The Rudolf Steiner Archive

At the times when the great festivals of the year approach our souls, it is good ever and again to bring before our inner eye, out of spiritual cosmic connections, the meaning of the festival year. And I should like to do this by setting before you how, under the influence of spiritual insights and over long ages, the festival year has gradually evolved out of the whole constitution of the Earth. If we look at the Earth and its events from such an aspect, we must only make clear that we cannot conceive the Earth as a mere conglomeration of minerals and rocks, as is done by modern mineralogy and geology, but we must rather regard it as a living, ensouled organism, which brings forth the plants, the animals and the physical being of man out of its own inner forces. Then what I shall now set forth will be in agreement.

You know that the Earth, with all the beings belonging to it—consider only the plant covering of the Earth—completely changes its aspect in the course of the year, changes everything with which it looks out into cosmic space as with its physiognomy, so to speak. After a year the Earth has always arrived again at about the same point, as to its appearance, at which it stood a year before. You need only to think how almost everything related to weather conditions, to the budding of plants, to the appearance of animal creatures—how with regard to all this the Earth has arrived again in this March, 1923, at about the same point of development at which it stood in March of the year 1922.

Today we intend to consider this cycle of the Earth as a kind of mighty breathing which the Earth carries out in relation to the surrounding cosmos. We can consider still other processes which take place on the Earth and around it as breathing processes of a sort. We can even speak of a daily breathing of the Earth. But today we want to place before our inner eye the yearly cycle, in the large, as a mighty breathing process of the Earth, in which of course it is not air that is breathed in and out, but rather those forces which are at work for example in vegetation, those forces which push the plants out of the Earth in spring, and which withdraw again into the Earth in fall, letting the green plants fade and finally paralyzing plant growth.

To repeat, it is not a breathing of air of which we speak, but the in-and-out-breathing of forces, of which we can get a partial idea if we notice the plant-growth during the course of the year. We intend today to bring this annual breathing process of the Earth before our souls.

Let us first look at the Earth at the time of the winter solstice, in the last third of December, according to our present reckoning. At this time we may compare the Earth's breathing with the lung-breathing of a man when he has inhaled a breath of air and is working on it in himself, that is, when he is holding his breath within him. In the same way, the Earth has within it those forces which I spoke of as being inhaled and exhaled. At the end of December it is holding these forces. And what is happening then with the Earth I can sketch for you schematically in the following way:

Let us think of this (red) as representing the Earth. We can of course only consider one part of the Earth in connection with this breathing. We shall consider that part in which we ourselves dwell; the conditions are of course reversed on the opposite side of the Earth. We must picture (vorstellen) the breathing of the Earth in such a way that in one region there is out-breathing, and in the opposite region in-breathing; but this we need not consider today.

Let us picture in our minds the season of December. Let us imagine what I am drawing here in yellow to be the held breath in our region. At the end of December the Earth has fully in-breathed and is holding in herself the forces of which I just spoke. She has entirely sucked in her soul element, for the forces of which I have spoken are the soul element of the Earth. She has drawn it completely in, just as a man who has inhaled holds the air entirely in himself.

This is the time at which with good reason the birth of Jesus has been set, because Jesus is thus born out of an Earth force which contains the entire soul element of the Earth within it. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the initiates who were still worthy of the ancient initiation connected a deep meaning with the view which placed the birth of Jesus just at this point of the earthly in-breathing and holding of the breath.

These initiates said something like the following: “In the ancient days, when our places of initiation stood within the Chaldean and Egyptian cultures, when a wish arose to know what that Being who represents the lofty Sun-Being had to say to earthly humanity, an idea of his message was formed, not by looking at the sunlight directly in all its spirituality, but rather by observing the way in which the sunlight was rayed back from the Moon.” And when the gaze was turned toward the Moon, they saw—with the help of clairvoyant vision—along with the flooding moonlight the manifestation of the Spirit of the Universe. And the meaning of this manifestation was realized in a more external way when they regarded the constellation of the Moon in relation to the planets and fixed stars.

In this way the position of the stars, especially in relation to the down-streaming moonlight, was observed during the night hours in the Chaldean, and still more in the Egyptian mysteries. Just as a man now reads the meaning of letters on a sheet of paper, in those times meaning was read in the relation of Aries, or of Taurus, of Venus, or of the Sun itself, to the streaming moonlight. From the way in which the constellations and the stars stood in relation to one another, especially from the way they were oriented with the moonlight, there was read what the heavens had to say to the Earth. All this was put into words. And according to the meaning of what was thus put into words, the ancient initiates sought what that Being Who was later called the Christ had to say to earthly man. They sought to interpret what was conveyed by the stars in their relation to the Moon and apply it to the earthly life.

But now as the Mystery of Golgotha drew near, the whole nature of the Mysteries passed through what I might call a great soul-spiritual metamorphosis. Then the oldest of the initiates said to their pupils: “A time is at hand when the stellar constellations must no longer be related to the flooding moonlight. The universe will speak differently to earthly man in the future. The light of the Sun must be observed directly. The spiritual gaze of the knower must be turned away from the revelations of the Moon and toward the revelations of the Sun.”

The teachings given in the Mysteries made a profound impression upon those men who at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha still ranked as initiates of the old order. And it was from this point of view that these initiates formed their judgment of the Mystery of Golgotha. But at the same time they said, “Some Earth event must enter in, which can bring about this transition from a lunar to a solar orientation.”—It was in this way that the cosmic significance of the birth of Jesus dawned on them.

They saw the birth of Jesus as something which gave the impulse out of the very Earth itself, no longer to regard the Moon as the regent, so to speak, of celestial phenomena, but rather the Sun itself.—“The event that brings this about,” so they said to themselves, “must be of an extraordinary kind.” And the nature of this extraordinary event yielded its secret to them through the following: They began to understand the inner meaning of the Earth occurrence that took place in the last third of December, the occurrence which we now call Christmas. They said to themselves: “Everything must now be related to the Sun.”—But the Sun can exert its power on the Earth only when the Earth has exhaled its forces. At Christmas time it has breathed them in; its breath is being held. If Jesus is born at this time, He is born at a time when the Earth is in a certain way not speaking with the heavens, a time when the Earth with its being has entirely withdrawn into itself. Jesus is born, then, at a time when the Earth is rolling along through cosmic space quite alone, when it is not sending out its breath to be welled and woven through by the force of the Sun, by the light of the Sun. At this time the Earth has not offered its soul-being to the cosmos; it has withdrawn its soul being into itself, has sucked it in. Jesus is born on the Earth at a time when the Earth is alone with itself, is isolated as it were from the cosmos.

Try to feel for yourselves the cosmic perceiving-feeling (Empfinden) which lies at the basis of such a way of calculating!

