboratory work of the soul in detail. This is something that is easily described and of which one can also imagine that it proceeds easily in the soul; but I would like to apply the word used by Goethe to it: “Although it seems easy, yet the easy is difficult.” For the point is that the powers the soul applies in such tasks are completely untrained in ordinary life. So by distracting one's attention from all external and internal impressions and concentrating one's entire mental life through inner arbitrariness – these tasks are called “meditation” and “concentration” – an inner, intimate change takes place in the soul. This change does not occur immediately; nor can it be achieved by simply resolving: “I will now do a great deal and will then achieve what I set out to achieve.” That is not the case. Rather, the essential thing is that we do not use a concept, an idea, a feeling, or any other emotional impulse in the same way as we usually do, but that we live with them, that we give ourselves over to them completely.

Then we must wait, not for what we do with them, but for what they become as we give ourselves to them. Our inner soul is transformed as if we were spectators of what is happening within us, in that we completely identify with what we have placed at the center of our consciousness. Not much time is needed during the day. A few minutes are enough for some, half an hour for others during the day; but it must be done continuously for a long time, and again and again these otherwise hidden powers of the soul must be directed in such a way as I have just described. Then the one who devotes himself to such exercises, who really wants to become a spiritual researcher, notices that something is going on within him of which one has no concept in the outer life. Nor can one have any idea of how someone who has never heard of chemistry can imagine that hydrogen can be released from water through special chemical processes; hydrogen, which is a gas, which looks quite different from water, which burns while water extinguishes. Just as someone who has never heard of chemistry cannot have any idea of what can come out of water as hydrogen, so in ordinary life one cannot have any idea of what happens when the soul, with the expenditure of tremendous inner energy and perseverance, constantly concentrates forces that it otherwise does not apply on one point.

Then the soul gradually realizes that something is happening that does not occur in ordinary life. The soul experiences detachment from the physical body. It is one of the most harrowing experiences for the spiritual researcher to actually experience what is denied in everyday life or in external science. It cannot be said that the soul is already detached from ordinary life. No, it is connected to it. But as the spiritual researcher works in the way that has been characterized, the soul will gradually appear detached from the physical. He really experiences this detachment, before one can really say that the soul-spiritual slips out of the physical-bodily. He enters into a state in which he knows: You are no longer in the body with your thoughts and feelings, but you are outside the body. It is precisely this that must be experienced, which the most scientifically minded world view of the present denies, that there is a spiritual-soul life independent of the body.

What the spiritual researcher experiences next is surprising. At first, one feels how one lives more and more strongly and strongly within oneself in powers that one did not know before. Then there comes a moment when this inner, strong energy and power, in which one already feels, I might say, like in a kind of inner well-being, is dampened, that it is dampened down. And there comes a moment when one experiences something like darkness spreading over the consciousness that one has acquired outside of the body. One could also say: a kind of inner powerlessness, a disappearance and sinking into something that one has as an inner experience.

All that the spiritual researcher goes through is not as indifferent to the soul as the experiences that the ordinary scientist goes through. For this seizes him in his whole mind, it takes up all his attention, it pours out a wealth of initially harrowing experiences upon the soul. The experience one has when one advances in the indicated manner is something like destruction, like an enormous feeling of loneliness.

And there is something else that one experiences, which I will characterize by a comparison, but which should be more than a comparison: Suppose that the germ that develops in the plant could imagine something, could think. As the plant grows from the root to the individual leaves and to the flower, the germ prepares itself; within it are the forces that will later develop into a new plant. It can only develop by drawing its forces from the entire plant. Now, let us assume that it could empathize with the life of the plant – what would it have to feel? He would have to say to himself: As I become stronger and stronger, as I develop more and more, I do so at the expense of the plant on which I develop. I cause what is in the leaves and flowers to wither and fall off because the forces in me are growing strong. That must die. And so, too, he who advances in the manner described, through concentration, through meditation, to that which is indeed a real core, but a spiritual-soul core in the whole life of man — so he feels, really, so he feels and senses, as if he must feel this body itself, to the same extent that he develops, as withering, as melting away, in the whole universe. But anyone who wants to have real knowledge in the spiritual world must have this feeling.

Now you know that ordinary scientific philosophy speaks of the limits of knowledge, of the fact that human knowledge cannot penetrate beyond a certain point. Very many say that man cannot penetrate beyond what is given to the senses, which is grasped by the intellect, which is bound to the brain. Logical proofs are adduced to show that man cannot go beyond certain limits of knowledge. But these logical proofs are a very special matter. Something can be very well proved logically, but life, life in truth, overcomes that which is only logical proof. I will clarify what I actually want to say by means of a comparison, although this comparison is also intended to be more than just a comparison. Consider: in the days before the invention of the microscope, certain people sensed that the smallest cells and structures in plants could be discovered, but they said: the human senses are so arranged that such small cells cannot be seen. Therefore, even if they were present, they will never be seen. Such proof could be quite right. Nothing could be said against it. But life has gone beyond that: they found the microscope and discovered the small plant cells.

At some point, humanity of the present and the future will have to come to terms with the fact that evidence means nothing when it comes to knowledge. Something can be strictly proven and yet, life in truth can go beyond it. Someone may say: Here comes such a complicated spiritual researcher and talks about the fact that the human being, human knowledge, can grow into the spiritual world, while Kant and others have irrefutably proven that human knowledge has limits. The spiritual researcher does not want to touch such proofs at all. But they are no more valuable than the proof mentioned earlier. Life will go beyond it. But another question: how is it that there are philosophers at all who speak of the limits of knowledge, who say that one cannot penetrate into spiritual realms?

Now, what the spiritual researcher finds is not created by him, it is only recognized; by recognizing something, one does not change what is there. What the spiritual researcher experiences as an inner powerlessness of the soul, as an inner loneliness of the soul, is always spread out at the bottom of the soul. It lies down there in the soul, covered only by a veil of a merciful wisdom, and remains unconscious to the person. And now the philosopher comes; he works only with the consciousness that is bound to the brain. He does not know that down there in the soul there is secret fear and shyness of rising to the point where knowledge initially feels like a lonely powerlessness. He knows nothing of this, and unconsciously he shrinks back from it. He is only afraid to go further than the thinking that is bound to the brain. Now what I have described does not last - or at least it should not last beyond a certain time.

The human being must not only enter into the inner mood that I have just described, but, if he wants to become a true spiritual researcher, he must do a parallel exercise. He must do another exercise, which you will find described in detail in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. Wherever spiritual research methods are properly practiced, the approach just described is not the only one recommended, but the other approach is also taught.

This other path – I can best make it understandable through the following – is connected with an understanding of what the word “fate” encompasses for human life, which is infinitely significant. What does the word “fate” encompass for human life! But how do those facts approach man that are usually referred to as fate? We live in the world. That which comes to us as suffering or joy, as pain or pleasure-inducing fate, is usually understood as coincidences that happen to people. And the course of our fate between birth and death is understood as a sum of events, in the context of which one does not look further than whether one finds one thing pleasant or another unpleasant. When a person faces their destiny in ordinary life, it is as if someone who has never heard of natural science faces the facts of the external world. The sun rises; the stars rise and set; wind and weather come and go, and so on. Someone who has never heard of natural science does not seek any connection in these facts; he does not seek the laws that govern them.

But just as someone who has not heard of natural science relates to a natural scientist, so man in ordinary life relates to the spiritual scientist, as the spiritual scientist now has to understand this fate. We start from something very ordinary, from the most everyday in this our human life. Let us ask ourselves without prejudice and with an open mind what we are in relation to our self at any given moment in our lives – let us speak only of the ordinary life between birth and death for the time being. Yes, that which we call our self, it consists in what we can do, what we are capable of, what our abilities are, how strongly or weakly we face life. But where does it come from?

If we look at life in this way, we will be able to see it when we look back from a later age to an earlier one, say the twenties, we will be able to see that we were confronted by these or those events, which we call coincidences of fate. Let us consider: What came to us through these events determines what we are capable of today. If it had not come to us, we would be quite a different person. We have become who we are through our experiences. What is meant here can be described as 'easy', but here too one can say: 'But the easy is difficult'. For the spiritual researcher is first led into spiritual science by looking at the destiny, as the blacksmith does of our self with all his skill, with all his abilities, and by making this looking an inner exercise, he becomes more and more aware that he is actually nothing other than what fate has forged out of him. Look at the stream of your destiny, then you will find that you let yourself go completely; you have to follow yourself as it flows in destiny. This must become a habit of feeling, awakening in the human being, so that he now really comes out of himself in this way and that he sees himself as his creator in the flowing stream of the experience of destiny. If this is repeated again and again, then something of our experience of fate falls away.

Earlier I said that in ordinary life we look at our fate in such a way that one thing is sympathetic and the other is antipathetic. This feeling of what is sympathetic and what is antipathetic ceases, must cease, when we look at fate as the creator of ourselves. And the more we overcome this sympathy and antipathy methodically within ourselves, in the innermost laboratory of the soul, the more we come to look up to fate and say: You have created me, I have emerged from you, the more this sense of identification with fate deepens. But much more happens with this. As this sensation arises more and more, voluntarily through inner meditation - now more through meditation of sensation and feeling - we become free in this sensation and feeling, free from our physical body. And we feel how we step out again from this physicality, but now not into an annihilation, but so that we, by going out of ourselves, as into the entire outer world, into the universe, into the cosmos, merge.

But not into that which we in that sense [gap in the text], but by our destiny being willed. We merge with our self into the element of will of higher spiritual beings, weaving and living through the world. We emerge from ourselves and we have the feeling: the eye on you is embedded in your organism, so you are woven into the whole cosmos. You are willed out of the cosmos, you are an act of will out of the cosmos.

And if one wants to characterize what one feels again in a shattering way – because everything that is a spiritual scientific method is at the same time, at least in its beginnings, interwoven with shattering events – if one wants to characterize that, one could express it with the following words: What you were or thought you were, this self with all its abilities, with all that you are, you have actually lost. This has first flowed out into the world of destiny, then into the general universe, and you have to receive yourself from the whole world in a new way, to face yourself. It becomes an experience in which you say to yourself: You are no longer what you used to be. But you encounter a higher self from the whole world, you look at yourself.

This feeling is in turn linked to something subconscious in the feeling that one does not know in ordinary life, over which in turn a veil is mercifully woven, with the feeling of fear, the fear of what one is in truth, when one finds oneself as the world wants one to be. And this fear must be overcome. You cannot come to a real self-knowledge unless you first overcome the fear of the self.

So you have to go through two experiences: a kind of feeling of powerlessness and a kind of feeling of fear. While you get to know loneliness through the first experience, you find yourself through the second experience, so that what you have lost earlier by going out of the body through meditation, concentration, what has passed into a kind of sense of annihilation, now appears to you again from the other side, by seeing how you are wanted by the universe. You are reflected by the universe.

Those who, in the course of human development, have had some knowledge of such truly profound experiences of knowledge have aptly described what could be experienced there: the spiritual researcher comes close to the gateway of death by having these experiences. And indeed, what was first described as a kind of unconsciousness, leads one to the vicinity of death. Let us now look at how the outer life presents itself in ordinary existence. Growing up in childhood, it presents itself to us in that our strength is growing stronger. But when life goes downhill again, we see how destruction takes hold of our lives. And that we are heading towards death is indicated to us by destruction. And all that man knows of death in ordinary life is nothing other than that death is the destruction of what man has become through birth. And because man clings to external destruction, death appears to him as the conclusion of external life.

When we have the first experience described, we realize that we actually owe our thinking, our soul life, to the very forces that have a destructive effect on the human body; that is what is so tragically shocking in the progression of knowledge. We see that our soul life is connected not with the forces of growth but precisely with the destructive forces, with the forces that in ordinary life work from birth towards death. And so we realize that with everything that begins at birth, life is given up to these destructive forces, in which our soul life is rooted by overcoming the external physical forces of growth.

We then experience that the human being needs the moment of death, the moment when the physical body falls away, and that this moment gives consciousness for life in the spiritual world just as much as the forces of birth give consciousness for ordinary life. We notice that death is the creator of consciousness after death, that we have death as the creator of post-mortal consciousness. And we perceive the significance of death for life; we perceive how death, always prevailing in us, leads us, as spiritual researchers, to recognize that we carry a core of being within us that, as a spiritual soul, goes out of us after death. Just as the plant germ emerges from the plant and brings forth a new plant, so this spiritual-soul core of our being passes through the gate of death into a spiritual world, where it then continues to develop. And just as we ourselves have developed out of the world, so it becomes clear to us through the other, how we have wanted out of life.

And when the spiritual researcher develops what has been described in two directions and the spiritual-soul aspect frees itself from the physical-bodily aspect, then the outer, physical-sensory world sinks away. The spiritual researcher knows that he has left it behind, but he enters into a spiritual world. He now knows that he is active in this spiritual world. He knows that he is an entity in there, because he has learned to observe how this entity can detach itself from the physical body. And by observing how one wants to escape from the world, one comes to completely different contents of the world. One gets a different awareness of a world that one did not know before, which is a real spiritual world. And now it really becomes an experience that behind the sensual-physical world there is a world of spiritual beings, that the physical world is a veil behind which the spiritual beings are. So when a person has found out for himself how he is willed out of the universe, he finds the spiritual world, a world of real beings, not just of concepts and ideas, as pantheism says. Yes, man finds much more. It is precisely by developing this element of feeling, this feeling that begins with identifying with fate, that man gradually enters the world in which people find themselves when they have passed through the gate of death.

I do not want to shy away from this, esteemed attendees, because I do not want to talk in the abstract alone, but rather show something concrete, and really cite something concrete: what happens in the spiritual world, one experiences it differently than one experiences things here in the physical-sensory world. Here the entities are outside of us, we stand before them, we perceive them, we understand them through the intellect. When we step out of our body in the way described, we are seized by the entities of the spiritual world. I would like to say: as if from the front, the entities and facts in the sensual world approach us. Taking us, as it were, from behind and placing us within themselves, we become aware of what is really there in the spiritual world as entities.

I would like to give you a single example today. I would like to say from the outset that I am well aware that, especially when one goes into such individual examples, what is said again and again arises: “All this is just a crazy fantasy!” And I find it quite understandable that the thought habits of the present speak in this way. But I will say in a moment what point of view the spiritual researcher must take on this point. Some time ago - forgive me for mentioning something personal, but the chemist must also mention this to show what he has discovered in his laboratory - some time ago I was obliged to follow the spiritual course of human development historically in a certain direction. It was when I was writing the introduction to my book 'Riddles of Philosophy'. In an introductory chapter, I wanted to present the major aspects that shaped the periods of philosophy in the development of humanity. I was able to discern that important impulses were present in Western intellectual life, particularly for the first few centuries of Christian development. But if one takes the study of intellectual life seriously, one will very soon have the opportunity to realize how modest one becomes with respect to what the human sense of inquiry can achieve in the depths of the world. And here I openly confess – and precisely from the openness with which I confess it, you will be able to sense something of the truth that permeates what is to be said – I openly confess that at first I found my own sense of research blunt precisely in the face of the philosophical peculiarity of the first Christian centuries. Now a friend of our spiritual movement had died some time before; and what was in the spiritual world as the soul of this friend of ours, I was able to feel as approaching me, as I searched for these peculiarities of philosophical development in the first Christian centuries. And since I knew that personality quite well here in the physical world, it was possible to recognize what now penetrated into my own feelings and thoughts - I mean this penetrating from behind - as coming from that personality. And very soon I was able to make the acquaintance of this soul, which had more accurate insight after death into the first Christian centuries; and in my own description of the peculiarity of the character of the first Christian centuries, there flowed in that which this soul inspired. And what I myself was able to do at that time, what I characterized in my “Mysteries of Philosophy” about this period, I owe to the spiritual union with this so-called dead soul, which had just entered the spiritual world some time before.

The spiritual researcher in particular will find it quite understandable in the present day when such things, when they are expressed, only meet with ridicule and scorn. However, ridicule and scorn and contradiction about the “fantasy” has already been raised, dear attendees, when something has come up that has contradicted people's thinking habits. I can well imagine that there are those who say: What he claims is completely contrary to the five senses! There was once a time when it was reasonable for the five senses to believe that the earth stood still and that the sun moved around the earth and the stars around the earth. That was entirely in line with the five senses. Then Copernicus came and explained that in reality it is quite different. And as people have become accustomed, very slowly becoming accustomed, to accepting as truth what contradicts the so-called five senses, so mankind will also become accustomed to accepting what seems to contradict the five senses with regard to what has been indicated here about penetrating into spiritual worlds.

Then, after Copernicus, it was Giordano Bruno who had to say, after he had absorbed the Copernican world view with all his soul: the development of your senses - and in those days it really did correspond to all healthy senses - makes you see the blue firmament up there. You take it for reality, but it is not there at all. Infinite worlds are embedded in infinite space, and only the limitations of your ability make it so that the blue firmament is up there. So this firmament was explained as a limitation of the human ability to see. But in this way, there is also a temporal firmament for materialistic thinking. This is limited on one side by birth and on the other by death. Just as the blue firmament of space is not there, so is not there that temporal firmament, that boundary of life that flows between birth and death, but life extends beyond birth and death into infinity. And embedded in that infinity is what true human life is.

It was, as is well known, the great thinker, the leading thinker of modern times, Lessing, who first spoke of the fact that the whole historical course of humanity has only one meaning if one imagines that people complete their lives in repeated lives on earth; so that the whole of human life proceeds in such a way that we live between birth and death, or for that matter between conception and death, then lead a spiritual life between death and a new birth, enter into an earthly life again through a new birth, and so on until conditions arise for which this no longer applies. Likewise, we can also look back into the past at repeated earth lives. I cannot go into what preceded as conditions before the repeated earth lives began. Lessing, so people say, Lessing has indeed created great things, but when he wrote 'The Education of the Human Race', he was already decrepit. Nevertheless, this is the most significant spiritual document that Lessing has given to mankind. In it, he was the first to draw attention to the connection between the past and the future of world development. Our souls themselves have lived in past epochs and carried the fruits of these lives over into our present; and what they are now living through, they will in turn carry into later epochs, applying them in later epochs.

It is like a powerful presentiment of what is experienced as reality by those who thus free the soul from the body, who truly penetrate to the spiritual and soul essence of the being in the manner described. When you see how you are wanted out of the universe, something in this wanted, what you are now yourself, in this fate that you have prepared for yourself in previous lives. You first have to ascend, as I have described, to encounter this higher self. Then you see this higher self throughout repeated lives on earth.

This is just as much a result of real science as the results of physics, astronomy and chemistry are. These things will be no different from what Copernicus and Giordano Bruno brought to mankind. Copernicus had his opponents who fought him fiercely. Giordano Bruno had a tragic fate, he was burned. Nowadays people are no longer burned, but they are laughed at. That is what happens to those who think outside the box in today's world. Those who want to bring what is necessary for the future for spiritual areas are today decried as fantasists, as dreamers, yes, as worse.

Of course, there will be people today who are very naive and who say: Yes, what Copernicus discovered are facts, whereas what spiritual research discovers are things that have been imagined! The people who speak in this way do not know how naive they are and how Copernicus did not observe facts; it was not the case that he took a chair and sat down in space, as children are shown at school; but all of this was only the result of calculations and nothing else; it was certainly not a fact that could be observed with the senses.

The spiritual researcher must, dear attendees, look at the course of spiritual development of humanity, then he will know, in the face of all contradiction, that today numerous souls long for a deeper knowledge of what lives in us and what conquers birth and death, what our eternal essence is, and that this can be explored.

Now it could be said: Yes, then only the spiritual researcher can know that there are spiritual worlds besides the material one, and that the human being belongs to the latter. That is not correct. Just as the chemist in his laboratory brings about certain results, which are then made practically useful, so the spiritual researcher in the spiritual laboratory brings about certain results. Just as one does not need to be a chemist to use what chemistry produces, so one does not need to be a spiritual researcher oneself to recognize in its truth what spiritual science is. I emphasize the difference very expressly: In chemistry one can establish the truth through practical use; in spiritual research it is a matter of the spiritual researcher being able to investigate that which can be investigated only by spiritual research. But when it is investigated, every soul can also see what the spiritual researcher has to say. If it is unable to do so, it is only because it has blocked its own path with prejudices formed over centuries from a purely scientific point of view. When people discard these prejudices, they will be able to absorb what the spiritual researcher has to say, even if they are not spiritual researchers themselves. In a sense, and to a certain degree, everyone today can become a spiritual researcher by observing the rules you can find in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”; although everyone today can become a spiritual researcher to the extent that he can see for himself through his inner development that every word the spiritual researcher says is true.

New truths always contradict old prejudices. It is most understandable that such new truths are initially only received with hostility. But now, when we look at what spiritual researchers are proclaiming – I could only sketch out the picture of spiritual research with a few strokes of the charcoal, so to speak; you can find everything else in books, in our literature – what does it actually bring into a person's life? I have emphasized it many times: what the spiritual researcher brings about first is knowledge. Just by looking at this room, nothing is changed, the room would be the same without my looking at it. By recognizing, the spiritual researcher does not create the spiritual essence, which comes from eternal elements. The spiritual researcher does nothing but recognize that which is in the soul, which remains only unconscious, which rumbles and weaves and exists down there. So when the spiritual researcher ascends, as described, it is the case that he must first fight his way through the feeling of loneliness and powerlessness. And the way he feels can only be compared to a single note from a sonata, which has its meaning in the whole sonata, getting lost. Just as this tone must feel, since it draws its entire meaning from the sonata, so does a person feel when they have been brought to a state of lonely powerlessness by the first exercise; they feel the eternal that is within them, but in isolation.

And through the other exercise, where the person overcomes inner fear, where he comes before himself, where the realization comes before his soul that he is going through repeated lives on earth, the sound enters the sonata again. That is what those who have sensed something of these things have called the music of the spheres. The music of the spheres is not a philosophical abstraction that people dream up as philosophers, but a reality, a truth. When you hear it – as a human soul, a sound itself in the other sounds – you do not hear the totality of the sounds, but you are a sound and experience yourself in the music of the spheres. But before you get to what spiritual reality is, what lives and weaves and flows and works, before you ascend to it, you have to distinguish between the one sensation where you feel like melting away - while becoming lonely yourself - that which is physical and physical; and on the other hand, one feels fear penetrating one, like that which wants to leave the world, the universe, showing itself, one would like to say, like striving for petrification, for fossilization. On the one hand, one feels as if the spiritual world is merging into annihilation – there are no other words to express it – flowing into the ocean of the world; on the other hand, one feels that which solidifies within oneself. This struggle is always taking place at the bottom of the soul. And what do we gain when spiritual science draws our attention to what it recognizes? We know that our everyday life, in which we think and feel and will, proceeds as we have it as our life heritage, but it could not proceed if it were not for what lies below, which would produce powerlessness and fear if it were not graciously covered by a veil and only uncovered by spiritual research. But this is how one feels about the insights of spiritual science, which remained hidden for centuries when humanity was not yet prepared, but were only accessible to a few individuals; this is how one feels about these spiritual-scientific results, which must now gradually and towards the future penetrate into the spiritual development of humanity.

As a result of these spiritual-scientific findings penetrating, it becomes clear what is at the bottom of the soul, what kind of struggle is taking place – struggles in fear and powerlessness – and how this everyday life can only be attained through a victory over subconscious powers. But this makes one feel like a human being in the world, on the foundation of a system of opposing forces, against which the human being, even if it only lives in everyday consciousness, is victorious. But this brings us strength, strength of soul, knowing that life is a victory; at the bottom of our soul, supersensible powers fight against each other in order to bring about, in the mutual play of their forces, what we are in everyday life. It is a great victory that which is most everyday for us; it is the fruit of victories, of the play of opposing forces and powers, supersensible forces and powers, which are constantly fighting at the bottom of our soul. The results of spiritual science will be able to infuse soul strength, soul firmness, and inner courage into human souls.

And so, if I have characterized the actual spiritual-scientific field according to its content and methods, then it may appear, if not outwardly rational, then at least intuitively correct, in our fateful time, when I say a few words about how these soul-strengthening forces must have a certain significance in our fateful time, when we live in a time of external struggles and opposing forces, in struggles in the outer, historical world, in such a way that we can really perceive in them an external physical image of what we have just been able to characterize, that we can say: It is being discovered, struggling in the subconscious of the soul, by spiritual science. Ordinary everyday life is built up as a life asset on powers that oppose each other. If we know that the individual human life is a victory over powers that oppose each other, then, especially in a time like today's, we gain courage and confidence that the struggles we are in can be compared to what is going on at the bottom of every human soul. And just as the fruit of the struggles in the depths of the soul appears as a victory in the most ordinary life, so we can turn our gaze to what will emerge as the effect, as the fruit, of the struggles of the powers that confront us in the outer world.

In another sense, too, spiritual science is basically only a continuation of natural science. It was Goethe who rebelled against the theory of purpose, against what one might call a causal theory. It was Goethe who emphasized that one will only come to a true science when one no longer looks at nature only for reasons of purpose, when one no longer asks: Why does the ox have horns? so that he can gore! — but that the ox gores because he has horns. Goethe said: this causal thinking is increasingly penetrating into the scientific world view. Spiritual science leads precisely to the spiritual causes. It thus continues the causal thinking even further to the causes that are inaccessible to external observation.

When the opinion is expressed, often even in a defamatory way, but also frequently in a well-intentioned way, that spiritual science is likely to expel all religious feeling, then it must be said that the spiritual researcher has a higher opinion of what religion is than someone who believes that spiritual science can somehow destroy a religion. Religion has not been destroyed by the scientific world view for anyone who can see through things. That which is religion is so strong for the one who sees through it that no science can destroy it. While, however, the scientific world view of some who feel free because they only understand a quarter or an eighth of science has alienated them from religion, people will be led back to religion through spiritual deepening, because through spiritual science they will get to know the real spiritual world and because they will learn that their souls are connected to it. This will deepen people's feelings to such an extent that even those who were already estranged from religion will return to it to an ever greater degree.

The other important thing is that, with regard to what is happening historically, what is around us, spiritual science will lead us to the effects, to that which is to be lived out. We look to the causes of what is there, not to what we are. But when we are confronted with facts in history, it is important that we understand the facts in such a way that we look at the effects above all. How, however, is today's discussion influenced by the materialistic worldview? How does it extend to the question of which nations wanted the war and which did not, and which caused this or that? Spiritual scientific observation leads, as it otherwise leads to the true causes, precisely to the effects. One looks at what must be achieved in opposing powers through the sacrifice of blood and life. We look at it as we look at the subconscious life of the soul; we see how the conscious life of the soul develops from it. We look at what surrounds us in our time, what moves us with pain but also gives us hope, and at what can arise as an effect.

And each of us must stand firmly on the ground on which fate has placed us. We are standing in Central European culture. Fate has placed us on this ground of Central European culture. Anyone who is familiar with this Central European culture, even those who have once recognized the workings and weaving of the spirit, will see that it is like the body of a spiritual soul that is active in it. I could now cite many things that appear in our time as the actual characteristic soul and spirit of Central European culture. I will give just one example, but I would like us to bear in mind that just as the hand cannot be thought of without it being thought of in connection with what the human being thinks and feels, so what European sons in the East and West, courageously accomplish in blood and sacrifice, what is fought for with blood and life, cannot be thought of differently than in the context of the entire Central European intellectual life, with what the best times of this intellectual life have produced as the blossoms of this intellectual life.

Just as what a person's soul has produced is connected with what his hands have produced, so what Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Hegel have produced is intimately connected with what warriors in the East and West have to accomplish as Central European beings. These things are one and the same. But we recognize things by their fruits. Therefore, we want to emphasize one – I will not even say one fruit, but one side of the fruits of this Central European spiritual life, to see if it has something particularly characteristic that is not peculiar to the others, who, as in a mighty fortress, enclose this Central European spiritual life today. But for that we have to go into specifics.

It was truly a momentous event when Goethe, this representative of German, Central European intellectual life, this spirit, who in the highest moments of his creativity was virtually able to hold an intimate dialogue with the German national spirit and produce what the German spirit of the German people has whispered throughout the ages when he wrote the words with which his “Faust” begins, those words that were written down as early as the 1770s as his own confession, which he put into the mouth of Faust. Goethe looked around at everything that the world of the senses and science can give. He longed for that which lies beyond the world of the senses, which he expresses in words that have almost become trivial today, but which, when felt in all their elemental power, appear as something quite powerful in the individual human experience:

Now, alas! I have studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

This is how Faust stands, according to Goethe's feelings in the seventies of the eighteenth century.

Then came that great period in German, Central European intellectual life, which is characterized not only by great musicians, great artists in other fields, but also by great idealistic philosophers of German life. Those philosophers – Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – one need not agree with the content of their works; one need only look at how they tried to approach eternal truths to gain insight into Fichte's great and powerful saying: “What kind of philosopher you are depends on what kind of person you are.” He wanted to connect the whole person with what blossoms out of the human being as truth. Therefore, he was able to eavesdrop on the German national spirit, those deep, but also penetrating and inward words that he spoke in Germany's painful times in his “Speeches to the German Nation,” which have had such a great effect. What he lived, thought and philosophically strove for was so unified in him that when he fell ill – his wife brought home an illness from the hospital where she cared for sick warriors, which was passed on to him – when he fell ill with fever and faced death, there, in his final hours, his son was at his side. He tells us that even in the feverish dreams of this most German of philosophers, this world philosopher, he experienced at the same time – and his experience was so great – what was being experienced in Central Europe at the time, when he was already In his feverish dreams, Fichte felt he was part of the army at Blücher's crossing of the Rhine; and he was completely immersed in it, he, the philosopher, who strove throughout his life in the most sober, most detached, most crystal-clear thinking. His experience goes hand in hand with that of his people, even in their feverish dreams. This is a man of one piece.

Central European philosophers strove – one may think as one likes about the content – but one must see this striving as striving, as an expression of humanity. Then again, consider the wonderfully artistic world-building that Schelling erected, consider Hegel's magnificent logical image of the universe – how they all went through the first half of the new century, these great philosophical figures, and all that they brought into the world! And now suppose that Goethe had still been alive in 1840 and had rewritten the beginning of his Faust. The great philosophers have lived. Fichte wrote a “natural right”, Hegel wrote a “natural right”, they renewed jurisprudence, Schelling wrote about medicine, they all wanted to be theologians – they added a great deal to what was there before and about which Goethe said:

Alas, now I have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

Enormous things have flowed into German intellectual life through them. Can you therefore believe that if Goethe had begun his Faust in 1840, he would have begun:

Now, thank God, I have studied philosophy with Fichte,
natural law with Schelling,
and law and medicine.
So there I am, a wise man,
and wiser than ever before.