Now let us follow the Earth further in its yearly course. Let us follow it up to the time in which we are just now, about the time of the spring equinox, the end of March. Then we shall have to picture the situation in this way:

The Earth (red) has just breathed out; the soul is still half within the Earth, but the Earth has breathed it out; the streaming soul-forces are pouring out into the cosmos. Whereas since December, the force of the Christ Impulse has been intimately bound up with the Earth, with the soul-element of the Earth, we find that now this Christ Impulse, together with the outward-streaming soul element, is beginning to radiate around the Earth (arrows). This which here as Christ-permeated Earth-soul is flowing out into spiritual cosmic space, must be met now by the force of the sunlight itself. And the mental picture arises: While in December the Christ withdrew the Earth-soul element into the interior of the Earth, in order to be insulated from cosmic influences, now with the out-breathing of the Earth, He begins to let His forces breathe out, to extend them to receive the forces of the Sun (das Sonnenhafte) which radiate toward Him. And our schematic drawing will be correct if we represent the Sun force (yellow) as uniting with the Christ force radiating from the Earth. The Christ begins to work together with the Sun forces at Easter time; hence Easter falls at the time of the out-breathing of the Earth. But what happens then must not be related to the light flowing back from the Moon; it must be related to the Sun.

This is the origin of fixing the time of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox. And anyone who is sensitive to such things would have to say to himself with regard to the Easter time: “If I have united myself with the Christ force, my soul also streams out into cosmic spaces along with the out-breathing force of the Earth-soul, and receives the Sun force, which the Christ now brings to human souls from the Earth, whereas before the Mystery of Golgotha He brought it to them from the cosmos.”

But here something else enters in. When festivals were established in those times in which whatever was important on Earth was referred to the flooding moonlight, it was done purely in accordance with what could be observed in space: how the Moon stood in relation to the stars. The intent of the Logos, which had been written into space by Him, was thus deciphered in order to determine the festivals. But if you consider the fixing of the Easter festival as we have it now, you will see that it has been established according to space only up to a certain point, that point at which we speak of the full moon after the beginning of spring. Thus far everything is spatial, but we depart from space when we refer to the Sunday after the spring full moon. This Sunday is determined, not spatially, but according to how it stands in the cycle of the year, how it stands in the cycle of the weekdays, where following Saturday come Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and again Saturday, always in periodical succession. We step out of space here, when we cross over from the spatial setting of the Moon constellation to the purely temporal course in the yearly cycle of Sundays.

Thus it was possible still in the old mysteries to perceive in feeling that the fixing of the festivals had formerly been related to cosmic space but that with the Mystery of Golgotha there was a progression out of cosmic space into time, which itself was no longer related to cosmic space. What related to the spirit was as it were torn away from the purely spatial. This was a powerful “jolt” of mankind toward the spirit.

If we carry further our view of the Earth's breathing process during the course of the year, we find the Earth in yet a third condition in June. At this place which we are observing, the Earth has completely exhaled. The entire soul-element of the Earth has been poured forth into cosmic space; it is yielded up to cosmic space and is saturating itself with the forces of the Sun and the stars. The Christ, Who is joined with this soul-element of the Earth, now unites His force also with the forces of the stars and the Sun, surging there in the Earth-soul that is given over to the cosmic All. It is St. John's Day—Mid-summer. The Earth has fully out-breathed. In her outer physiognomy, with which she looks out into the universe, she reveals not her own inherent force, as she did at the time of the winter solstice; instead, the Earth reveals on her surface the reflected forces of the stars, of the Sun, of all that is in the cosmos outside her.

The old initiates, particularly those in the northern regions of Europe, felt most livingly the inner meaning and spirit of this time that is our June. At this time they felt their own souls, along with the Earth soul, given over to the cosmic expanses. They felt themselves to be living, not within the earthly realm, but rather in the cosmic distances. Indeed they said the following to themselves: “We live with our soul in the cosmic expanses. We live with the Sun, we live with the stars. And when we direct our gaze back upon the Earth, which has filled herself with springing and sprouting plants, which has brought forth animals of all kinds, then we see in the springing and sprouting plants, in the gleaming, unfolding colors of the flowers; we see in the insects flitting and creeping hither and yon, in the birds with their multicolored feathers traversing the air; we see gleam back from the Earth as though mirrored, what we take up into our souls just when we abandon the Earth and unite ourselves with the out-flowing breath of the Earth in order to live with the cosmos rather than with the Earth. What appears in world space springing and sprouting from the Earth in thousandfold colors—this is of the same nature. Only it is a reflection, a raying-back force, whereas we bear in our human souls the original force itself.”

This was the feeling of those men who were inspired out of the Mystery places, those men who especially understood the festival of the summer solstice; and so we see the St. John's festival placed at the time of the Earth's great out-breathing into the cosmos.

If we follow this breathing-process still further we come finally to the stage that makes its entry at the end of September. The out-breathed forces begin their return movement; the Earth begins once more to inhale. The soul of the Earth which was poured out into the cosmos now draws back into the interior of the Earth again. Human souls perceive this in-breathing of the Earth-soul element, either in their subconscious or in their clairvoyant impressions, as processes of their own souls. Those men who were inspired by initiation knowledge of these things could say to themselves at the end of September: “What the cosmos has given us and what has united itself with our soul force through the Christ Impulse—this we now allow to flow back into the earthly realm, into that earthly sphere which throughout the summer has served only as a reflection, as a kind of mirror in relation to the extraterrestrial cosmos.”

But a mirror has the property of not permitting anything that is in front of it to pass through it. Because the Earth is a mirror of the cosmos in the summer, it is also opaque in its inner nature, impermeable by cosmic influences and therefore, during the summer time, impermeable by the Christ Impulse. (See drawing). At this time the Christ Impulse has to live in the exhaled breath. The Ahrimanic forces, however, establish themselves firmly in this Earth which has become impervious to the Christ Impulse. And when the human being returns once more with the forces which he has taken up into his own soul through the Earth's out-breathing—including the forces of the Christ—he plunges into an Earth which has been ahrimanized.

However, it is so, that in the present cycle of Earth evolution—since the last third of the nineteenth century—from spiritual heights there comes to the aid of the descending human soul the force of Michael, who, while the Earth's breath is flowing back into the Earth itself, contends with the Dragon, Ahriman.

This was already foreseen prophetically by those in the ancient Mysteries who understood the course of the year spiritually. They knew that for their time the Mystery had not yet approached which would reveal Michael coming to the help of descending human souls. But they knew that when the souls should have been reborn again and again, this Michael force would enter, would come to the aid of earthly human souls. This was the meaning they saw in the cycle of the year.

Hence it is out of ancient wisdom that you will find written in the calendar on September 29, a few days after the fall equinox—Michael's Day, Michaelmas. And Michaelmas is for simple country people an exceedingly important time. But because of its position in the cycle of the year, Michaelmas is an important time also for those who want to grasp the whole significance of our present earth epoch. If we want to take our place in the present time with the right consciousness, we need to understand that in the last third of the nineteenth century the Michael force took up the struggle with the Dragon, with the Ahrimanic powers, in just the way necessitated by our time. And we must insert ourselves into this intention of earthly and human evolution by taking part in the right way with our own consciousness in this cosmic-spiritual battle.¹

We may say that up until now Michaelmas has been a festival for peasants—you know the sense in which I use the word—a festival for simple folk. But once the significance of the yearly breathing process that takes place between the Earth and the cosmos is recognized, Michaelmas will be more and more called upon to form a very real supplement to Easter. For mankind, who will understand earthly life again also in a spiritual sense, will eventually have to think in this way.

While the summer out-breathing occurred, the Earth was ahrimanized. Woe if Jesus had been born into this ahrimanized Earth! Before the cycle is completed again and December approaches, which brings about the birth of the Christ Impulse in the ensouled Earth, the Earth must be purified by spiritual forces, from the Dragon, from the Ahrimanic forces. And the purifying force of Michael, which subdues the evil Ahrimanic forces, must unite itself, from September into December, with the in-flowing earth breath, so that the Christmas festival may approach in the right way, and the birth of the Christ Impulse take place in the right way, so that it will then mature up until the beginning of the out-breathing at Easter time.

We can therefore say: “At Christmas time the Earth has drawn its soul-element into itself, the Earth has taken its soul-being into itself in the great yearly respiration. In this Earth-soul element which has been drawn into the Earth, the Christ Impulse is born in the inwardness of the Earth. Toward spring it flows out into the cosmos with the out-breathing of the Earth. It views the star world and enters into reciprocal action with it, but in such a way that its relation to the stars is no longer spatial, but temporal, so that the temporal is withdrawn from the spatial.”

Easter is on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. Within the full out-going breath man rises up with his soul-being into the cosmic world, permeates and saturates himself with the quality of the stars, takes in the breath of the cosmos with his earthly breath, thus permeating himself with the Easter spirit, and by St. John's Day he is most strongly imbued with that with which he began to permeate himself at Easter. He must then return to the Earth, with the Earth soul and his own soul-being, but he depends upon Michael's standing by him, so that he may penetrate the earthly world in the right way after the Ahrimanic element has been overcome through the Michael forces.

And ever more and more, with the strength of the indrawn breath, does the soul-element of the Earth retire into the Earth itself, up to Christmas time. And today we celebrate Christmas time in the right way if we say to ourselves: “Michael has purified the Earth, so that the birth of the Christ Impulse can occur at Christmas time in the right way.”

Then the out-flowing into the cosmos begins again. In this outflowing Christ takes Michael with Him, in order that Michael may again gather to him out of the cosmos those forces which he has used up in his struggle with the earthly Ahrimanic forces. At Easter time Michael begins again to immerse himself in the cosmic world, and is most strongly interwoven with the cosmos at St. John's time.

And a man in the present who comprehends in the right sense what unites him as man with the earthly, says to himself: “The age is beginning for us in which we see the Christ Impulse aright when we know that it is accompanied by the force of Michael in the course of the year; when we see the Christ flowing down into the earthly and rising up into the cosmos, accompanied by Michael, who at one time is contending within the earthly, at another gathering strength for the fight in the cosmic spaces.” (See lemniscate)

In the Easter thought we have an image of utmost grandeur which has been implanted into earth existence in order to bring enlightenment; namely, the image of Christ arising out of the grave in victory over Death. We can grasp this Easter thought in the right way in our time only if we understand that we must add to it today the Being of Michael, at the right hand of Christ Jesus. For while the force of the Earth's breath is becoming woven through with the force of Christ during the breathing process of the Earth in the course of the year's cycle, Michael accompanies Christ.

If we as Earth men would understand how to make the Christ thought alive in ourselves at each of the four great festivals of the year, including Easter, as indeed we must do, we need to be able to place this thought in the right way and in full consciousness into the present time. The hope that was focused on the coming of the Michael force in the service of the Christ force animated those who understand the Christ Impulse in the right way up to our time.

The obligation arises for us, especially in the modern age, to permeate ourselves with the Christ Impulse in the sense of the Michael thought. We do this in the right way when we know how to link the Resurrection thought with the active Michael thought which has been implanted into human evolution, in the way I have often explained.

• 1. This is the first occasion on which Rudolf Steiner spoke in a broader sense of the importance of celebrating Michaelmas today. His first allusion to the subject at all had been in a brief reference three months earlier. (The Spiritual Communion of Mankind, December 24, 1922)

My dear Friends,

I will begin by placing before you what we may call the “Ur-phenomenon”—primary phenomenon—of the Theory of Colour. By and by, you will find it confirmed and reinforced in the phenomena you can observe through the whole range of so-called optics or Theory of Colour. Of course the phenomena get complicated; the simple Ur-phenomenon is not always easy to recognize at once. But if you take the trouble you will find it everywhere. The simple phenomenon—expressed in Goethe's way, to begin with—is as follows: When I look through darkness at something lighter, the light object will appear modified by the darkness in the direction of the light colours, i.e. in the direction of the red and yellowish tones. If for example I look at anything luminous and, as we should call it, white—at any whitish-shining light through a thick enough plate which is in some way dim or cloudy, then what would seem to me more or less white if I were looking at directly, will appear yellowish or yellow-red (Figure IVa).

This is the one pole. Conversely, if you have here a simple black surface and look at it directly, you will see it black, but if you interpose a trough of water through which you send a stream of light so that the liquid is illumined, you will be looking at the dark through something light. Blue or violet (bluish-red) tones of colour will appear (Figure IVb). The other pole is thus revealed. This therefore is the Ur-phenomenon: Light through dark—yellow; dark through light—blue.

This simple phenomenon can be seen on every hand if we once accustom ourselves to think more realistically and not so abstractly as in modern science. Please now recall from this point of view the experiment which we have done. We sent a cylinder of light through a prism and so obtained a real scale of colours, from violet to red; we caught it on a screen. I made a drawing of the phenomenon (see Figure IIc and Figure IVc). You will remember; if this is the prism and this the cylinder of light, the light in some way goes through the prism and is diverted upward. Moreover, as we said before, it is not only diverted. It would be simply diverted if a transparent body with parallel faces were interposed. But we are putting a prism into the path of the light—that is, a body with convergent faces. In passing through the prism, the light gets darkened. The moment we send the light through the prism we therefore have to do with two things: first the simple light as it streams on, and then the dimness interposed in the path of the light. Moreover this dimness, as we said, puts itself into the path of the light in such a way that while the light is mainly diverted upward, the dimming that arises, raying upward as it does, shines also in the same direction into which the light itself is diverted. That is to say, darkness rays into the diverted light. Darkness is living, as it were, in the diverted light, and by this means the bluish and violet shades are here produced. But the darkness rays downward too, so, while the cylinder of light is diverted upward, the darkness here rays downward and works contrary to the diverted light but is no match for it. Here therefore we may say: the original bright light, diverted as it is, overwhelms and outdoes the darkness. We get the yellowish or yellow-red colours.

If we now take a sufficiently thin cylinder of light, we can also look in the direction of it through the prism. Instead of looking from outside on to a screen and seeing the picture projected there, we put our eye in the place of this picture, and, looking through the prism, we then see the aperture, through which the cylinder of light is produced, displaced (Figure IVc). Once again therefore adhering strictly to the facts, we have the following phenomenon: Looking along here, I see what would be coming directly towards me if the prism were not there, displaced in a downward direction by the prism. At the same time I see it coloured.