Goethe would never have written this as the beginning of “Faust”, but rather would have begun his Faust:

I now, alas! have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately also theology
with great zeal.
There I stand, I poor fool,
And all my wisdom is as much as before!

But this is the important thing, which expresses in a representative way how there is a certain striving, an eternal striving, in Central European intellectual life; and as soon as you have finished striving, you are back to striving again. This is how you stand in what you grasp as your own nationality. While one is Italian, British or French by virtue of being born into that nation, as a German or a Central European one must discover what nationality is, what the innermost essence of nationality is.

What you inherit from your fathers
you must always conquer to possess.

And as a people, Central Europe also had to conquer what - forgive me for again bringing up something personal - I would like to say: I may perhaps ascribe to myself a modest judgment of what is important for this forging of Central European nationality. I have lived half of my life, roughly from the 1960s to the 1980s, in my Austrian homeland, and the other half in Germany. I was still in that Austria where everything that happened in Germany was hated as an effect of 1866. And now one experiences this coming together, this being forged together into a great Central European, into a world cultural act, that is what it has become. And when we look at what this Central Europe, including all the other nationalities that belong to this great fortress, what it holds within itself, we must remember that it is like the soul of a human being, which conquers through its work, that it is thus related to what spiritual-scientific striving is. This must lead the soul beyond itself. But Central European striving is on this path to becoming spiritual-scientific striving. Therefore, one can imagine that what once was will emerge in the future as the flowering of the Central European essence, that it has its seeds in what Central European folklore holds and which is magnificently presented in Faust. The interweaving with the universe, the feeling of oneself in the universe, the going-through-fear that I have characterized when one wants to stand before the eternal - how beautifully did Goethe characterize it when he wrote in his later years:

Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gave me everything,
Why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
Turn thy face to me in fire.
Gavest me the glorious Nature for a kingdom,
Strength to feel her, to enjoy her. Not
Coldly marveling visit thou only allowest,
allow me to look into her deep chest,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the line of the living
before me, and teach me my brothers
in the silent bush, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce topples, crushing neighboring branches and trunks, and the hill thunders hollowly with its fall, then you lead me to the safe cave, then you show me to myself, and to my own breast, the deep, secret wonders open up.

The intimate interweaving of what man is with what is outside - where everywhere in the underlying entities are brothers, that is, soul beings, just as the human being himself is a spirit-soul being - is already contained in what Goethe and the other geniuses have poetically established. Just as the stem and leaves, the blossoms and fruits develop from the plant's germ, so too must the highest spiritual fruit of Central European culture develop from that which is germinating. Those who immerse themselves in spiritual matters can recognize, not for external reasons but for internal ones, the vitality that lives in the striving of Central European culture towards the spirit. When we look at this Central European culture and see its striving towards spiritualism – not towards idealism, but towards spiritualism – we can say to ourselves: there are reasons for us to be confident, to look at the current hard struggle from the perspective of spiritual science and say to ourselves: just as the individual human life is built on the struggle and war of opposing forces – we see war and struggle in the subconscious, on which our life assets are built – so we are in the midst of struggle and war; but the historical life assets, the cultural assets, will emerge from these struggles. And insofar as we feel at one with Central European intellectual life, we say to ourselves: the idealism, the spirituality of this Central European intellectual life will have to develop out of our time, which, as one can feel, carries something very profound in its bosom.

Indeed, our materialistic age was also built on struggle. There is a nation in the northwest – no value judgments are to be made today, only characterizations – the British, who most loudly proclaim that they want to fight for freedom, that they must fight against Central European “barbarism,” that they did not want the war. We keep hearing in Central Europe, and hear in abusive words, that Central Europe wanted the war. Perhaps one may ask: Did the British people not wage war in the past, for example in the years when the deepest peace was desired in Central Europe for the sake of blessing and salvation? From 1856 to 1900, England waged 34 wars, conquered four million square miles of land for purely material culture, which it spread across the globe, and made 57 million people new British subjects. This is a material culture, dearest attendees, which is based on struggle. In fact, it can be seen that logic does not flourish in our materialistic culture, especially in the broadest sense. There is a French philosopher – yes, I don't know whether you have to call him “fils de montagne” now; he used to be called “Bergson”; now things are changing. Bergson, who has been much overestimated, but at least attempted a philosophy of life in the face of dead materialistic philosophy – last winter he gave a speech at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in which he characterized German intellectual life something like this: If you look at Germany today, all idealism has passed, we are only confronted with mechanisms, the whole culture has become mechanical. He points to the cannons and everything that has been set up as a mechanical aid to confront the West. Perhaps one may answer with a question to characterize how thought and logic are applied today: Did Bergson expect that when Central European culture was attacked, people would stand at the Rhine border and quote Schiller and Goethe to prove that Central European culture had remained spiritual?

But sometimes people want to go even deeper, and then they say, for example: We did not want this war! The real cause of this war lies in Central Europe! The logic that one applies to this, if one really sees through it – and spiritual science also teaches a certain flexibility of mind, it makes thoughts so fluid that poor logic causes pain – if one sees through it, then the logic that is often applied today is this: one could also say that yes, much, much of the mockery and scorn and insult has been heard from the West to Central Europe. Yes, none of this would have happened if the art of printing had not been invented. The Germans invented the art of printing, so they are to blame for these slanders. And there would be no shooting, neither from the air nor on the ground, if the Germans had not invented gunpowder. The Germans have already invented gunpowder once. Not true, you can't say that the French invented gunpowder. So it is the Germans' fault that nations are facing each other with cannons!

Now, as threadbare as this logic would be, so threadbare is today's logic, which is applied to that which really develops from Central European culture: genuine life that develops into the spiritual, before which one has a secret fear, as before a higher power. But if it has been said that the present war is being waged only for material interests, then this may be correct in a limited sense. Certainly, much of what can only be achieved through this war must be achieved for trade and industry, for the material culture of Central Europe. But it is certain that, if not by our fathers, who work as industrialists and step out into the world, then at least by our sons, what as the ethos of Central Europe, which has found its expression in Faust, which emerges from Wagner, Beethoven, Fichte and Schelling, will be carried out into all the world; and that will be a new element in all the world. And just as our ordinary, everyday life is built on a victory over opposing forces, so the Central European cultural heritage will build itself up as a victory over that which must be so ardently striven for.

This is what really emerges as a strengthening power of the soul from the insights of spiritual science. Yes, opposing forces are now stirring around us in the world, just as the soul undercurrents stir within the individual human being. But just as the substance of life rises up from these soul foundations, so will the cultural heritage rise from what once had to be fought for. 34 nations - not counting smaller national differences - 34 nations are fighting with each other today; and we see how the fighting mood is spreading. But we look at what is happening by looking up at what must result as effects. And we in Central Europe, when we contemplate all this spiritually, we may say to ourselves: Just as the individual human being, in turn, has to build up his body in each individual embodiment and has to build it up again and again from seven to seven years — because after seven years the entire ingredients have changed, the body must be rebuilt several times, so must people go through struggles, so must humanity go through all the pain today in order to come to a higher life.

What Europe is now going through must stand as a warning in the higher sense. What is the body of Central Europe must be conquered anew against what is storming in from the east and the west. And it is not without reason that in the future what must arise from the great spiritual seeds that strive for inner development in Central Europe, that must develop after the soil around has been watered with the blood of our noblest, the air has been permeated with the sentiments that arise from the sacrifices that have become necessary in our time, when this air is heavy with the pain and suffering of those who, as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, have lost their loved ones. Intuitively, I said, even if not intellectually, what I took the liberty of adding to the already lengthy lecture can be felt in connection with what has been said, because it should be shown how that which comes from spiritual science as a strengthening of the soul, really brings us together with what the eternal, death-conquering and all resistance-conquering immortal core of our being is in man, of which only a parable is the temporary dying.

And because, when we see that this treasure of life is based on victory, we can only have soul strengthening, not soul fainting as a result of spiritual science, so spiritual science brings us to what I would now like to summarize not in individual intellectual words, but in terms of feeling. The best thing that can come out of spiritual science is that it does not remain just a theory, just a body of knowledge, but that it pours out into our emotional life, that it becomes a power that strengthens our soul. For it shows us that the innermost being of man only begins where the impressions of the sense world end, where the intellect has nothing more to say. In conclusion, I would like to summarize with a few words, in an emotional and intuitive way, what can emerge from spiritual science as a feeling, as a basic mood of the soul, at any time and especially in our fateful time, which bears so much in its womb. This will conclude the lecture, with which I wanted to speak about the principles and prospects of spiritual science:

Where sense knowledge ends,
There stands the gate,
The realities of life
To the soul's being opened.
The key is created by the soul,
When it grows strong in itself
In the struggle that world powers
On their own ground
With human powers lead,
When it drives away through itself
The sleep that envelops the powers of knowledge
At the boundaries of its senses
With a spiritual night.

This is the third opportunity I have had of speaking in Switzerland about the greatest of all events in the history of the Earth and of Mankind. The first was in Basle, when I spoke of the aspect of this event presented in the Gospel of St. John; on the second occa.sion the lectures were based on the account given by St. Luke; and now, on the third occasion, the basis of the lectures is to be the Gospel of St. Matthew.¹

As I have often said, it is an important fact that accounts of this event have been preserved in four records, in certain respects seeming to differ from each other. This often gives rise to negative and destructive criticism from materialistic scholarship to-day yet it is precisely the point that we, as anthroposophists, consider significant. For nobody should venture to portray any fact or being he has observed from one side only. If a tree is photographed from a single side, it cannot justifiably be said that this photograph is a true or complete portrayal of the whole outer appearance of the tree. If, however, it is photographed from four sides, by comparing the four pictures—even if they differ considerably—we can gain a comprehensive idea of the tree. If this analogy holds good for ordinary things, even in such an external sense, how could anyone fail to realise that an event embracing in the fullest sense all happenings and essential facts of existence would be incomprehensible if it were described from one side only. We should not therefore speak of ‘contradictions’ in the four Gospels. The truth is far rather that each writer knew himself to be capable of describing only one aspect of this stupendous event and was aware that by comparison of the different accounts it would be possible for humanity gradually to form a comprehensive picture of it. So we too will be patient and try to gain some understanding of this greatest of all events in Earth-evolution from the four accounts given in the New Testament.

From what has been said in other lecture-courses, you will certainly be able to gather how the four points of view presented in the Gospels can be differentiated. But now, before characterizing these four points of view even in their purely external aspect, let me make it clear at the beginning of this lecture-course that I shall not do what is customary nowadays when studying the Gospels. It is usual to begin with accounts of their historical origins. But it will be better for us to wait until the end of the lectures before hearing what there is to be said about the origin of the Gospel of St. Matthew. It is after all only natural and would be borne out in the case of other branches of knowledge, that the gist of any subject must be thoroughly grasped before its history can be truly understood. No one can usefully study a history of arithmetic, for example, who is entirely ignorant of that subject. The proper place for historical details is at the end of a study, and when this procedure is not followed the natural needs of human cognition are being overlooked. Here, then, we shall try to satisfy these needs by examining, first, the content of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and afterwards by saying something about its historical origin.

Study of the Gospels, even of their external form, makes us aware of a certain difference in the modes of expression, and this feeling will be intensified when we recall what was said in my lectures on the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke. In trying to fathom the mighty communications given in the Gospel of St. John, we are almost overwhelmed by their sublimity and spiritual grandeur; we feel that this Gospel reveals the very highest goal to which human wisdom can aspire and human cognition gradually attain. Man seems to be standing below, lifting the eyes of his soul to the heights of cosmic existence and saying to himself : However insignificant I may be, the Gospel of St. John enables me to divine that some element with which I myself am akin descends into my soul and imbues me with the feeling of infinitude.—Thus the spiritual magnitude of the cosmic life to which man is related is experienced a by the soul when contemplating the Gospel of St. John.

In studying St. Luke's Gospel we found that the manner of its presentation was different. In contemplating the Gospel of St. John it is paramountly the spiritual greatness—even though divined but dimly—that pervades the soul like a magic breath, whereas in the Gospel of St. Luke the influence is more inward, causing in the soul an intensification of all that the powers of cosmic love and sacrifice can effect in the world when we are able to share in them. So, while St. John describes the Being of Christ Jesus in His spiritual stature, St. Luke shows us His immeasurable capacity for sacrifice. St. Luke gives us an inkling of what this power of sacrificing love has brought about in the evolution of the world and of mankind—this love, which, in the same way as other forces, pulsates and weaves throughout the universe. We see, therefore, that while it is mainly the element of feeling that is uppermost when we steep ourselves in the Gospel of St. Luke, it is the element of understanding—informing us, to some extent, of the very foundations of knowledge and of its goals—that is aroused by the Gospel of St. John. That Gospel speaks more to our faculty of cognition, our understanding, the Gospel of St. Luke more to our hearts. The Gospels themselves produce these feelings in us; but it was also my endeavour to let the keynotes sound through the lectures that were given on the two Gospels in the light of Spiritual Science. Those who heard only words in the lectures on the Gospel of St. John or in those on the Gospel of St. Luke, certainly did not hear everything. There was a fundamental difference in the manner and style of speaking in the two lecture-courses. And everything must again be different when we come to study the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The Gospel of St. Luke makes us feel as if all the human love that ever existed in the evolution of mankind poured into the Being who lived as Christ Jesus at the beginning of our era.

Considered merely in its external aspect, the Gospel of St. Matthew appears at first to present a picture of greater variety than do the other two Gospels, even than do all the other three. For when the time comes to study the Gospel of St. Mark we shall find that in a certain respect it too presents one particular aspect.

The Gospel of. St, John reveals to us the magnitude of the wisdom of Christ Jesus; the Gospel of St. Luke, the power of His love. When we study the Gospel of St. Mark, the picture will primarily be one of might, of the creative Powers permeating the universe in all their glory. In that Gospel there is something overwhelming in the intensity with which the cosmic forces come to expression: when we really begin to understand the content of the Gospel of St. Mark, it is as though these forces were surging towards us from all directions of space. While the Gospel of St. Luke brings inner warmth into the soul and the Gospel of St. John fills it with hope, the Gospel of St. Mark makes us aware of the overwhelming power and splendour of the cosmic forces—so overwhelming that the soul feels well nigh shattered.

The Gospel of St. Matthew is different. All three elements are present here: the warmth of feeling and love, the knowledge full of hope and promise, the majesty of the universe. These elements are present in the Gospel of St. Matthew in a modified form and for this reason seem to be more humanly akin to us than in the other Gospels. Whereas the wisdom, the love and the splendour depicted in the other three Gospels might overwhelm us almost to the point of collapse, we feel able to stand erect before the picture presented in the Gospel of St. Matthew, even to approach and stand on a level with it. Everything is more humanly related to us; we never feel shattered, although it too contains elements which in the other Gospels tend to have this effect. It is the most human of the four records and describes Christ Jesus as a man, in such a way that in all His deeds He is near us in a human sense. In a certain respect the Gospel of St. Matthew is like a commentary on the other Gospels. It clarifies to some extent what otherwise is often beyond the reach of human understanding and once we realise this, great illumination is shed upon the nature of the other three Gospels.

In the Gospel of St. John we are shown how with his wisdom and knowledge man can set out towards the goal that is attainable; this is made plain at the very beginning of the Gospel, where Christ Jesus is referred to as the Creative Logos. The highest spiritual conception our minds and hearts can attain is presented in the very first sentences of this Gospel.