What then do you see in this case? Watch what you see, state it simply and then connect it with the fundamental fact we have just now been ascertaining. Then, what you actually see will emerge in all detail. Only you must hold to what is really seen. For if you are looking thus into the bright cylinder of light—which, once again, is coming now towards you—you see something light, namely the cylinder of light itself, but you are seeing it through dark. (That there is something darkened here, is clearly proved by the fact that blue arises in this region). Through something darkened—through the blue colour, in effect—you look at something light, namely at the cylinder-of-light coming towards you. Through what is dark you look at what is light; here therefore you should be seeing yellow or yellowish-red—in a word, yellow and red,—as in fact you do. Likewise the red colour below is proof that here is a region irradiated with light. For as I said just now, the light here over-whelms the dark. Thus as you look in this direction, however bright the cylinder of light itself may be, you still see it through an irradiation of light, in relation to which it is dark. Below, therefore, you are looking at dark through light and you will see blue or bluish-red. You need but express the primal phenomenon,—it tells you what you actually see. Your eye is here encountered by what you would be seeing in the other instance. Here for example is the blue and you are looking through it; therefore the light appears reddish. At the bottom edge you have a region that is lighted up. However light the cylinder of light may be, you see it through a space that is lit up. Thus you are seeing something darker through an illumined space and so you see it blue. It is the polarity that matters.

For the phenomenon we studied first—that on the screen—you may use the name “objective” colours if you wish to speak in learned terms. This other one—the one you see in looking through the prism—will then be called the “subjective” spectrum. The “subjective” spectrum appears as an inversion of the “objective”.

Concerning all these phenomena there has been much intellectual speculation, my dear Friends, in modern time. The phenomena have not merely been observed and stated purely as phenomena, as we have been endeavouring to do. There has been ever so much speculation about them; indeed, beginning with the famous Newton, Science has gone to the utter-most extremes in speculation. Newton, having first seen and been impressed by this colour-spectrum, began to speculate as to the nature of light. Here is the prism, said Newton; we let the white light in. The colours are already there in the white light; the prism conjures them forth and now they line up in formation. I have then dismembered the white light into its constituents. Newton now imagined that to every colour corresponds a kind of substance, so that seven colours altogether are contained as specific substances in the light. Passing the light through the prism is to Newton like a kind of chemical analysis, whereby the light is separated into seven distinct substances. He even tried to imagine which of the substances emit relatively larger corpuscles—tiny spheres or pellets—and which smaller. According to this conception the Sun sends us its light, we let it into the room through a circular opening and it goes through in a cylinder of light. This light however consists of ever so many corpuscles—tiny little bodies. Striking the surface of the prism they are diverted from their original course. Eventually they bombard the screen. There then these tiny cannon-balls impinge. The smaller ones fly farther up, the larger ones remain farther down. The smallest are the violet, the largest are the red. So then the large are separated from the small.

This idea that there is a substance or that there are a number of substances flying through space was seriously shaken before long by other physicists—Huyghens, Young and others,—until at last the physicists said to themselves: The theory of little corpuscular cannon-balls starting from somewhere, projected through a refracting medium or not as the case may be, arriving at the screen and there producing a picture, or again finding their way into the eye and giving rise in us to the phenomenon of red, etc.,—this will not do after all. They were eventually driven to this conclusion by an experiment of Fresnel's, towards which some preliminary work had however been done before, by the Jesuit Grimaldi among others.

Fresnel's experiment shook the corpuscular theory very considerably. His experiments are indeed most interesting, and we must try to get a clear idea of what is really happening when experiments are set up in the way he did. I beg you now, pay very careful attention to the pure facts; we want to study such a phenomenon quite exactly. Suppose I have two mirrors and a source of light—a flame for instance, shedding its light from here (Figure IVd). If I then put up a screen—say, here—I shall get pictures by means of the one mirror and also pictures by means of the other mirror. Such is the distribution you are to assume; I draw it in cross-section. Here are two looking-glasses—plane mirrors, set at a very small angle to one another,—here is a source of light, I will call it L, and here a screen. The light is reflected and falls on to the screen; so then I can illumine the screen with the reflected light. For if I let the light strike here, with the help of this mirror I can illumine this part of the screen, making it lighter here than in the surrounding region. Now I have here a second mirror, by which the light is reflected a little differently. Part of the cone of light, as reflected from here below (from the second mirror) on to the screen, still falls into the upper part. The inclination of the two mirrors is such that the screen is lighted up both by reflection from the upper mirror and by reflection from the lower. It will then be as though the screen were being illumined from two different places. Now suppose a physicist, witnessing this experiment, were thinking in Newton's way. He would argue: There is the source of light. It bombards the first mirror, hurling its little cannon-balls in this direction. After recoiling from the mirror they reach the screen and light it up. Meanwhile, the others are recoiling from the lower mirror, for many of them go in that direction also. It will be very much lighter on the screen when there are two mirrors than when there is only one. Therefore if I remove the second mirror the screen will surely be less illumined by reflected light than when the two mirrors are there. So would our physicist argue, although admittedly one rather devastating thought might occur to him, for surely while these little bodies are going on their way after reflection, the others are on their downward journey (see the figure). Why then the latter should not hit the former and drive them from their course, is difficult to see. Nay, altogether, in the textbooks you will find the prettiest accounts of what is happening according to the wave-theory, but while these things are calculated very neatly, one cannot but reflect that no one ever figures out, when one wave rushes criss-cross through the other, how can this simply pass unnoticed?

Now let us try to grasp what happens in reality in this experiment. Suppose that this is the one stream of light. It is thrown by reflection across here, but now the other stream of light arrives here and encounters it,—the phenomenon is undeniable. The two disturb each other. The one wants to rush on; the other gets in the way and, in consequence, extinguishes the light coming from the other side. In rushing through it extinguishes the light. Here therefore on the screen we do not get a lighting-up but in reality darkness is reflected across here. So we here get an element of darkness (Figure IVe). But now all this is not at rest,—it is in constant movement. What has here been disturbed, goes on. Here, so to speak, a hole has arisen in the light. The light rushed through; a hole was made, appearing dark. And as an outcome of this “hole”, the next body-of-light will go through all the more easily and alongside the darkness you will have a patch of light so much the lighter. The next thing to happen, one step further on, is that once more a little cylinder of light from above impinges on a light place, again extinguishes the latter, and so evokes another element of darkness. And as the darkness in its turn has thus moved on another step, here once again the light is able to get through more easily. We get the pattern of a lattice, moving on from step to step. Turn by turn, the light from above can get through and extinguishes the other, producing darkness, once again, and this moves on from step to step. Here then we must obtain an alternation of light and dark, because the upper light goes through the lower and in so doing makes a lattice work.

This is what I was asking you most thoroughly to think of; you should be able to follow in your thought, how such a lattice arises. You will have alternating patches of light and dark, inasmuch as light here rushes into light. When one light rushes into another the light is cancelled—turned to darkness. The fact that such a lattice arises is to be explained by the particular arrangement we have made with these two mirrors. The velocity of light—nay, altogether what arises here by way of differences in velocity of light,—is not of great significance. What I am trying to make clear is what here arises within the light itself by means of this apparatus, so that a lattice-work is reflected—light, dark, light, dark, and so on.

Now yonder physicist—Fresnel himself, in fact—argued as follows: If light is a streaming of tiny corpuscular bodies, it goes without saying that the more bodies are being hurled in a particular direction, the lighter it must grow there,—or else one would have to assume that the one corpuscle eats up the other! The simple theory of corpuscular emanation will not explain this phenomenon of alternating light and dark. We have just seen how it is really to be explained. But it did not occur to the physicists to take the pure phenomenon as such, which is what one should do. Instead, and by analogy with certain other phenomena, they set to work to explain it in a materialistic way. Bombarding little balls of matter would no longer do. Therefore they said: Let us assume, not that the light is in itself a stream of fine substances, but that it is a movement in a very fine substantial medium—the “ether”. It is a movement in the ether. And, to begin with, they imagined that light is propagated through the ether in the same way as sound is through air (Euler for instance thought of it thus). If I call forth a sound, the sound is propagated through the air in such a way that if this is the place where the sound is evoked, the air in the immediate neighbourhood is, to begin with, compressed. Compressed air arises here. Now the compressed air presses in its turn on the adjoining air. It expands, momentarily producing in this neighbourhood a layer of attenuated air. Through these successions of compression and expansion, known as waves, we imagine sound to spread. To begin with, they assumed that waves of this kind are also kindled in the ether. However, there were phenomena at variance with this idea; so then they said to themselves: Light is indeed an undulatory movement, but the waves are of a different kind from those of sound. In sound there is compression here, then comes attenuation, and all this moves on. Such waves are “longitudinal”. For light, this notion will not do. In light, the particles of ether must be moving at right angles to the direction in which the light is being propagated. When, therefore, what we call a “ray of light” is rushing through the air—with a velocity, you will recall, of 300,000 kilometres a second—the tiny particles will always be vibrating at right angles to the direction in which the light is rushing. When this vibration gets into our eye, we perceive it.

Apply this to Fresnel's experiment: we get the following idea. The movement of the light is, once again, a vibration at right angles to the direction in which the light is propagated. This ray, going towards the lower one of the two mirrors, is vibrating, say, in this way and impinges here. As I said before, the fact that wave-movements in many directions will be going criss-cross through each other, is disregarded. According to the physicists who think along these lines, they will in no way disturb each other. Here however, at the screen in this experiment, they do; or again, they reinforce each other. In effect, what will happen here? When the train of waves arrives here, it may well be that the one infinitesimal particle with its perpendicular vibrations happens to be vibrating downward at the very moment when the other is vibrating upward. Then they will cancel each other out and darkness will arise at this place. Or if the two are vibrating upward at the same moment, light will arise. Thus they explain, by the vibrations of infinitesimal particles, what we were explaining just now by the light itself. I was saying that we here get alternations of light patches and dark. The so-called wave-theory of light explains them on the assumption that light is a wave-movement in the other [ether?]. If the infinitesimal particles are vibrating so as to reinforce each other, a lighter patch will arise; if contrary to one another, we get a darker patch.

You must realize what a great difference there is between taking the phenomena purely as they are—setting them forth, following them with our understanding, remaining amid the phenomena themselves—and on the other hand adding to them our own inventions. This movement of the ether is after all a pure invention. Having once invented such a notion we can of course make calculations about it, but that affords no proof that it is really there. All that is purely kinematical or phoronomical in these conceptions are merely thought by us, and so is all the arithmetic. You see from this example: our fundamental way of thought requires us so to explain the phenomena that they themselves be the eventual explanation; they must contain their own explanation. Please set great store by this. Mere spun-out theories and theorizings are to be rejected. You can explain what you like by adding things out of the blue, of which man has no knowledge. Of course the waves might conceivably be there, and it might be that the one swings upward when the other downward so that they cancel each other out. But they have all been invented! What is there however without question is this lattice,—this we see fully reflected. It is to the light itself that we must look, if we desire a genuine and not a spurious, explanation.

Now I was saying just now: when the one light goes through the other, or enters into any kind of relation to it, it may well have a dimming or even extinguishing effect upon the other, just as the effect of the prism is to dim the light. This is again brought out in the following experiment, which we shall actually be doing, I will now make a drawing of it. We may have what I shewed you yesterday—a spectrum extending from violet to red—engendered directly by the Sun. But we can also generate the spectrum in another way. Instead of letting the Sun shine through an opening in the wall, we make a solid body glow with heat,—incandescent (Figure IVf). When we have by and by got it white-hot, it will also give us such a spectrum. It does not matter if we get the spectrum from the Sun or from an incandescent body.

Now we can also generate a spectrum in a somewhat different way (Figure IVg). Suppose this is a prism and this a sodium flame—a flame in which the metal sodium is volatilizing. The sodium is turned to gas; it burns and volatilizes. We make a spectrum of the sodium as it volatilizes. Then a peculiar thing happens. Making a spectrum, not from the Sun or from a glowing solid body but from a glowing gas, we find one place in the spectrum strongly developed. For sodium light it is in the yellow. Here will be red, orange, yellow, you will remember. It is the yellow that is most strongly developed in the spectrum of sodium. The rest of the spectrum is stunted—hardly there at all. All this—from violet to yellow and then again from yellow to red—is stunted. We seem to get a very narrow bright yellow strip, or as is generally said, a yellow line. Mark well, the yellow line also arises inasmuch as it is part of an entire spectrum, only the rest of the spectrum in this case is stunted, atrophied as it were.

From diverse bodies we can make spectra of this kind appearing not as a proper spectrum but in the form of bright, luminous lines. From this you see that vice-versa, if we do not know what is in a flame and we make a spectrum of it, we can conclude, if we get this yellow spectrum for example, that there is sodium in the flame. So we can recognize which of the metals is there.

But the remarkable thing comes about when we combine the two experiments. We generate this cylinder of light and the spectrum of it, while at the same time we interpose the sodium flame, so that the glowing sodium somehow unites with the cylinder of light (Figure IVh). What happens then is very like what I was shewing you in Fresnel's experiment. In the resulting spectrum you might expect the yellow to appear extra strong, since it is there to begin with and now the yellow of the sodium flame is added to it. But this is not what happens. On the contrary, the yellow of the sodium flame extinguishes the other

yellow and you get a dark place here. Precisely where you would expect a lighter part you get a darker. Why is it so? It simply depends on the intensity of force that is brought to bear. If the sodium light arising here were selfless enough to let the kindred yellow light arising here it would have to extinguish itself in so doing. This it does not do; it puts itself in the way at the very place where the yellow should be coming through. It is simply there, and though it is yellow itself, the effect of it is not to intensify but to extinguish. As a real active force, it puts itself in the way, even as an indifferent obstacle might do; it gets in the way. This yellow part of the spectrum is extinguished and a black strip is brought about instead. From this again you see, we need only bear in mind what is actually there. The flowing light itself gives us the explanation.

These are the things which I would have you note. A physicist explaining things in Newton's way would naturally argue: If I here have a piece of white—say, a luminous strip—and I look at it through the prism, it appears to me in such a way that I get a spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, dark blue, violet (Figure IVi). Goethe said: Well, at a pinch, that might do. If Nature really is like that—if she has made the light composite—we might well assume that with the help of the prism this light gets analyzed into its several parts. Good and well; but now the very same people who say the light consists of these seven colours—so that the seven colours are parts or constituents of the light—these same people allege that darkness is just nothing,—is the mere absence of light. Yet if I leave a strip black in the midst of white—if I have simple white paper with a black strip in the middle and look at this through a prism,—then too I find I get a rainbow, only the colours are now in a different order (Figure IVk),—mauve in the middle, and on the one side merging into greenish-blue. I get a band of colours in a different order. On the analysis-theory I ought now to say: then the black too is analyzable and I should thus be admitting that darkness is more than the mere absence of light. The darkness too would have to be analyzable and would consist of seven colours. This, that he saw the black band too in seven colours, only in a different order,—this was what put Goethe off. And this again shews us how needful it is simply to take the phenomena as we find them.