It is different in the Gospel of St. Matthew. This Gospel begins by giving the lineage of the man Jesus of Nazareth from a definite point in history and within a particular people. It shows us how the qualities that were concentrated in Jesus of Nazareth had been acquired through heredity from Abraham and his descendants; how throughout three times fourteen generations a people had allowed the best it had to impart to flow into the blood, in order that preparation might be made for the flowering, in one single Individuality, of the highest powers possible to man.

The Gospel of St. John points to the infinity of the Logos, the Gospel of St. Luke leads back to the very beginning of mankind's evolution. The Gospel of St. Matthew shows us a man, Jesus of Nazareth, born from a people whose qualities had been transmitted by heredity from Abraham, the father of the tribal stock, through three times fourteen generations.

It can only very briefly be indicated here that anyone who desires really to understand the Gospel of St. Mark must have some knowledge of the cosmic forces streaming through the evolution of our world. For the picture of Christ Jesus presented in that Gospel shows us that the Cosmos itself—an essence of the cosmic forces in the infinitude of space—is operating in and through a human agency. St. Mark sets out to describe the deeds of Christ as extracts of cosmic activities, how in Christ Jesus, the God-Man on the Earth, we have before us a quintessence of the boundless power of the Sun. Thus St. Mark describes to us the manner in which the forces of the heavens and the stars operate through human powers.

In a certain way the Gospel of St. Matthew too is concerned, with stellar activity, for at the very beginning it is clearly indicated that cosmic happenings are connected with the evolution of humanity, inasmuch as the three Magi are guided to the birthplace of Jesus by a star. But this Gospel does not describe cosmic workings as does the Gospel of St. Mark; it does not require us to raise our eyes to these heights. It shows us three men, three Magi, and the effect the Cosmos has upon them. We can contemplate these three men and become aware of what they are feeling. Thus if it is a matter of being able to experience cosmic realities, the Gospel of St. Matthew directs our gaze, not to infinitudes of space, but to man himself, to the effect, the reflection, of cosmic activities in human hearts.

(Again I beg that these indications shall be taken merely as pointing to the style in which the Gospels are written. For it is fundamentally characteristic of the Gospels, I repeat, that they describe events from different angles. The distinctive style in which each is written is in accordance with what they want to convey about the greatest event in the evolution of Mankind and of the Earth.)

So we see that the fact of paramount significance at the beginning of the Gospel of St. Matthew is that attention is called to the direct blood-relationships of Jesus of Nazareth. An answer is given to thc question: How was the physical personality of Jesus of Nazareth constituted? How were all the qualities of a people since its founder, Abraham, concentrated in this one personality in order that the Being we call Christ could reveal His presence there ? We are told: In order that the Christ Being might be able to incarnate in a physical body, this body must have qualities that could only be present if all the qualities of the blood of Abraham's descendants were concentrated in the single personality of Jesus of Nazareth. We arc therefore shown how the blood of Jesus of Nazareth leads back through the generations to the founder of the Hebrew people; and how on this account the essential attributes of this people, their particular function in world-history, in the evolution of the world and of humanity, were concentrated in the physical personality of Jesus of Nazareth. To understand the intention of the writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew in giving this introduction, it is therefore necessary to know something about the intrinsic nature of the Hebrew people and to be able to answer the question: What was this race, by virtue of its special character, able to give to mankind?

Materialistic history pays little attention to what must here be advanced. It gives abstract accounts of outer happenings, placing one people practically on a par with every other. But this entirely ignores a fact which anyone wishing to understand the evolutionary process must regard as fundamental, namely, that no people has the same task and mission as another; each has its own specific task and mission; each has to contribute a particular share of the riches which should accrue to the Earth as the result of mankind's evolution. And each share is distinct from the others. Even down to physical details, each people is so constituted that it can make its appropriate contribution to humanity as a whole. In other words: the physical, etheric and astral bodies of human beings belonging to a particular people develop and arc combined in such a way as to afford the appropriate instrument for the contribution that people has to make to humanity.—What, then, was to be the contribution of the Hebrew people, and how were its essential qualities concentrated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth?

To understand the mission of the Hebrew people we must make a deeper study of the whole evolution of humanity. It will be necessary to speak with greater precision of certain matters indicated more briefly in other lectures and in the book Occult Science—an Outline. The part played by the Hebrew people in the evolution of mankind as a whole will be most easily understood if we take the Atlantean catastrophe as a starting-point.

When the face of the Earth was changed as a result of the Atlantean Deluge, the peoples then living on the continent of Atlantis moved from the West across to the East in two main streams, one taking a more northerly, the other a more southerly course. One stream in this great movement of Atlantean peoples through Europe towards Asia spread to the region around the Caspian Sea, while another passed through the land we now call Africa. Over in Asia a kind of confluence of these two streams took place, as when two currents meet and a vortex is formed.

But what chiefly interests us about these peoples who were thus forced to make their way across to the East from Atlantis, is their mode of perception, the general form of their soul-life—in the case, at least, of the main mass of them. In the first post-Atlantean epoch man's whole constitution of soul was different from what it came to be later on—different above all from what it is to-day. Those ancient people still had clairvoyant perception of their surroundings; they were able to behold the spiritual, and even what is now seen physically was perceived then in a more spiritual way. But a point of special importance is that this clairvoyance of the original post-Atlantean peoples was again different, in a certain respect, from that of the Atlanteans themselves in the heyday of their culture. Their clairvoyance enabled men to gaze into a spiritual world with purity of vision, and the revelations of the spiritual world engendered impulses for the good in their souls. Indeed it would be true to say that during the prime of Atlantean culture, the strength of impulses for the good depended upon the ability of a man to look deeply into the spiritual world; in one with less ability these impulses were correspondingly weaker.

The changes which then took place on. the Earth were such that already towards the last third of the Atlantean epoch, but especially in the early post-Atlantean epoch, the good aspects of the old Atlantean clairvoyance had gradually disappeared and were preserved only by those who had undergone special training in the centres of Initiation. As time went on, what remained of this clairvoyance as a natural, inborn gift assumed a character leading all too easily to vision of the evil Powers of existence. Clairvoyance had become too weak to behold the good Powers. On the other hand, vision of the evil, delusive Powers remained, and a form of clairvoyance by no means commendable was widespread in certain regions inhabited by post-Atlantean peoples, a clairvoyance acting in itself as a kind of tempter.

This decline of the old clairvoyance was accompanied by a gradual development of the faculty of sense-perception recognized as normal for human beings to-day. But the things men perceived with their eyes in the first post-Atlantean epoch, and which they perceive normally to-day, were not sources of temptation in that past time, because the soul-forces that are now the cause of temptation had not yet developed. External perceptions which may give rise to inordinate enjoyment in a man to-day, however deceptive they may be, did not constitute any particular temptation for early post-Atlantean man. It was when inherited remains of the old clairvoyance awakened in him that his temptation began. He had practically no vision of the good side of the spiritual world; the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces bad such a strong effect upon him that what he saw Were the Powers of temptation and delusion. With these inherited faculties of ancient clairvoyance he perceived the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. And so it became necessary for those whose wisdom for the leadership and guidance of human evolution had been received from the Mysteries, to institute means to ensure that in spite of these adverse circumstances men should ultimately be led to the good goal and to clarity of understanding.

The people who had spread to the East after the great Atlantean catastrophe were at very different stages of evolution; it can be said that the level of moral and spiritual development was highest in those who went farthest East. The dawning faculty of external perception was like the opening of a new world, revealing with ever greater clarity the grandeur and splendour of the outer world of the senses. This faculty was especially characteristic of the people who settled to the North of present-day India, in the regions extending to. the Caspian Sea, as far as the Oxus and Jaxartes. In this region of Asia there had settled groups of people from whom many racial streams spread out in different directions, one such stream being the ancient Indian people whose spiritual view of thc world has often been characterized.

Soon after the Atlantean. Flood, indeed to some extent - while it was still in process, the sense-awareness of external reality had already developed among this group of people in Middle Asia. But at the same time, in the human beings who had incarnated there, a kind of memory-knowledge persisted, a living recollection of what they had experienced in the days of Atlantis. This characteristic was strongest in those who went down into India. They had, it is true, great understanding of the splendour of the external world; their faculties of observation and sense-perception were more developed than those of the other peoples, but. at thc same time their remembrance of the ancient spiritual powers of vision in Atlantis was vivid and strong. Hence there arose in them an intense longing for the spiritual world which they remembered; it was easy for them to gaze again into that world—but they also had the feeling that what was presented to the external senses was maya, illusion. And so in these people too the impulse arose not to pay particular attention to the outer world of sense but to do everything possible to enable the soul—now through development deliberately induced, through yoga—to rise to the realm where it could receive the revelations which in the days of old Atlantis had come directly from the spiritual world.

This tendency to despise the outer world, to regard it as illusion and to follow only those impulses which led to the spiritual, was less strongly developed in the people who remained farther North. But they were in a very tragic situation. The innate qualities of the ancient Indian people were such that it was comparatively easy for any one of them to undergo a definite training in Yoga enabling him to rise once again into the realms he had known in Atlantean times. It was easy for such a man to overcome, what he regarded as illusion. He overcame it in acts of cognition, and his supreme conviction was this: The sense-world is maya, is illusion; but if I make efforts to develop my soul I shall reach the world lying behind the sense-world! Thus it was through an inner process that the Indian succeeded in overcoming what he regarded as maya.

The character of the more northerly peoples was different. They were the Persians, the Medes, the Bactrians—known in history as Aryans in the narrower sense. In them too there was a strong tendency towards the development of external perception, external intellectuality. But the urge to achieve through inner development, through some form of Yoga, what the Atlanteans had experienced quite naturally, was not particularly marked. Recollection of the past was not strong enough in these more northerly peoples to become a striving to overcome, through knowledge, the illusion of the outer world. Their attitude of soul was not the same as that of the Indians. The attitude of an Iranian, a Persian, a Mede, might be expressed in modern words somewhat as follows: If we once dwelt in the spiritual world, experiencing and perceiving realities of spirit and of soul, and now find ourselves transplanted into the physical world we see with our eyes and grasp with the brain-bound intellect, the cause of this does not lie in man alone; what has to be overcome cannot be overcome merely in the inner being of man. Nothing much would result from that ! An Iranian would have said: It is not only in man that a change has taken place; Nature herself and everything on the Earth must also have changed when man descended from divine-spiritual realms. It cannot therefore be right to leave the surrounding world just as it is, saying simply: This is maya, illusion, but WC will disregard it and rise into the spiritual world! In that way we shall, it is true, bring about a change in ourselves but not in the world around us.—Therefore the attitude of an Iranian did not allow him to say: maya is outspread around me; I will transcend it, will overcome it in my own being and so reach the spiritual world.—No, he said: man belongs to and is a member of the world around him. Therefore if that which is divine in him, and has descended with him from divine-spiritual heights, is to be transformed, not only what is within him must be changed back to its former state, but also everything in the outer world around!—And this was what gave the people the impulse to take an active and vigorous share in transforming thc world.

Whereas in India men said: The world has fallen; what it now presents is maya—in the more northerly regions they said : True, the world has fallen, but it is our task to change it in such a way that it becomes spiritual again. Contemplation, contemplative understanding—this was basically characteristic of the Indian people. Their attitude was simply that sense-perception is illusion, maya. Activity, physical energy, the will to transform external Nature—these were the basic characteristics of the Iranian and other peoples living in regions North of India. They said: The world around us has fallen from the Divine but man is called upon to lead it back again to the Divine! And the innate traits of the Iranian people were sublimated and charged with measureless energy in the spiritual leaders who went forth from the Mysteries.

What took place towards the East and South of the Caspian Sea can only be adequately understood, even outwardly, by comparing it with conditions still farther to the North, that is to say in the regions bordering on the Siberia and Russia of to-day, and extending even into Europe. Here there were people who had preserved much of the ancient clairvoyance and in whom a kind of balance could be held between the faculty of the old spiritual perception and that of material perception, of the new intellectual thinking. Very many among them were still able to look into the spiritual world. This faculty of vision—which had already degenerated and become, as we should say nowadays, a lower astral clairvoyance had in its character a certain effect upon the general evolution of mankind. That this lower form of clairvoyance produces a very definite type of human being, a definite trait of character in those endowed with it, was clearly evident in these people. It was innate in them to demand from surrounding Nature what they needed for their sustenance while expending the minimum of effort themselves. They knew that divine-spiritual Beings are present in the plants, the animals, and so on, because they actually beheld them; they knew that these Beings are the powers behind all physical creation. But this knowledge prompted them to demand that without any effort on their own part the divine-spiritual Beings by whom they had been placed in existence should provide for their sustenance. Many things could be quoted as expressions of the disposition and tenor of soul prevailing in these peoples with their decadent, astral clairvoyance.

In the period which it is important for us to consider now, all these peoples were nomadic, having no settled habitations; they wandered about as herdsmen, without preference for any particular locality, careless with what the Earth had to offer and only too ready to destroy anything around them when they needed it for their sustenance. These people were not called upon, nor indeed were they qualified, to do anything to raise the level of culture, to transform the Earth.

Thus there arose what is perhaps one of the greatest antitheses in the whole of post-Atlantean evolution: the antithesis between these more northerly peoples and the Iranians. Among the Iranians the longing arose to take a hand in what was going on around them, to live settled lives, to acquire possessions through effort, in other words, to apply man's spiritual forces in order to achieve the transformation of Nature. That was the strongest urge in the Iranians. And in the immediately adjacent lands to the North, lived the people who saw into the spiritual world, were on familiar terms, so to speak, with the spiritual beings, but were wanderers, having no inclination for work and without any interest in furthering culture in the physical world.

This drastic antithesis was purely the outcome of the different forms taken by soul-development. It is also known in external history as the great antithesis between Iran and Turan. But the causes of it are not understood. Actually they are as stated above.

Turan lay to the North, in the area towards Siberia. Its inhabitants, as already said, were people heavily endowed with an inherited, lower astral clairvoyance, and who in consequence of their experience in the spiritual world had neither inclination or sufficient understanding to establish any form of external culture. Because these people were of a passive disposition and their priests were often magicians and sorcerers of an inferior type, whenever spiritual matters were concerned they were wont to engage in very questionable magical practices, indeed not infrequently in actual black magic. To the South lay Iran, where at a very early stage, as we have seen, an urge arose in the people to transform the world of sense with even the most primitive means then available and through the spiritual faculties of man to establish forms of external culture and civilization.

Now you will be able to form an idea of the great antithesis between Iran and Turan.—A beautiful myth—the legend of Djemjid—tells how King Djemjid led his people from the North down towards Iran. He had received from the God who would presently come to be recognized and whom he called Ahura Mazdao, a golden dagger by means of which he was to fulfil his mission on Earth. From the apathetic masses of the Turanians, King Djemjid drew people whom he had specially trained, and in the golden dagger we have to see an impulse for the attainment of wisdom connected with the external faculties of men, wisdom capable of redeeming certain faculties that had already become decadent and of imbuing them with the spiritual force man can acquire on the physical plane. This golden dagger, like a plough, turned the earth into arable land, made possible the first, primitive inventions of mankind. It worked on and is working to this clay in all the achievements of culture and civilization in which men take pride. There is great significance in the fact that King Djemjid who went from Turan down to the Iranian country received this dagger from Ahura Mazdao. It represents a force given to man whereby he can work upon and transform external Nature.

The same Being from whom this golden dagger was received was also the great Inspirer of Zarathustra or Zoroaster, Zerdutsch, the leader of the Iranian people. It was Zarathustra who in primeval times—soon after the Atlantean catastrophe—instilled the impulses he was able to bring from the holy Mysteries into the people who felt the urge to apply the power of the human spirit to external culture. Zarathustra was to give new hopes, new vistas of the spiritual world to this people who no longer possessed the ancient Atlantean vision. He opened out the path along which the people were ultimately to realise that the outer sunlight is only the external body of a sublime spiritual Being whom he called Ahura Mazdao, the ‘great’ Aura, in contrast to the 'little' aura of man. Zarathustra wanted to convey that this same Being—then still in remote cosmic distances—would one day descend to the Earth in order to unite His very substance with the Earth and to work on further in the history and evolution of humanity. Thus Zarathustra directed the minds of these people to the same Being who lived later on in history as the Christ.²

The mighty achievement of Zarathustra consisted in this: to the new post-Atlantean humanity who had fallen away from the divine worlds, he revealed the path of re-ascent to the spiritual and gave to men the hope of being able to reach the goal, even with forces that had descended to the level of the physical plane. Whereas the ancient Indian attained to the spiritual in its old form through Yoga-training, a new path was to be opened out to men through the teaching of Zarathustra.

Zarathustra had a. patron—a figure of great significance. But here I must emphasize that thc date of the Zarathustra of whom I am speaking was said, even by the Greeks, to have been five thousand years before the Trojan War; He is not, therefore, the figure whom external history calls by that name, nor the Zarathustra mentioned as living in the days of Darius.—The original Zarathustra had a patron who can be called Gushnasp—the name that became customary later on. Zarathustra was a majestic, priestly character, one who pointed to the great Sun Spirit, Ahura Mazdao, the Being who guides humanity back from the physical to the spiritual, and Gushnasp was a kingly character, ready to perform any action in the external world that would spread the mighty inspirations of Zarathustra. Hence the inspirations and aims of Zarathustra and Gushnasp that were taking effect in ancient Iran inevitably came into contact with the conditions prevailing immediately to thc North. And the result of the impact was one of the greatest wars ever fought in the world, a war of which little is said in external history because it took place in such a remote past. It was a conflict of the greatest possible magnitude, between Iran and Turan. And out of this war—which lasted, not for decades but for centuries—there developed a certain mood and attitude of soul that persisted for a long time in Asia and the nature of which can be described somewhat as follows:

The Iranians, the followers of Zarathustra, spoke to this effect: Wherever we look there is a world that descended from divine-spiritual heights but has now fallen very far from its earlier level. We must assume that the world of animals, plants and minerals around us once existed at a higher level and that it has all become decadent. But man has the hope of being able to lead it upwards again.

We will now further translate into words of our language what an Iranian felt, and try to convey how a teacher would have spoken to his pupils. He might have said: Think of the wolf. The animal living as the physical wolf you now see has fallen from its former estate, has become decadent. Formerly it did not manifest its bad qualities. But if good qualities germinate in you and you combine them with your spiritual powers, you can tame this animal; you can instill into it your own good qualities, making the wolf into a docile dog who serves you! In the wolf and the dog you have two beings characterizing as it were two great streams of forces in the world.—And so men who used their spiritual faculties to work upon the surrounding world were able to tame the animals, to raise them to a higher level, whereas the others left the animals as they were, with the result that they descended to lower and lower stages of existence.

Here were two different forces, the one being applied by men whose attitude was as follows: If I leave Nature as she is, she sinks lower and lower; everything becomes wild. But I can direct my eyes of spirit to a good Power in whom I trust; then that Power will help me and I shall be able to lead up-wards again what is in danger of sinking. This Power gives me hope that further development is possible!—The Iranian conceived this Power to be Ahura Mazdao and he said to himself: Man can ennoble and sublimate the forces of Nature when he unites himself with Ahura Mazdao, with the power of Ormuzd. Ormuzd represents,an upward-flowing stream. But if man leaves Nature as she is, he will see everything degenerating into a wild state. This is due to Ahriman—And now the following mood developed in the regions of Iran. Men said: North of us live many who are in Ahriman's service. They are the Ahriman-folk who wander about the world and take what Nature gives them, who will do nothing to spiritualise Nature. We, however, will unite ourselves with with Ahura Mazdao!

Thus men became aware of duality in. the world. The Iranians, the people of Zarathustra, felt this duality and desired so to organise their life that the urge towards a higher form of existence should come to expression in their laws. This was the outer consequence of Zoroastrianism and herein we must see the contrast between Iran and Turan. The war of which occult history gives so many and such detailed accounts, the war between Ardshasp and Guslinasp—the former being the King of the Turanians and the latter the patron of Zarathustra—is an expression of the antithesis between the North and the South, between the men living in the two regions of Turan and Iran. If we grasp this, we shall perceive a current of soul-life flowing from Zarathustra to the whole of the humanity upon whom his influence was exercised.

To begin with, then, it was necessary to describe the whole milieu, the whole environment into which Zarathustra was placed. We know from earlier lectures³ that the Individuality who incarnated into the bloods that flowed from Abraham through three times fourteen generations and who appeared as Jesus of Nazareth of whom the Gospel of St. Matthew tells, was Zarathustra, the Individuality who had been Zarathustra. It was therefore necessary to look for him where he is first to be found, in the very early post-Atlantean epoch. And now the question arises: Why was it that the blood that flowed from Abraham in Western Asia through the generations was the blood best fitted for a later embodiment of Zarathustra? (For in one of his incarnations Zarathustra was Jesus of Nazareth.)

In order to approach this question it was necessary, in the first place, to ask about the central figure—the Zarathustra-Individuality—who incarnated into the blood of the Hebrew people. Tomorrow we shall have to consider why it was necessarily this blood, this particular racial stock, from which Zarathustra derived his body as Jesus of Nazareth.

• 1. A list of publications recommended for study in connection with the following lectures will be found on page 239.
• 2. See Appendix I, p. 233.
• 3. E.g. Deeper Secrets of Human History in the Light of the Gospel of St. Matthew, Lecture II. (Obtainable from Rudolf Steiner Press.)

Self-knowledge is necessary to be able to tell the human beings the heavenly wisdom. Plato revered his great teacher Socrates particularly because Socrates could get the loftiest knowledge, the knowledge of God through self-knowledge because he appreciated the knowledge of the own soul more than that of the external nature or of that which refers to anything beyond our world. Socrates just became one of the martyrs of knowledge and truth because he was misunderstood in his knowledge of the soul. One has accused him that he denied the gods, while he searched for them, nevertheless, only on another way than others, on the way through the own soul. He was accused of this soul knowledge which does not only aim at the knowledge of the own soul, but also at the jewel which holds this human soul as knowledge, namely the knowledge of the divine very basis.

These three talks should deal with this knowledge of the soul. The number of the talks was not arbitrarily determined and also not by chance, but well-considered out of the developmental course of the soul. For in the times in which the knowledge and the wisdom of soul was in the centre of the whole human thinking and striving, one divided the nature of the human being into three parts, in body, soul and mind. You can find this view in the ancient Indian wisdom of the Vedanta, in the heydays of Buddhism and of the Greek philosophy and in the first centuries of Christianity. If you want to consider the soul correctly, you have to connect it with the other members of the human being, with the body on one side and with the mind on the other side. Hence, this first lecture has to deal with the relations of the soul with the body. The second lecture deals with the real internal being of the human soul, and the third lecture with the sight of the soul up to the divine-spiritual very basis of the world existence.

By a strange chance of history this threefold division of the human being has got lost to the western research, because wherever you look for psychology today, you find that one confronts psychology simply to the natural sciences or the science of the body, and everywhere you can hear that one assumes that the human being is to be considered according to two points of view: the first informs about the corporeality, the other point of view informs about the soul. This means, popularly expressed, that the human being consists of body and soul. This sentence on which basically our whole psychology well-known to you is based and to which many mistakes are to be attributed in psychology this sentence has a strange history. Until the first times of Christianity everybody who thought and tried to explain the human being considered him as consisting of body, soul and mind. Go to the first Christian church teachers, go to the Gnostics, then everywhere you find this division. Up to the second, third centuries you find the trichotomy of the human being acknowledged by the Christian science and dogmatism. Later one regarded this teaching as dangerous within Christianity. One thought that the human being would become too arrogant if he ascended beyond his soul to the spirit that he would presume too much to inform about the basis of the things about which only the revelation should inform.

That is why one consulted and decided on different councils that as a dogma is to be taught for the future: the human being consists of body and soul. Respected theologians maintained the trichotomy in certain respects, like John Scotus Eriugena and Thomas Aquinas. But the consciousness of the trichotomy got lost more and more to the Christian science which cared for psychology above all in the Middle Ages. At the appearance of science in the 15th and 16th centuries one no longer had a consciousness of the old division. Even Descartes made a distinction only between soul, which he calls mind, and body. This remained that way. Those who speak of psychology today do not know that they speak under the influence of a Christian dogma. One believes—you can read it in the manuals—that the human being consists only of body and soul. One has only reproduced an ancient prejudice, and one is based on it still today. This will appear to us in the course of these talks.

We have to show above all which relation between soul and body the unbiased psychologist has to assume; for it seems to be a result of modern natural sciences that one should no longer speak of the soul as one did it for thousands of years before our time. The physical research which pressed its stamp onto the 19th century and its mental development explained again and again that a science of the soul in the old sense of the word—as for example that of Goethe and partially of Aristotle—is not compatible with its views and is not tenable, therefore. You can take manuals about psychology or The Riddles of the World by Haeckel. You will find everywhere that the dogmatic prejudices exist and that one has the opinion that the old points of view under which one tried to approach the soul are overcome. Nobody can revere Haeckel—I say this for the scientists and the admirers of Ernst Haeckel—as a great man of science more than I myself. But great human beings also have big shortcomings, and thus it may be my task to test a prejudice of our time quite impartially.

What is said to us from this side? One says to us: what you called soul disappeared under our hands. We naturalists have shown that any sensation, everything that develops as conceptual life, any thinking, any willing, any feeling that everything is tied to particular organs of our brain and our nervous system. Natural sciences of the 19th century showed, one says, that certain parts of our cerebral cortex unless they are completely intact make it impossible to us to accomplish certain mental manifestations. From that one concludes that in these parts of our brain the mental manifestations are located that they are dependent, as one says, on these parts of our brain. One has expressed this drastically saying: a certain point of the brain is the centre of speech, another part of this soul activity, another part of another activity, so that one can tear down the soul bit by bit.

One has shown that the illness of particular cerebral parts is connected with the loss of particular soul abilities at the same time. What one imagined as soul since millennia, no naturalist can find this; this is a concept with which the naturalist cannot do anything. We find the body and its functions, but nowhere a soul. The great moralist of Darwinism, Bartholomäus Carneri who has written an ethics of Darwinism expressed his conviction clearly as it can never be given more clearly by these circles of the naturalists. He says: we take a clock. The pointers advance, the clockwork is in movement. All that happens because of the mechanism which is before us. As we have in that which the clock accomplishes a manifestation of the clock mechanism, in the same way we have in that which the human being feels, thinks and wills a manifestation of the whole nervous mechanism before us.

Just as little one can assume that a small soul-being is in the clock which moves the cog wheels, the pointers, just as little we can suppose that a soul exists outside the organism which causes thinking, feeling and willing.—This is the confession of a naturalist in mental respect; it is that which the naturalists have made the basis of a new faith, such a pure naturalistic religion. The naturalist believes that he is forced to this confession by the results of science and he believes that he is allowed to regard everybody as a childish mind who does not conclude this way under the influence of science. Bartholomäus Carneri showed it without any whitewash. As long as the human beings were children, they have spoken like Aristotle; because they have grown up now and understand science, they must leave the childish views. The view of the naturalists, which regards the human being as nothing else than a mechanism, corresponds to the metaphor of the clock. Drastically expressed, this view is considered as the only one which is worthy of the present. It is shown in such a way that the scientific discoveries of the age force us to these confessions.

However, we have to ask ourselves: did the natural sciences, the precise investigation of our nervous system, the precise investigation of our organs and their functions really force us to this view? No, because in the 18th century everything that one gives as something scientific and authoritative today was still in the germ. There was nothing of modern psychology, nothing of the discoveries of the great Johannes Müller and his school, nothing of the discoveries which the naturalists made in the 19th century.

At that time, in the 18th century, these views were expressed in the most radical way in the French Enlightenment which could not rely on natural sciences, the words sounded for the first time: the human being is a machine.—A book by Holbach comes from this time, entitled: Système de la nature, about which Goethe said that he felt rejected by its superficiality and triviality. This as proof of the fact that this view existed before the modern natural sciences. One is allowed to say that on the contrary the materialism of the 18th century hovered over the minds of the 19th century and that the materialistic creed was setting the tone for the way of thinking which one then brought into the natural sciences. That with regard to the historical truth. If it were not in such a way, one would have to call the view a childish one which the modern natural sciences has, namely that one cannot speak of the soul in the old sense because one can tear down the soul in the same way as one can tear down the brain.

What did one gain especially with this view? No soul-researcher who tries to recognise the soul according to Aristotle, according to the old Greeks, or—we say in spite of all contradiction which approach from some sides—according to the Christian Middle Ages can take offence of the truths of modern natural sciences. Every reasonable soul-researcher agrees to that which the natural sciences say about the nervous system and the brain as the mediators of our soul functions. He is not surprised that one can no longer speak if a certain part of the brain falls ill. The old researcher is no longer surprised with that like with the fact that he can no longer think after he has been killed.

Modern science does nothing else than to determine in detail what the human beings have already understood on the whole. Just as the human being knows that he cannot speak without certain cerebral parts, cannot form ideas, it would be a proof that he has no soul if he could be killed. Also the Vedantists, also Plato and others are clear to themselves about the fact that the soul activity of the human being stops if a big fieldstone falls on his head and smashes him. The old psychology did not teach anything different. We can be aware of that. We can accept the whole natural sciences and form psychology differently. During former centuries one realised that the way which the natural sciences took does not lead to the knowledge of the soul and can also not be taken, hence, to its disproof.

If those who try to disprove the old psychology from the standpoint of science were well-versed in former lines of thought, if people were not yet so prejudiced in the external life, then they could realise that they tilt at windmills like once Don Quixote to combat psychology in this scientific sense.

This whole fight is already shown in a conversation which you find in the Buddhist literature, in a conversation which does not belong to the sermons of Buddha himself which was written down only some years before Christ. Somebody who investigates the conversation sees that it concerns the oldest real views of Buddhism which find expression in the discussion of the King Milinda equipped with Greek wisdom and dialectic with the Buddhist sage Nagasena. This king steps to the Indian sage and asks: who are you?—The sage Nagasena answers: one calls me Nagasena. But this is only a name. No subject, no personality is contained in it.—How? King Milinda said who held the Greek dialectic and the whole ability and power of Greek thinking in himself—listen to me who you have come along, the sage states that nothing is behind the name Nagasena. What is then that which stands there before me? Are your hands, your legs Nagasena? No. Is your sensations, feelings and ideas Nagasena? No, all this is not Nagasena. Then the connection of that is Nagasena. But, because he states now that everything is not Nagasena that only a name is there which holds together everything, who and what is Nagasena, actually? Is that nothing which is behind the brain, behind the organs, behind the body, behind the feelings and ideas? Is that nothing who does others a few favours? Is somebody nothing who does the good and the bad? Is somebody nothing who strives for holiness? Is nothing behind that all but the sheer name?—There Nagasena answered using another metaphor: how have you come, great king, on foot or carriage?—The king answered: on carriage.—Now, explain the carriage to me. Is the shaft your carriage? Are the wheels your carriage? Is the carriage box your carriage?—No, answers the king.—What is then your carriage? It is a name which refers only to the connection of the different parts.