When man today speaks of the word, he means, as a rule, only the weak human word which has so little significance in comparison with the majesty of the Universe indicated at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel with the momentous words: In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word. Anyone who meditates on this most significant opening of St. John’s Gospel must ask himself: What does it mean, when the Word is placed at the primal beginning of all things? What is meant by the Logos, the Word? And how is this connected with our trivial human words?

The name of John is also connected with the city of Ephesus, and Imaginative perception of the world’s history, the significant saying, Tn the primal beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and a God was the Logos’, will lead one again and again, by an inner path, back to the ancient Temple of Diana at Ephesus. For one who has attained a certain degree of Initiation, the enigma presented in the first verses of St. John’s Gospel points to the Mysteries of the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus. And so it must seem to him that knowledge of the Mysteries of Ephesus will help him to understand the beginning of St. John’s Gospel.

Prepared by what we have heard in the last two lectures, let us think of the Mysteries of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus as they were six or seven centuries before the birth of Christianity, or even earlier, and of what was done in this sanctuary that was held to be so holy by the men of that olden time. We find that the instruction given in the Mysteries at Ephesus was primarily concerned with the processes active in human speech. We can learn—not from any historical account, for the barbarism of humanity takes good care that such records are destroyed—we can learn from the Akashic Record, that thought-record in the ether and accessible to spiritual sight, where the events of world-history are inscribed, from this record we can learn of the teachings given in these Ephesian Mysteries. And the Akashic Record reveals again and again how the teacher directed the attention of the pupil to human speech. Again and again he was exhorted: Learn to feel in your own instrument of speech what it is that takes place there when you speak!

The processes at work in speech elude crude perception, for they are delicate and intimate. But let us consider first of all the external aspect of speech, for it was from this that the instruction given in these Mysteries took its start. The attention of the pupil was first directed to the way in which the word sounds forth from the mouth. He was told, over and over again: Mark well what you feel when the word sounds forth from your mouth! He was then taught to notice how something of the spoken word turns upwards in order to receive the thought in the head; while something from the same word takes its way downwards in man, in order that the feeling-content may be experienced inwardly.

Again and again the pupil was instructed to force his speech through the larynx, carrying it to its extreme limits, and thereby to perceive the ebb and flow manifest in the word as it is uttered. ‘I am, I am not’—a positive assertion and a negative assertion—these he had to utter as articulately as possible and then to observe how, in the words ‘I am’, the ascending upwards is felt, while in the ‘I am not’ there is rather the feeling of pressing downwards.

The attention of the pupil was then turned more towards the intimate, feelings and experiences connected with the word. He became aware that from the word something like warmth mounts up towards the head; and this warmth, this fire, grasps the thought. And there is also a flowing downwards as it were of a watery element, pouring itself out downwards, like a glandular secretion in the human organism. Thus it was made clear to the pupil in the Ephesian Mysteries: this is how man makes use of the air in order to let the word sound forth; but in the act of speaking the air transforms itself, into the next element, into fire, into warmth, draws down the thought from the heights of the head, and embodies it in itself. And again, another change ensues: not only is there a sending upwards of fire, but a sending downwards of the fluid element contained in the word: the air trickles down as it were like a glandular secretion, as water, as a fluidic element. By means of this latter process the word becomes inwardly perceptible; it can be felt inwardly.

The pupil was then led into the real secret of speech. But this secret is connected with the secret of Man. This secret of Man is today hidden from the scientists, inasmuch as science places at the summit of all thought the incredible caricature of a truth, namely, the so-called law of the conservation of energy and of matter. In man, matter is continually being transformed. It does not endure. For instance, the air that forces its way out of the throat is transformed in the process into the next higher element, fire; and again also into the water-element—Fire, Water; Fire, Water.

The pupil at Ephesus came to understand how, when he spoke, a wave went forth from his mouth: Fire, Water; Fire, Water. This was nothing more or less than the striving upward of the word towards thought, and the trickling downward of the word towards feeling. Thus are thought and feeling interwoven in man’s speech, inasmuch as the living wave of speech, beginning as air, first rarefies to fire, then densifies to water, and so on, again and again.

Fire => Thought, Water => Feeling, Fire, Water

The great truth relating to his own speaking was brought home to the pupil in the Mysteries of Ephesus, in these words:

Speak, O Man, and thou
revealest through thyself
the Becoming of Worlds.¹

When the pupil came to the portal leading into the Mysteries, these were the words addressed to him:

Speak, O Man, and thou
revealest through thyself
the Becoming of Worlds.

And when he left the Mysteries, the words resounded to him in a different form:

World-Becoming reveals itself
through thee, O Man,
when thou speakest.

Then the pupil began to feel that he himself enveloped with his own body, as with a sheath, the Cosmic Secret which sounded from his breast and was contained in his speech.

All this was brought to the pupil as preparation for the really deeper secret. For this preparation enabled him to know how his own human nature is inwardly connected with the secret of the Cosmos. The saying ‘Know thyself!’ acquired a holy significance inasmuch as it was not uttered as theory but inwardly and solemnly felt and experienced.

Then, after the pupil had ennobled his being in this way, and was able to feel his manhood as a vessel enveloping the Cosmic Secret of the Cosmos, he could be led still further and come to know the power which spread the Secret over the wide spaces of the Cosmos.

Let me remind you here of what was said in the last lecture. I described a condition in the evolution of the Earth when the following occurred. We know that during this ancient period there was present in the Earth even then, as a substance essential for that stage of evolution, what we now know as opaque chalk such as is found, for instance, in the Jura mountains. In the chalk mountains, in the chalk of the Earth today, we have what is to be observed in that ancient period when the Earth was surrounded by what I called the ‘fluid albumen’. Cosmic forces worked into this fluid albumen, causing it to coagulate into certain definite forms; and while the Earth was in this condition a process took place resembling in a higher degree and in a denser substance what we know today as the rising of the mist and falling of the rain. The chalky element rose upwards and permeated what had hardened in the fluid albumen, so that these forms acquired a bony content. The result was that the animal came into being in the course of Earth-evolution. Through the spirituality contained in the chalk the animals were drawn down, as it were, out of the still albuminous atmosphere.

I also said that if a man unites his being with the metallic element, the ‘metallity’ of the Earth, he can inwardly feel and experience; everything that happened in that remote past, he can feel it in his own being, as a memory. At that stage of evolution man did not yet feel himself to be a little human being enclosed in his skin; he felt that he embraced the whole earthly sphere. To put it rather grotesquely, I should say: man felt that his head embraced the whole Earth-planet.

The processes described in the last lecture were felt by man to be taking place in himself. But how? Everything I have described to you here as the rising of the chalk, the uniting of this chalk with the coagulated albumen and then the descent of the animal-nature on to the Earth—all this was experienced by man at that time in such a way that he heard it. You must try to imagine this. He experienced it inwardly, and in so doing he heard it. The forms that arose when the chalk filled out the coagulated albumen and made it bony and gristly—all that then took shape, was ‘felt’ in the ear, it was audible. The Cosmic Mystery was heard.

And it is the same today, when man learns in memory about the past of the Earth the memory that is kindled by the metals. It is as if he hears it. And in the sound the stream of cosmic happenings fives and weaves.

What is it that man hears? What is revealed, what is disclosed to him? The stream of cosmic happenings reveals itself as the Word of the World, as the Logos. It is the Logos, the Word of the World, that resounds in the arising and falling of the chalk. And when man is able to perceive and understand this language, he learns something else besides.

What modern anatomy says about a human or an animal skeleton is dreadfully external. But when, with inner mindfulness of the reality of Nature and of Spirit we look at a skeleton, what do we feel? We say to ourselves: Do not merely look at it. It is terrible merely to look at it as it stands there with its forms: the spinal column with its wonderfully shaped, intersecting vertebrae, with the ribs bending and curving forwards with all the wonderful articulation as the vertebrae are metamorphosed into the bones of tire skull; and that even more mysterious articulation where the ribs, bending to embrace the breast from either side, then with a sharp turn form themselves again to the bones of the arm and the bones of the leg! Confronted with this mystery of the skeleton, we can do no other than say to ourselves: Do not merely look, but listen. Listen how one bone transforms itself into another. Listen—for it speaks!

At this point let me make a personal remark. When with a feeling for these things we go into a natural history Museum, we are confronted by something really miraculous. For there we have a collection of what are really musical instruments forming a mighty orchestra and resounding in the most wonderful way. I experienced this very deeply when I once visited the Museum in Trieste. There, owing to a particular arrangement—made quite instinctively—of the animal skeletons, one could hear resound, one after the other, at one end of the animal the secrets of the Moon and at the other end the secrets of the Sun. The whole room was as though filled with the tones of Sun and planets. One could feel the connection between the skeleton—the bony-system living in the chalk—and that which once upon a time spoke to man out of the weaving Cosmos, when he himself was one with this Cosmos, with the secret of the Universe, which is at the same time the secret of Man himself.

The beings which came into existence at that time—the animal beings to begin with—spoke forth what they are; for the animal-nature lived in the Logos, in the sounding Mystery of the World. There were not two separate phenomena to be perceived. One did not perceive the animals, and then in some way or other the inner nature of the animals. The animals themselves, living and moving in their own essential being—that was what spoke.

The pupil of the Ephesian Mysteries could take into his soul, into his heart, in the right way for that ancient time, what could then be revealed to him concerning the primal Beginning, when the Word, the Logos, was moving and weaving as the living essence of all things. The pupil could receive it because he had been prepared by having ennobled and sublimated his human nature, in that he felt himself to be a vessel for the faint reflection of the Cosmic Mystery which lay in the sounding of his own speech.

And now let us consider how the evolutionary process has passed, as it were from one level to another. In the chalk element there was still something perfectly fluid. It rose as vapour, fell again as drops of rain. It was fluid. As it rose it was transmuted into Air. When it descended it was changed into Earth, and so we have, firstly Water, then Air and Earth. Now this is one level deeper than in the human copy of it: Air, Warmth, Water. In those primeval times the still fluid chalk rarefied to Air and condensed to Earth; just as in our larynx today the Air rarefies to Warmth and condenses to Water. And thereby it is possible for human beings to encompass this Cosmic Mystery in miniature. When it was still the mighty Maya of the Cosmos it was at a deeper level. The Earth densified everything. The chalk became denser, and so on. We human beings would not have been able to receive the Cosmic Mystery in this form, we could not have held it even in miniature. This was possible for us only because it rose one stage higher, from Water to Air; and therewith it begins to surge upwards into Warmth and downwards into Water—which is now the denser element.

Thus did the great Macrocosmic Mystery become the Microcosmic Mystery of human speech. It is this Macrocosmic Mystery, to which the beginning of St. John’s Gospel points. Tn the primal, beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word.’ For that was still a living tradition in Ephesus, at the time when the Evangelist, the writer of St. John’s Gospel, could read there in the Akashic Record that for which his heart yearned namely, the right wording in which to clothe what he had to say to mankind concerning the secret of Cosmic Evolution.

But we can go a stage further. We can remind ourselves of what was said in the last lecture, namely that preceding the chalk there was the silica, which appears today in quartz. In this there appeared the plant-forms as I have described them—those great cloud-forms greening and fading away. And if, as I said, a man had been able at that time to look out into the wide spaces of the Cosmos, he would have seen this evolution of the animal nature, he would have seen, too, those primeval plants greening and passing away. All this was an inner experience in man. He perceived it as belonging to his own being. Nor was this all. For while he heard as a living inner experience the ‘sounding’ of the animal-nature coming into being, he could also in a certain sense accompany inwardly what he heard; as in his own head, in his breast, in his heart, he ascended with the words through the Warmth to grasp the element of Thought, so he could accompany what he heard resounding from the creation of the animals and follow what was experienced in the evolution of the plants.

This was the strange thing, my dear friends. Man could experience the weaving and working of the creation of the animals in the rarefying and descending chalk. And when, going further, knowledge came of what was in the silica, the plant-beings becoming green and again losing colour, then the Cosmic Word became Cosmic Thought; through the plant living in the silicious element Thought was added to the resounding Word.

We take a step upwards and Cosmic Thought is added to the sounding Logos, just as today, when speech goes out on a wave of Fire, Water, Fire Water, in the element of Fire the Thought is grasped by the resounding word.

Even today, if you study how to deal with certain pathological conditions connected with the sense-organs of the head, or with the sense-organs in general, you will learn of the healing effects of silica. Silica then appears to you as the Thought-element among the secrets of the Cosmos and you behold it as such in the greening and fading of the original plant-forms. Was I not able to say that through it the Earth perceives the whole structure of the Cosmos? In a wonderful way there is expressed in present-day man, microcosmically, that which once was macrocosmic, that which once was the weaving and moving, the very coming-into-being, of the Cosmos.

Just think for a moment how man lived then, lived still at one with the Cosmos, in unity with the Cosmos. When a man thinks today he has to picture himself isolated in his head. Inside his head are his thoughts, and the words come forth from there. The Cosmos is outside; words can only point to the Cosmos, thoughts can only mirror the Cosmos. It was not so when man was still one with the Macrocosm. Then he experienced the Cosmos as though it were within himself. The Word was his environment; and Thought was that which permeated and streamed through this environment. Man listened; and what he heard was World, was Cosmos. He looked upwards from what he heard, but he looked upwards within himself. The Word was first Tone. The Word was first something which struggled, as it were, for the solution of its own riddle. In the creation of the animal something that struggled for a solution was revealed. The animal kingdom arose within the chalk as a question. Man turned to the silica; he looked into the silica, and there the plant-creation gave the answer; the silica gave the answer to the riddle set by the animal creation. It was the beings themselves who solved each other’s riddles. One being, in this case the animal, put the question. The other being, in this case the plant, gave the answer. The whole Cosmos became Speech.

This is the reality contained in the words at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John. We are pointed back to a primal beginning of everything we see all the time around us today. In this primal Beginning, in this Principle, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word, for it was the creative essence in everything.