What did the sage Nagasena want to say who grew up in Buddhism?—O king, you who have gained an immense ability in Greece, in the Greek philosophy you must understand that you come to anything else than to a name if you consider the parts of the carriage in their connection as little as if you hold together the parts of the human being.

Take this ancient teaching which can be traced back to the oldest times of the Buddhist world view and ask yourselves what is said in it? Nothing else than that the way of recognising the soul by looking at the external organs or at the interplay of ideas is a wrong track. By the way, the great anatomist Metchnikoff reckoned that the ideas are a milliard. In terms of this correct saying of the sage Nagasena we cannot find the soul that way. This is a wrong way. One never tried to approach the soul that way in the times in which one knew on which way one has to find the soul and to study it. It was a historical necessity that the fine, intimate ways on which still the sages of the Christian Middle Ages looked for the soul receded a little bit into the background when our natural sciences started to take up the external world. Which methods and viewpoints did the natural sciences develop in particular?

You can find in the posthumous works of one of the most ingenious naturalists of our immediate present who has done great discoveries in the field of the theory of electricity that the modern natural sciences have taken up the cause of simplicity and usefulness. You can find that a psychologist who also works for the purposes of natural sciences still added descriptiveness to these two demands of simplicity and usefulness. One can say that natural sciences really worked miracles by this three—simplicity, usefulness and descriptiveness. But this is not applicable to the soul being. Using descriptiveness with regard to the examination of the external members, using usefulness with regard to the outer appearance the natural sciences were induced to look for the connection of the parts, to calculate, to investigate them. However, it was just that which can never lead to the soul according to the sage Nagasena. Because the natural sciences have taken this way, it is only too comprehensible that they have left the ways of the soul. Today one does not even have a consciousness of that which soul researchers have for centuries striven for.

Which fairy tales are told in this regard and which sum of ignorance comes to light, if today one speaks in apparently authoritative circles about the teaching of Aristotle or about that of the first Christian researchers, about that of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless if anybody wants to understand the being of the soul academically, there is no other access than that of the careful inner work to learn the ideas of Aristotle, the ideas which have led the first Christians and the great Christian Church Fathers to the knowledge of the soul. There is no other method. It is as important for this field as the method of the natural sciences for the external science. But these methods of psychology have got lost to us to a large extent. Really inner observations are not regarded as an academic field.

The theosophical movement has made it its job to investigate the ways of the soul again. In the most different kind the access to the soul can be found. In other talks I tried, on purely spiritual-scientific way, to give the knowledge of the soul by means of purely theosophical method. Here, however, should be spoken at first how Aristotle founded his psychology at the end of the great Greek philosophical epoch. For in former times the wisdom of the soul was cultivated unlike by Aristotle. We understand how the wisdom of the soul was cultivated in the ancient Egyptian wisdom, was cultivated in the ancient Veda wisdom. This, however, for later. Today you allow me to speak of the psychology of Aristotle who completed as a scholar centuries before Christ what has been found on quite different ways. We may say that we have something in the of Aristotle’s doctrine of the soul that the best in the fields of psychology were able to give. Because Aristotle gives the best, one has to speak about Aristotle above all. Nevertheless, this gigantic mind of his time—his writings is a treasury with regard to the knowledge of the ancient time, and somebody who becomes engrossed in Aristotle knows what was performed before his time—this gigantic mind was not clairvoyant like Plato, he was a scientist. Somebody who wants to get closer to the soul academically has to do it on the way of Aristotle. Aristotle is a personality who gives satisfaction to the demands of scientific thinking in every respect—if one takes the epoch into consideration. As we will see, in one single point he does not. This only point in which we find Aristotle’s doctrine of the soul dissatisfactory became the big disaster of all scientific psychology of the West.

Aristotle was a scientific teacher of development. He stood completely on the standpoint of the theory of evolution. He supposed that all beings have developed in strictly scientific necessity. He let the most imperfect beings still arise from abiogenesis, by mere meeting of lifeless physical substances, in purely natural way. This is a hypothesis which is an important scientific bone of contention, but a hypothesis which Haeckel has in common with Aristotle. Haeckel also shares the conviction of Aristotle that a direct ladder leads up to the human being. Aristotle also encloses any soul development in this development and is convinced that there is not a radical, but only a gradual difference between soul and body. That means that Aristotle is convinced that during the development of the imperfect to the perfect the moment happens when the level is reached that everything lifeless has found its creation, and then the possibility is there that the soul element comes into being from the lifeless by itself. He gradually distinguishes a so-called plant soul which lives in the whole plant world, an animal soul which lives in the animal realm, and, finally, a higher level of this animal soul which lives in the human being. You see that the really understood Aristotle agrees completely with everything that modern natural sciences teach. Now, take The Riddles of the World by Haeckel, the first pages where he stands on the ground of the right physical laws, and compare that with the natural sciences and the psychology of Aristotle, you will find that a real difference does not exist if you subtract the difference given by the time.

But now this comes where Aristotle goes beyond the psychology to which the modern natural sciences believe to have come. There Aristotle shows that he is able to observe real inner life. If anybody follows with deep understanding what Aristotle now builds up on this physical-lawful theory of knowledge sees that all people have simply not understood this view in the true sense of the word who argue anything against this view of Aristotle. It is infinitely easy to realise that we have to do an immense step from the animal soul to the human soul. It is infinitely easy to understand that. Nothing else prevents one from doing this step together with Aristotle than the ways of thinking which formed in the course of modern mental development. For Aristotle is clear to himself about the fact that something appears within the human soul that differs substantially from everything that is found as a soul element outside. Already the old Pythagoreans said, by the way, that somebody who realises the truth that the human being is the only being which can learn to count knows in which respect the human being differs from the animal. But it is not so easy to see what it means, actually, that only the human being can learn to count.

The Greek sage Plato did not admit anybody to his philosophers’ school who had not learnt mathematics first, at least the elements, the ABC. That means: Plato wanted nothing else than that those whom he introduced in the science of the soul know something about the nature of the mathematical, know something about the nature of this peculiar mental activity which the human being exercises if he does mathematics. However, this is clear also to Aristotle that it does not depend on doing mathematics rather than on understanding: the human being is able to do mathematics.

That is nothing else than that the human being is able to discover strictly self-contained laws which no external world can give him. Only those who are not trained in thinking, only those who do not know to achieve introspection only do not realise that even the simplest mathematical theorem could never be gained by mere observation. In nature nowhere is a real circle, in nature nowhere is a real straight line, nowhere an ellipse, but in mathematics we investigate these, and we apply the world which we have gained from our inside to the outside. Unless we think this fact through, we can never come to a true view of the being of the soul.

That is why theosophy requires a strict training of thinking from its students who want to get involved deeper; not the will-o’-the-wisp thinking of the everyday life, not the will-o’-the-wisp thinking of the western philosophy, but the thinking which practices introspection in inner thoroughness. This thinking reveals the far-reaching scope of this sentence. Those who had the biggest conquests in astronomy by their mathematical training realise the far-reaching scope and express it. Read the writings by Kepler, this great astronomer, read through what he says about this basic phenomenon of human introspection, then you see what this personality expresses about that. He knew which far-reaching scope mathematical thinking has up to the most distant galaxies. He says: the correspondence is miraculous which we find only from our thinking when we sat in our lonesome study room and pondered over circles and ellipses, and then look up at the sky and find their correspondence with the heavenly spheres.—Such teaching is not a matter of external research, but it concerns a deepening of such knowledge. Already in the vestibule it should appear with those who wanted to be accepted in the philosophers’ school who of them could be admitted. For one knew then that—like those who have their five senses can investigate the outer world—they can investigate also the being of the soul by thinking. This was not sooner possible.

But one demanded something else. The mathematical thinking does not suffice. It is the first step where we completely live in ourselves where the spirit of the world develops from our inside. It is the most trivial, the most subordinate step which we must climb up first above which we have to go, however. Just the soul researcher of olden times demanded to get the highest levels of human knowledge out of the depths of the soul in the same way as mathematics gets out the truth of the starry heaven out of the depths of the soul. This was the demand which Plato hid in the sentence: everybody who wants to enter into my school must have gone through a mathematical course first.—Not mathematics is necessary, but a knowledge which has the independence of the mathematical thinking. If one sees that the human being has a life in himself which is independent of the external physical life that he must get the highest truth out of himself, then one also sees that the best effectiveness of the human being reaches to something that is beyond any physical activity.

Have a look at the animal. Its activity runs purely according to its type. Any animal does what countless of its ancestors have also done. The type controls the animal completely. Tomorrow it does the same what it did yesterday. The ant builds its miracle construction, the beaver its lodge, in ten, hundred, thousand years as well as today. Development is also in it, but not history. Who realises that the human development is not only a development, but history, is able to become clear to himself about the method of soul observation in similar way as somebody who has realised what mathematical truth is. There are still savage people. Indeed, they become extinct, but there are still those who can recognise no connection between today and tomorrow. There are those who cover themselves with leaves of trees if it gets cold in the evening. In the morning they throw them away and in the evening they have to look for them again. They are not able to transfer the experience of yesterday to today and tomorrow. What is necessary if we want to transfer the experience of yesterday to today and tomorrow? We cannot say if today we know what we have done yesterday, then tomorrow we will also do what we have done yesterday. This is a characteristic of the animal soul. It can progress, it can become something else in the course of times, but then this transformation is not something historical. History consists in the fact that the individual human being uses that which he has experienced in such a way that he can conclude on something non-experienced, on a tomorrow.

I learn the sense, the spirit of yesterday and rely on the fact that the laws which my soul gains from observation are also valid in that which I have not yet observed, in future. Travellers tell us that it happened that any travellers made fires for themselves in regions where monkeys lived. They went away, let the fire burn and left the wood. The monkeys approached and warmed themselves up at the fire. But they could not poke the fire. They cannot make themselves independent of the observations and experiences, they cannot conclude. The human being infers from his observations and experiences and becomes the authoritarian determiner of his future. He sends his experiences to tomorrow, he transforms development into history. As well as he transforms experience into theory, as well as he gets the truth of the spirit out of nature, he gets the rules of the future out of the past and becomes the creator of the future that way. Somebody who thinks through these two things thoroughly—that the human being can make himself independent in double way that he can not only observe, but also put up theories that he does not have development like the animal soul but also history—gets these two things clear in his mind and understands what I meant when I said that in the human being lives not only the animal soul, but the animal soul develops so far that it can take up the so-called nous (Greek), the universal spirit.

Aristotle regards that as necessary, so that the human being can form history, that the universal spirit sinks into the animal soul. The soul of the human being differs in the sense of Aristotle from the animal soul because it was raised from that for what it rose within the animal development up to the functions and activities by which it has acquired the spirit. The saying of the great Kepler that the laws won in a lonesome study room are applicable to the external natural phenomena can be explained through the fact that the universal spirit, the nous, the Mahat, sinks into the human soul and raises it up to a higher level. The human soul is lifted out of the animal being as it were. It is the spirit which lifts it out. The spirit lives in the soul. It develops from the soul. It develops in such a way as the soul lifts itself out of the body gradually.

However, Aristotle did not or not clearly say this. Indeed, he says repeatedly: the soul develops gradually up to the human soul in a quite natural way—but now the spirit comes from without into this naturally developed human soul. Nous is something in the sense of Aristotle that is put into the human soul from without by creative activity. This became the disaster of the western science of the soul. It is a disaster of Aristotle that he is not able to make his right view that the human soul is lifted up while the nous sinks into it a theory of the historical course. He cannot understand this development as natural as the development of the soul is to be understood. Already Greek and Indian sages did this. They understood body, soul and mind developing naturally to the human mind. There is a break with Aristotle. He adds the idea of creation to the view. We will see how the theosophical psychology overcomes this idea of creation how it draws the last consequences of the scientific world view, indeed, from the spiritual standpoint in the true sense.

But only while we get clear in our mind that we must return to the old division in body, soul and mind we really understand this natural development of the human being. However, we must not believe that we can find access to the soul one day on the apparently irrefutable ways cultivated by modern natural sciences, by observing the single parts of the brain. We have to realise that the objections of the Indian sage Nagasena also apply to the modern naturalistic psychology. We have to realise above all that a deeper, internal introspection, a deeper spiritual research is necessary to find access to soul and mind. One would form a wrong idea of those who believe that the different religions and the different sages who came from the different religions have said what the modern natural sciences try to disprove. They have never said this, have never tried this. Who follows the development of psychology can see clearly that those who have known something of the methods of psychology have never applied the methods of natural sciences, so that they had to disprove them. These cannot find to the soul. O no, on this way the soul researchers who have still known what a soul is have never sought for the soul.

I want to mention somebody, the most scorned of enlighteners whom one also knows least. I want to speak with a few words about the psychology of the 13th century, about the psychology of Thomas Aquinas. It belongs to the typical qualities of this doctrine of the soul that the author says: what the human mind takes when it leaves this body, what the human mind takes into the purely spiritual world this can no longer be compared with everything that the human being experiences within his body. Yes, Thomas Aquinas says that the task of the religion in its most ideal sense consists in educating the human being, so that he can take something from this body that is not sensory that is not tied to investigation, to consideration and experience of the outer nature. As long as we live in this body, we see through our eyes and hear through our ears something sensory. We perceive everything sensory by means of our senses. But the spirit processes this sensory. The spirit is the actually active. The spirit is the eternal. Now take into consideration the deep view which was won there on account of the thousands of years old teaching of the soul which expresses itself in the words: that spirit which has collected a little during this life which is independent of external sensory observation, independent of external sensory life is not happy when it is disembodied. Thomas Aquinas says: what we see in our sensory surroundings is filled perpetually with sensory phantasms.

However, the spirit—I have described it as the spirit of mathematics as nous which results easily like tomorrow results from yesterday and today—this spirit freeing itself collects fruits for eternity. The spirit feels endlessly isolated and void—this is the teaching of Thomas Aquinas—if it enters the spiritland without having advanced so far that it is free of any phantasm of the sensory world. The deep sense of the Greek myth of drinking from the Lethe River reveals itself to us as a thought: the spirit in its purely spiritual existence progresses higher and higher, the more it frees itself of any sensory phantasm. Who searches the spirit as something sense-perceptible cannot find it; for the spirit if it has become free of sensuality has no longer anything to do with sensuality. Thomas Aquinas considered the methods as totally unacceptable with which it is searched for sensually. This church teacher is an adversary of any experiment and attempt to get contact with the dead sensually. The spirit must be purest if it is free of sensual phantasms and sticking to sensuality. Otherwise, it feels in the spiritual world endlessly isolated. The spirit which depends on the sensory observation, which is wrapped up in sensory observations, lives in the spiritual world like in an unknown world. This isolation is its destiny because it has not learnt to be free of sensual phantasms. We completely penetrate that when we come to the second talk.

You see that one searched for the soul just in the opposite way in the times in which the inner observation, the observation of that which lives inside the human being was the decisive factor for the soul science. This fundamental error lives in the modern psychology and has led to broadcast the catchword of the psychology without soul as a naturalistic creed of the 19th century. This science which strives only for the external views believes to be able to disprove the old views. But this science knows nothing about the ways on which the soul was searched for. Nothing, not the slightest objection should be said against modern science. On the contrary, we want to explore the realm of the soul even as theosophists in terms of this modern science in such a way as this explores the realm of the purely spatial nature. However, we want to search for the soul not in the outer nature but in our inside. We want to search for the spirit where it reveals itself, while we walk on the ways of the soul and get spirit knowledge from soul knowledge. This is the way prescribed by teachings thousands of years old which one only has to understand in its truth and validity.

However, this also becomes clear to us and becomes clearer and clearer what the deeper human being if he wants to recognise the soul also misses just in the modern cold science like Goethe missed it when he met this cold science in the Système de la nature by Holbach. Indeed, we can observe in the outer nature how the human being has developed concerning his external appearance how he has become how the monad works in the finer structures how the middle organ system can be regarded as an expression of the soul, but all that leads us only to the knowledge of the external appearance. The big question of the human destiny still remains. No matter how well we have understood a human being with regard to his external appearance, we have not understood him in so far as he has this or that destiny in this or that way, we have not understood which role the good and the bad, the perfect and imperfect play. What the human being experiences inside, about that the external science can give us no explanation; about that only the soul science which is based on introspection can give us a reasonable answer. Then the big questions arise: where do we come from, where do we go, what is our goal?—These biggest questions of all religions. These questions, which can raise the human being to sublime mood, will transport us from the soul-world to the spirit, to the divine spirit flowing through the world. The contents of the next lecture must be: through the soul to the spirit. This will show us that it is absolutely true—not only a pictorial expression—that also the perfect animal soul, which originated through solely external development, became only the human soul because it constitutes something even higher, more perfect, and that it is entitled to bear the germ of something still higher, of something unlimitedly perfect in itself. This human soul has to be regarded as something that does not produce the spirit and the phenomena of the soul from the animal realm, but that the animal in the human being must develop to higher levels to receive its vocation, its task and also its destiny.

The medieval teaching of the soul expresses that with the words that only he recognises the truth in the real sense who considers it not as it appears to him if he hears with external ears, looks with external eyes, but in such a way as it appears if we see it in the reflection of the highest spirit. That is why I may close the first lecture with the words which Thomas Aquinas used in his lecture: the human soul is just like the moon which shines, but receives its light from the sun.—The human soul is just like the water which is not cold and not warm in itself, but receives its heat from the fire.—The human soul is just like a higher animal soul only, but it is a human soul because it receives its light from the human mind.

In accordance with this medieval conviction Goethe says:

The human soul
Resembles the water:
It comes from the heaven,
It rises to the heaven,
And again down
To the earth it has to go,
Forever changing.

Then one understands the human soul if one conceives it in this sense that it is understood as a reflection of the highest being which we can find everywhere in the cosmos, as a reflection of the world spirit flowing through the universe.

Prayers were said from various sides before the start of the lecture, and a particular wish was expressed to hear more closely about the battle of Luther's soul.

[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Yes, my dear friends, if I want to continue exploring which what we started, in various directions, it is important that I firstly touch on what existed in ancient Christianity, and then what unfolded out of the various forces working from ancient Christianity leading to the rise of the Evangelical-Protestant experience. We must be quite clear that during the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha took place, those people who would at least have a tendency to accept Christianity, were still of a totally different soul constitution, than what was later the case. The Mystery of Golgotha took place in the human evolution during a time in which it had basically nothing at all to do with, I could call it, pursuing the objective course of the world in a spiritual-scientific way. This is quite extraordinary. When you try to deepen yourself particularly into the objective course of the world, as it is presented in its totality, incorporating the physical, soul and spiritual, you have a strong impression regarding the development in the 8th century before Christ. Once again, you will get this strong impact—this can already be noticed in outer knowledge—regarding the time which I've often spoken about, in the 15th century.

[ 2 ] The time epoch stretching from the 8th century BC to 15th AD creates roundabout an epoch in which humanity's development, if you follow this development spiritual-scientifically, was unfolding and can be called the Mind- or Intellectual Soul; in other words, it was the epoch of the Mind- or Intellectual Soul development. In its purest form it comes out of the Greek people's evolution. I call it Mind Soul but ask you, please, not to connect an intellectual concept to this term. Should you want to study the Mind Soul today, as it had developed out of Greekdom, then you need to study such individuals who had in a certain sense some kind of clairvoyance, not schooled clairvoyance but an atavistic one; inherited clairvoyance which can still pop up in some people at present. You can see that the content of the world appears to such people as imaginative, made up of images. If you should ask them to describe their pictorial impressions—of course only if no physical deformation disorder is involved, but when the whole thing is pure—you discover an extraordinary amount of understanding in the images thus depicted. They describe some processes in the spiritual world in pictures. They receive the images, but they get the sense of them as well. They can't help it if they include understanding in the images they receive because they take place together. Up to the 15th Century the soul constitution of many people were still not as developed as the mind is today, but they were inspired by their minds, they could have revelations in the mind. Only after the 15th Century did intellectualism develop which means that the mind had to be actively laboured with inwardly in the soul. Logic had to be developed, it was something to be worked at; it was not, so to speak, just given to the soul. That is the essential difference in the soul constitution of more modern people in comparison with those in this earlier epoch.

When you go still further back, to the evolutionary period of mankind, before the 8th century BC, then you arrive at an epoch where such pictorially filled imaginations initially developed as involuntary imaginations. You get to an epoch which reached back to the 3rd century and find that just this reading in the cosmos which I've described for you this morning, unfolded and appeared in the human soul as pictorial imaginations, still existed in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, in naive and simple mind natured people. By contrast we have an epoch since the 15th century in which human consciousness must veer to freedom, and this can only happen when people create their own thought forms, out of themselves.

[ 3 ] If we simply study world processes objectively, we initially have no reason to believe in the Mystery of Golgotha. We need to attain intuitive knowledge in the sense in which I've depicted in my book "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its attainment," and then you get the idea that the Mystery of Golgotha can be seen as falling out of the entire remaining course of the world view. (Writes on the blackboard.) If I namely have 8 centuries BC before here, the 15th century, then we have a particular process which must be considered as flowing together, and now gives a particular impact in our years of one or zero.

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[ 4 ] To a certain extent we can research from the oldest times the evolution of the earth and man, and we will reach a certain stage in the development, but we do not arrive at seeing the Mystery of Golgotha within this research. We definitely come through research of this evolution, if we do not look at the Mystery of Golgotha, to the feeling: we are moving to the end of the earth, as human beings we must find our grave in the earth.—This way we arrive at quite a decisive conclusion of the earth dying away. Then we can turn our gaze to the Mystery of Golgotha and so we will find that the earth was renewed, fructified by the Mystery of Golgotha, that a new seed from the expanse contained up to that moment evolutionary streams, and that this new seed, having arrived through the Mystery of Golgotha, forms the foundation for the renewal of the earth. This is primarily the meaning of the Gospel's words which I mentioned yesterday when I said: The spiritual beings who remained on the earth would have perished with the earth (if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place): The demons screamed when they saw the Christ, because he stripped them of their rulership. This is certainly a real process. You can be quite certain it isn't merely about accepting some or other event given in the Bible, but it is about a clear observation of the processes.

[ 5 ] The Mystery of Golgotha does not even fall in the middle of these time slots (between 8 BC and 15 AD), because the middle of this time is in about the middle of the 4th century. Therefore, this event doesn't even fall into the middle, so one could say: The event of Golgotha is something which took place in contrast to the world of necessity, taking place through divine freedom entering into the earth. It is a deed of freedom coming out of the divine worlds, it certainly was given to humanity from outside, as a gift from the divine world order. As a result, it can't be understood by those who want to observe the continuous historic processes, they may not be able to discover something within it like the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 6 ] To suggest that, I often express it this way: If, let's say, a Mars inhabitant came down to earth, he would find much he can't understand, but he would be able to start understanding something when he looks at something like the painting of the last supper of Leonardo da Vinci. To this extraordinary image and what is intended with the Christ, he would be able to see something which would indicate the central point of earthly events to him. That is obvious only through comparison, but it is a comparison which I've often had to make to indicate what is important here.

Particularly for those who had a strong feeling for the sense of the Mystery of Golgotha as fallen out of the ordinary earthly course, like all that the Roman Catholic Church has gradually become, still a kind of departure came about from the original meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. It has crystallized into an historic anecdote. When Leonardo da Vinci was appointed to paint the Last Supper, he worked slowly, for a long time. Actually, he needed more than ten years. Then a new Prior arrived and wanted this painting chap to finish off the thing at last. The painting had been completed up to the figure of Judas when the new Prior asked when it would at least be complete. Leonardo said that up to that point he had not been able to complete the painting because he had no model for Judas. Now however, he had in the Prior a model for Judas, and he could complete the painting.

With this anecdote there is definitely a crystallization of the feeling which in the Roman Catholic Church had as a departure from the original sense of the Mystery of Golgotha, how one would far rather take a Prior and make a Judas out of him than anyone else.

[ 7 ] This attitude of mind can be studied up to the middle of the 4th century, and then again, how it prepares itself for intellectualism from the middle of the 4th century onwards. For example, you can already see, when you study the writing of Scotus Eriugena, how in the 10th century on the one hand, the tendency plays in towards intellectualism that would later fully emerge, and on the other hand in what one could call the gifts of understanding out of higher worlds. This appeared strongly in that time in which it prepared itself from the middle of the previous epoch up to the 15th century of our present epoch. It is conclusively quite different before the middle of 4 AD; it continues into the 5th century, the times are not so strictly separate. You always find strong experiences towards the Mystery of Golgotha present in the first centuries after the event, as the supersensible spiritual plays into the earthly. This permeation of outer spiritual into the earthly became ever more difficult for the ordinary state of mind. We are just seeing in the centre of this previously mentioned period, a personality wrestling with every possible thing, just to get along. It is with such a turn that the one side of the human state of mind really changed, and on the other side a new kind of understanding necessary for the Mystery of Golgotha. This personality, as you know, was Augustine.

Within his soul, Augustine just couldn't come to terms completely with how the spiritual worked into matter. Augustine for instance sought amongst the Manichaeans for a possibility of how to recognise the spiritual in the material. He didn't manage; he actually only managed by withdrawing completely into himself, in order to depend on the self-assurance of his human I, which made him one of the precursors of the famous Descartes declaration: "Cogito, ergo sum." (I think, therefore I am.) This principle is found with Augustine already. However, on the other hand he was confronted with a certain doubt about the teaching, and this doubt was eating him up. One can certainly understand out of the configuration of the time, why Augustine felt this way. How the old heathen point of view of the church fathers, namely Clemens von Alexandria, was still completely accepted, so that in the oldest Christian times they were totally overtaken by the pagan in Christian teaching, and this Augustine could no longer accept, because in his human soul constitution it was no longer appropriate. The teaching content was also shaped in such a way that, essentially in the time of the Council of Nicaea, it had been brought as abstract dogmas which could then be absorbed by intellectualism. So the human soul in Augustine's time, I can mention, was already driven towards intellectualism. From then on Augustine could do nothing other than accept the dogmatic Catholic Church content, in order to find a teaching content.

[ 8 ] Through this, a great crack came about in the Catholic Church. What appeared from the ceremonial of course could not correspond to a soul content. Humanity didn't come in the same way to the undermining of the ceremonial content, as it came to the drying up of the soul content. So it happened in the Catholic Church that the soul content dried out dogmatically, while the ceremonial content actually sustained itself. This ceremonial content of the Catholic Church didn't come out of Christianity, but it came out of far older ceremonial processes. Out of such times it stirred, from a time in which people still had a living reading of the cosmos in which, as a sacrificial offering, it could be accomplished from the reading in the cosmos. What was drawn from the ancient ceremonies of the mysteries, was then Christianized. The Mass offering is also certainly taken from the ancient mystery ceremonies and Christianized. However, what remained as symbolic in the act of sacrifice, is what actually continued within the Catholic Church.

[ 9 ] The Catholic Church was actually on this point always consequential, also when it became a worldly establishment under Constantine, as it went over into the political field. It was, one could say, really ironclad in its consequentiality. It has maintained its ceremonies in the most conservative way and in order not to go under, suffocated its soul content with dogmatism. No wonder that the ceremonial content became more and more strange as an experience, because people had no lively relationship to it anymore, and the dogmatic content was experienced as something obsolete—while it had been lively knowledge in olden times, knowledge experienced by a different soul constitution. The dogmatic content could not hold true compared with what came out of purely worldly knowledge. However, the Catholic Church had to remain absolutely consequential, and it has remained in its conserved state right up to the present. It has remained conservative by not participating in the state of mind/soul constitution residing in the present day. It has remained so, that it demands faith in preserved dogmas, which corresponds to a knowledge of an earlier soul constitution so that what is learnt about the Catholic Christ in the Church today is completely bound up with a dogmatic content which believes it presents a level of knowledge which mankind had actually reached at the end of the 14th century AD.

[ 10 ] What Anthroposophy wants to developed is regaining the supersensible substance of knowledge; the kind of supersensible knowledge which has died in dogma; Anthroposophy wants to enable the achievement of a new understanding for the Mystery of Golgotha, because the dogmas of the Catholic Church can no longer penetrate into an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. This is extraordinarily important, that the dogmas of the Catholic Church no longer can allow the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha to come through. The ritual of mass lets the souls penetrate to something different, to taking an interest in the symbols of the ritual. It is already so, that the Roman Catholic Church has remained in line with its ironclad consistency even into the 19th Century. Some things appear as quite strange if you examine the dogmas instituted by the Catholic Church before the 19th Century. I would like to give you an example so you can see what a kind of abyss exists, in order for you to reach an insight as to how such an abyss can once again be bridged over.

[ 11 ] Once I had a conversation with a very learned theologian regarding the Conceptio immaculate, the immaculate conception, which was only instituted in the 19th Century. You perhaps know that this doesn't deal with the immaculate reception of Jesus himself, but of the immaculate conception of Mary; that means St Anna conceived Mary in an immaculate conception. This is actually the dogma laid down in the 19th century. The other dogma—that of the immaculate conception of Jesus—had existed already for a long time. As a "singular grace" it can be seen by those who can even see the emergence of dogmas from the imaginative content, even if they can't approve of it at all because its content is deadened by it—but one can see it.

So, in my conversation with this theologian, I said to him that it was impossible to reconcile the idea of the immaculate conception with modern conscious. I said to him, one isn't compelled to lead the modern consciousness over into dogma in relation to the individual case; one is not compelled to apply logic in an individual case because the singular also, according to scholastic opinion, evades follow-up. The moment you assume a series of facts, in other words a backward looking of a series of facts, where you rise up from the immaculate conception of Mary to the immaculate conception of St Anna, it is necessary to continue and then you, out of necessity, must accept an entire generation line of immaculate conceptions.—Now the theologian turned to me and said that is not correct, because then we come back to David—this is how he expressed it—and then the story would be quite disastrous, and that could not be allowed.

You see, with today's consciousness this has a certain stroke of frivolity, but it certainly is something which can be made known, how within the Roman Catholic Church the entire relationship to the truth is something quite different.

[ 12 ] In this depiction of our conversation I wanted to firstly stress the kind of perception of truth we lived in during the middle of the 15th Century. The Catholic clergy was not experiencing the perception of truth like modern consciousness does, but a truth-conception corresponding to an earlier time epoch. They were not aware of the view of truth that reckons with the consequences of truth for the inner life of a human being. Quite a different attitude to the truth existed, and as it had changed from olden times, was not clearly understood. We need to look back at the evolution of humanity which means that the soul constitution essentially has changed. Basically, there is no incorrect expression other than that nature had made no leaps. Nature in fact makes continuous jumps. Take for example a green foliage leaf to the coloured flower petal—that is a jump. In the same way we have leaps in the course of time, apparently quite a sharp advancement from one soul state into another. However, people don't always grow in the same degree but allow old points of view to continue and as a result their souls atrophy, as we are able to notice if we look at the enormous leap which has come about in modern human soul constitutions and which has not been participated in by a large number of people.

[ 13 ] Now we must clearly see that such an inner kind of experience, as can be describe as an historical consciousness, which can be acquired, stands out particularly strongly in a person who, through a certain education in the Church, it can especially be applied, when we think of a case like Luther's. If you want to understand Luther's soul then you must be clear that be comes out of the after effects of Augustinism, and that it is precisely in his time, just a bit after the beginning of the intellectualist age, that he is confronted with one of the most serious soul conflicts imaginable. Why was this so? You must just imagine: Augustine had come to an agreement on the recognition of the Christian-Catholic dogma, but for him this was connected with his living within something which was still alive, and even more alive among the Manicheans with whom he had met. What was still full of life in his time was the observation of original sin, in general the consideration of higher processes taking place in relation to lower earthly processes. People still have trouble today to make such things comprehensible.

[ 14 ] If we position ourselves at the beginning of earth evolution, we can gradually enter into an imagination of the origins of what we today call a human being. There were higher beings who were in a certain way connected with earthly evolution. The Old Testament indicates one such higher being having become the snake, a being who we call Lucifer today. This higher being, so it is described in the Bible, actually initiated the original sin. In the beginning of earthly existence, this being was there and the original sin was actually due to the calculation of man's precursors of his ancestors, who then appeared as the serpent of paradise. What this pre-human being had begun by the seduction in paradise was transferred on to the human beings. During that time, what played into human thoughts, existed there as primal guilt, within which man got trapped and later dragged it along, because he originally had become entangled and then in fact he now transferred it from one generation to the next through the blood.

As a result of this primal sin the Christ appeared on the earth—I am speaking in the consciousness of this time period—in order to gradually heal people from their dying through what Lucifer had done to them. That we outwardly know so little about the constitution of consciousness, is a result of the really innumerable things proclaimed by the Roman Catholic Church, which is based on this ancient tradition. Above all, everything Gnostic was eradicated and also later the reproduction of anything that still had an older soul constitution was made exceedingly difficult. You know the writing of Scotus Eriugena had been lost and only later rediscovered, and for centuries people knew nothing about Scotus Eriugena because all copies of his writing which one could get hold of, had been burned. It is certainly so that it deals with looking again at an event which took place in the supersensible world and into what human beings had become entangled.

[ 15 ] Among the impulses of such observations, I could say something worked behind human events, active through superhuman events of other beings who actually were also involved with human evolution, in order for Augustine's teaching regarding predestination, to develop. Augustine saw the incarnation of people on earth as something much rather, if it could be expressed it would be by saying: The human being is actually the result of the battle of superhuman beings.—This meant individuals had no intrinsic worth; that only happened in the middle of the 15th century. Augustine believed it quite possible to think of human development as beyond their will, accomplished by the destinies of superhuman beings. His teaching could only be alive in him if a part of the human being, not the sinful part, but a part, be destined for demise and another part of the human being destined for bliss, the teaching which is not usually presented in all its meaning, when it is to be experienced. Today this can't be experienced in devotion, which was possible for Augustine. Into this soul constitution something also played that one can call original sin, which is balanced out by the Mystery of Golgotha. People in Luther's time still expressed it in this way, but they lived in another time of a soul constitution as in the time of Augustine. It was quite impossible to find one's way into these ideas with all of one's soul. In this way Luther experienced the illumination through his soul, as an Augustine monk.

[ 16 ] Now I must speak to you about my conviction which is based—even though it is called a conviction—on knowledge. For me it certainly is knowledge. I am not in the position to speak in the same way about chance or coincidences like other people because coincidences also belong to an order of things which is usually ignored. I can't attach it to an actual incident in Luther's life, I can't be indifferent to a lightning strike in a tree beside him, but I can see it, according to my knowledge, only as the effect of a truly supersensible intrusion. You can think about it in any way you like, but if I speak sincerely and honestly, I certainly regard part of Luther's soul constitution as this pointing in, if I may call it so, of God's finger, not out of belief but out of recognition. Luther's state of mind or soul constitution became something quite different under the influence of such a deed; it happened so that certain inner sources were opened. These sources, or better said, the effectiveness of these sources, had already been prepared through the wrestling with misunderstood lore. It could not rise up, it was like a turning point in the soul itself, but it could not consciously show itself. Then it rose up into consciousness and became a turning point for only that which was happening. If I want to express myself roughly, the body has been softened, so to speak, and what had been prepared in Luther for a long time, permeated through a soft body.

Now Luther gradually became aware of all the dangers in which modern man lives. It isn't easy to say in how far this went into Luther's clear consciousness, and it's also not that important. In any case this position of modern man played into Luther's soul on the one hand as a streaming from earlier times, and on the other hand, what man should be since the middle of the 15th century. The entire dangers of modern man flooded Luther's soul. What did this consist of? It consisted of—I'm speaking in a Christian way—man being afflicted with the deeds or the sequences of deeds of superhuman beings in which he had become entangled. Through what had been an entanglement of original sin in the lower human being as inherited traits, man entered into the next epoch in a different manner than he would have if there had been no original sin through the Fall. As a result, that which should appear in humanity as intellect came through in a far more abstract measure than how life used to be in former times, when it was afflicted with something subhuman through original sin. To a certain extent, what man was to experience intellectually became diluted, more abstract, which in earlier life had been more dense, more natural, than it should be for mankind. It was only now that man was basically condemned to fall away from God through his intellectualism. The whole danger of intellectualism which pushes too far to greater abstraction, lived itself out in Luther's soul, and Luther really experienced it with such vehemence as described in his vicious battle at Wartburg Castle.

[ 17 ] We have two opposite poles which can clearly be determined in the newer evolution of mankind. On the one hand is Luther, positioned in the great spiritual battle after the middle of the 15th century—of course a little later—and now as a result, while he wanted to loosen himself from intellectual dangers, first renounces the intellect and seeks justification outside the intellect which can lead him to the divine, as it were, beneath the intellect.

The other pole is Faust. He took on the intellect with all his senses, resulting in his deteriorating into the dangers of the intellect, as he entered into all the individual dangers of the intellect. It is not for nothing that these personalities are a kind of landmark for modern mankind: on the one side Luther and what he connected to, and on the other side Faust, and what he associates with. It was truly no small deed of Goethe when he wanted to reshape Faust in such a way that he would not perish. Lessing already thought about it. If freedom is to be achieved for humanity, the intellect needs to be engaged with, but humanity should not be pushed away from the divine. The Faust fragment of Lessing ends with the words (of the angels to the devil): "You shall not prevail!" which Goethe remodelled. He said to himself there should be a possibility not to be separated from the divine when mankind engages with the intellect—but he needs it for the development of freedom. In this terrible battle Luther stood. He saw how the intellect contained within itself the danger that man also strangulates his soul from the divine, how man succumbs to the death of the soul. That which is devoured by the intellect—in anthroposophy we call it "becoming Ahrimanic"—which totally enters into the intellect, becomes devoured, it is cut off from the divine. This is what Luther felt for modern man.

Historically it was so that on the one hand there was the Catholic Church where people were absolutely not within the intellect, it even wants to save people by preventing them from entering into the intellect, it wanted to preserve them from progress made in the 15th century onwards by conserving such dogmas like the one which claims infallibility, such as the dogma regarding the immaculate conception, as I've mentioned earlier. They couldn't manage consequently in the Roman Catholic sense without the infallibility dogma because they even deny its intellectual meaning, declaring it unfit for development and incapable of understanding the spiritual world. A reinforcement was needed for what people had to believe, indicating the sovereignty of the Papal Command for the Truth. There is nothing more untimely, but basically nothing greater than this determination of the dogma of infallibility, to completely contradict all consciousness of the time and all human desires for freedom. It is the last consequence of the secularization of Catholicism in an iron clad consequence of tremendous genius. One must say if you take, on the one hand, the ironclad consequence of the Roman clerics in their determination of the infallibility dogma, and on the other hand the kind of polemics of a Dollinger, the latter is of course philistine in the face of tremendous ingenuity—you could even call it devilish—something is carried out, because it was once the consequence to that which Rome has come to since the secularization of Christianity by Constantine.

[ 18 ] So it happened that in the bosom of the Roman Catholics, two souls could live next to one another. On the one hand was the submission to the rigid dogma, which no human being could touch save the infallible Pope—because the Council had lost its power since the determination of the infallibility dogma—and on the other hand the unhindered care of outer science as an external manipulation to which one is devoted and partake off, but don't attribute any meaning to the actual content of religious doctrine. Just consider from a modern consciousness, what the justification of the Roman Catholic doctrine looks like. I suggest you read for instance such writing as "The Principle of Catholicism and Science" by Hertling, the previous German Imperial Chancellor.

Firstly, you'll discover that it was a world historic mistake for this man to have become the Imperial Chancellor but on the other hand you will learn something about the unusual thoughts modern people had and how these two souls could justifiably live in the same bosom. It is also remarkable that this writing on the principle of Catholicism appears in French. It is therefore extraordinarily interesting that the writer of this work, whose name doesn't come to my mind at the moment, has a perpetually logical conscience and therefore he has to make a differentiation between the Roman Catholic teaching material and what constitutes the content of outer science. That is why he proposes two concepts next to each other, the idea of truth and the idea of science, which he always sees as two disparate ideas. He says something can very well be scientific, but truth is something else; what is true does not need to be scientific. In some or other way he comes to the conclusion that science doesn't have anything to do with what one acknowledges directly as containing truth. So on the one hand things worthy of contemplation are mentioned, but are already beaten, on the other hand the most grotesque somersaults are being beaten in order for these two souls to become reconciled with one another.

[ 19 ] So, on the one hand we have the continuation of symbolism, the symbolism that led to the enormous upswing of art in the Renaissance period in central Europe. Art Historians need only dig deep enough to discover that without the Catholic symbolism the entire artistic development of Giotto, Cimabue, from Leonardo to Rafael and Michelangelo would have been impossible, because the artistic development is certainly a propagation of Christian artistic subjects and belongs so strongly in Christianity that people can't, for example, understand why the Sistine Madonna looks like she does.

Look at the Sistine Madonna, she is magnificent. As far as one can see there are images of clouds which transform purely into angelic heads, and how the Madonna herself, with the Child, condenses out of the angles who reside in the clouds. It is as if the angelic forms have condensed out of the cloud images and have descended down to the earth, yet everything is wonderfully lifted into the spirit. Then the two curtains (he sketches on the blackboard) and below that a coquettish female figure and a terrible priestly figure, all things which absolutely do not belong to it. Why is this so? It is simply from the basis of Raphael having initially intended with this image, to give a soul experience with the picture of Mary on a certain feast day of Mary—now this is on the Feast of Corpus Christi—where people walk around in a procession with a picture of the virgin Mary that is carried under a canopy and comes to the altars where people kneel down. This is why there are these curtains (points to sketch on blackboard) with the kneeling female and male forms in a chapel, in front of the picture of Mary. Well, that is the kind of elementary school way of looking at what Raphael painted. What is actually meant here stands right in the Roman Catholic cult—absolutely right inside it.

[ 20 ] Basically, everything contained in this Roman Catholic ritual is what Luther saw in Rome. Isn't it tremendously symbolic, historically symbolic, historically symptomatic, that Luther saw only corruption in Rome, not being actually touched deeper by what flowed out into depictions in art, how he was not deepened inwardly by art, but that he only saw moral corruption? Here we see how the soul in fact was positioned through his particular development in the historical becoming of mankind, he was like a soul at war, thrown this way and that, searching for a way out. Despite all this, like the doom of Lutherism in particular, comes the big problem: How do we as human beings absorb intellectualism, so that we are not doomed but that we overcome the fear of becoming doomed, because it is necessary for human freedom to integrate us?

Modern intellectualism presses strongly into our human consciousness. The evangelical church reckoned with it for centuries, the Catholic Church kept itself completely distanced from it. The evangelical church gradually withdrew back on to faith because with intellectualism, as it developed in the world, it didn't agree, so it increasingly withdrew from knowledge by depending on belief; it now rests within a faith in which the doctrine content is to be sought. The Catholic Church had doctrine content, but it was allowed to dry up. From the intellectual point of view the way to individuals can't be found, who see themselves isolated from those superhuman forces which could still be felt as being connected to Augustinism.

Basically we in humanity stand right in this battle today, only, if I could put it that way, we have come to the cutting edge, so that we simply stand there and say: We need a pure concept of faith so that we have a religion opposite intellectualism, because we can't take up the old Catholic doctrine, for it has dried out.—With this dried out dogmatic content the evangelical church rejected the ritual in the most varied forms. This is what started with Luther, putting us today on the knife edge; we must become aware of the seriousness of this position. It is a struggle for the power of faith in the soul, who wants to save the faith at the cost of not having the existing doctrine content at all. However, without content we can't learn, and it appears impossible to simply rediscover a bridge to what Catholicism has secularised.

[ 21 ] Now my dear friends, I come to the question of how we should proceed. It is like this: you see, with all this there was also an evangelical consciousness introduced in the evolution of humanity, in the individual human development, because the earlier evangelical consciousness to a certain degree entangled man in the supernatural, superhuman processes and acts of superhuman beings. With Augustus it was expressed somewhat differently, that the progress of humanity was permeated with the superhuman element ... (gap in notes). People saw the superhuman battle raging as something like Christ fighting against the enemy who wants to lead him into the temptation of appearing super human; that the one who drew near to the Christ was one to whom original guilt was traced back to, and it is shown how Christ turns against the original sin. This understanding has now come to an end. Earlier, this understanding had been adhered to, for what was supersensible-divine permeated earthly matter, and there already has been an intention present for specialization to make a dividing border between the supernatural, and that part of man entangled in sensuality.

This dividing border is done through consecration. Consecration is actually the separation of the human being, or that part of the human being, from being entangled in the earthly. The ordination of the priesthood is only one part because there are also implements and so on; everything possible is consecrated. Once during a war, the Pope consecrated the bullets but that is only due to the secularization of Catholicism.

[ 22 ] Do you see that consecration is really the dividing boundary between two worlds, and there is certainly the awareness in Catholicism—even if it is not present in individual priests—that a consecrated priest is active in another world when he does something, that he is also speaking from another world when he speaks of the Gospels, even though all his ordinary actions are in the earthly world. This differentiation could not be understood since the 15th century. In historic Catholicism, throughout, was this strong differentiation where, in circles of ordained priests, it was consciously stressed. Only now and then some bishop, by mistake, will bring something non-Catholic into Catholicism, namely modern consciousness, and that leads to absurdities. There was for example a pastoral letter written which claimed that the priest in the fulfilment of the sacrament at the altar would be more powerful than Christ Jesus, because he forces Christ Jesus to be present in the sacrament; Christ Jesus has to be present when the priests demands it; the result is that the priest is now more powerful than Christ.—This is the content of a pastoral letter of not long ago. You can come across such things when out of modern consciousness something is understood which should be understood in quite a different mood, namely that which lies beyond the earthly sphere and separated from it by the consecration.

[ 23 ] The principle of consecration comes from far, far back. It already existed in the oldest oriental religions and it was particularly developed on (the Greek island of) Samothrace. Catholicism took it over from ancient times but for the newer consciousness it was totally lost.

Tomorrow I will try to add further elements to it, so that you can come to a full understanding of the principle of consecration, and also priest ordination, without which the apostolic succession won't be comprehensible