It is really the case that in the teaching concerning the Primal Word given to the pupils of the Mysteries at Ephesus lies that which afterwards led to the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. And here let me say that the time is fully ripe for anthroposophists to turn their attention to these secrets which rest in the womb of the Ages. For you see, in a very particular and special sense, the Building that stood here on the Dornach hill, the Goetheanum, had become the central point of anthroposophical striving. The pain in us today must live on further as pain, and will do so in everyone who was able to feel what the Goetheanum was intended to be. But whatever takes place in the physical world around us, that, my dear friends, for one who is striving upwards in his knowledge towards the Spiritual, must be at the same time an external revelation, a picture of something deeper, something spiritual. If, on the one hand, we have to experience this pain, then we, as human beings striving for spiritual knowledge, must nevertheless be able to turn what has happened into an opportunity for looking into an ever-deepening revelation. This Goetheanum was truly a place in which one longed to speak, in which one did speak again and again, of the things that are connected with the beginning of St. John’s Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the Word was with God and a God was the Word.

The Goetheanum went up in flames of fire; and this terrible picture of the burning Goetheanum stands before us. Out of the pain can be born the demand and the call to look ever more deeply into that which is always there if only our thought is strong enough to see it, the call to look ever more deeply into the burning Goetheanum as it stood there in the flames of that New Year’s Eve. Although this was such a painful event, it was nevertheless one which can lead us into greater and greater depths of knowledge. Something was to have been founded there, something that had a connection with the Gospel of St. John. In a certain sense we may say that this placed itself into the consuming, burning flames, it was borne upwards in the flames. And mighty indeed is the impulse that can lay hold of us, to let those flames prompt us to look through them to other flames, to the flames that once upon a time consumed the Temple at Ephesus. Let that be a challenge to us to seek a meaning, a significance, for what is contained in the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. Urged on by these painful but holy impulses, let us look back from that Gospel to the Temple at Ephesus which was also burnt down, long ago; and then the Goetheanum flames which speak so painfully and so eloquently, will serve to remind us of what streamed into the Akashic Records with the flames of the burning Ephesian Temple. When we turn our eyes to that tragic night, to the flames of the burning Goetheanum, did we not see, do we not still see, the molten metals of the musical instruments? And have we not within the flames these metals of the musical instruments uttering in clear tones their holy speech, enchanting into the flames the most marvellous colours, eloquent colours, colours that speak, colours that are akin to the metals? Through union with the metals there rises up within us something that is like memory in the earthly sphere. And this memory unites us with what was burned together with the Temple at Ephesus. Then, even as there is a connection between those two burnings, so the longing to learn the meaning of the opening words of St. John’s Gospel can link us to what was brought home again and again to the pupil at Ephesus: Study the mystery of Man in the little word, the Micrologos, in order to make yourself ripe to experience within yourself the mystery of the Macrologos!

Man is the Microcosm in relation to the world which is the Macrocosm, but he also bears within him the mysteries of the Cosmos. And we learn to understand the Cosmic Mystery contained in the first three verses of St. John’s Gospel when we bear in our hearts, in the right way, that which was spoken by the flames of the Goetheanum, densified as it were to a kind of script:

Behold the Logos
In the burning Fire;
Find the clue
In Diana’s House.

The Fire-Akasha of New Year’s Eve speaks these and many other words very clearly. And it demands of us that we understand the Micrologos in the Microcosmos, so that man may gain understanding for that from which his own being proceeds, for the Macrocosmos through the Macrologos.

• 1. For the German original see end of lecture.

Anyone who knows the nature of the experiences that the human soul undergoes when it has opened the entrance gates to the spiritual world needs only to read a few pages of the “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz Anno 1459” to recognize that the book's account refers to real spiritual experiences. Subjectively invented images reveal themselves as such to those who have insight into spiritual reality, because they cannot fully correspond to this reality either in their own form or in the way they are strung together. — This seems to provide the starting point from which the “Chymical Wedding” can be viewed. We can follow the experiences described from the soul's point of view, as it were, and explore what insight into spiritual realities has to say about them. Unconcerned about everything that has been written about this book, the point of view characterized by it is to be taken up here first. We will take from the book itself what it wants to say. Only then can we talk about questions that many observers ask before a sufficient basis for this is created.

The experiences of the wanderer in The Chemical Wedding are divided into seven mental days. The first day begins with the bearer of the experiences encountering imaginations before his soul that allow his decision to begin the journey to mature. The description is written in such a way that it reveals the particular care of the narrator in distinguishing between what the bearer of the experiences understands at the time he has a “vision” and what is still hidden from his insight. Likewise, a distinction is made between what comes to the seer from the spiritual world without his will being involved, and what is brought about by this will. The first experience is not one that is deliberately brought about and is not one that the seer fully understands. It brings him the opportunity to enter the spiritual world. However, he is not unprepared. Seven years ago, he was informed through a 'bodily face' that he would be called to participate in the 'Chymical Wedding'. The expression 'bodily face' cannot be misunderstood by anyone who grasps the entire spirit of the book. It is not a vision of the morbid or down-tuned soul life, but a perception that can be attained through spiritual vision, the content of which stands before the soul with the same character of reality as a perception of the bodily eye. That the bearer of the experiences could have such a “vision” presupposes a state of soul that is not that of ordinary human consciousness. The latter knows only the changing states of waking and sleeping and, between the two, the dream, the experiences of which are not related to anything real. The soul, which experiences itself through this ordinary consciousness, knows itself to be united with a reality through the senses; but when its connection with the senses ceases during sleep, it is not in a knowing relationship with any reality, not even with its own self and its inner experiences. And during the dream, she cannot see clearly what relationship she has to reality. At the time of the 'bodily vision' that he still remembers, the Wanderer in 'The Chemical Wedding' already had a consciousness that was different from the usual one. He has experienced that the soul can perceive even when it is in the same relationship to the senses as it is during sleep. The concept of the soul living separately from the body and knowing a reality in this life has become more valid for him. He knows that the soul can so strengthen its own being that in its separation from the body it can be united with a spiritual world as it is with nature through the bodily sense organs. That such a union can take place, that it lies before him, he has learned through the “bodily vision”. The experience itself of this union could not be given to him through this vision. He has waited for this. It presents itself in his conceptions as the participation in the “Chymical Wedding”. Thus he is prepared for a renewed experience in the spiritual world.

At a time of heightened spiritual mood, on the eve of Easter, this renewed experience occurs. The bearer of the experiences feels as if he is being buffeted by a storm. Thus it announces itself to him that he is experiencing a reality whose perception is not mediated through the physical body. He is lifted out of the state of equilibrium with respect to the forces of the world, into which the human being is placed by his physical body. His soul does not live the life of this physical body; it feels only connected with the (etheric) body of formative forces that permeates the physical one. This body of formative forces is not, however, part of the equilibrium of the cosmic forces, but of the mobility of the supersensible world, which is closest to the physical and which the human being perceives first when he has opened the gates of spiritual vision. Only in the physical world do the forces solidify into fixed forms that express themselves in states of equilibrium; in the spiritual world, perpetual mobility reigns. The person undergoing this mobility becomes aware of the raging storm as a result of this mobility. The revelation of a spiritual being emerges from the vagueness of this perception. This revelation takes place through a clearly shaped imagination. The spirit appears in a blue dress studded with stars. One must keep away from the description of this being everything that amateurish esotericists like to add to the “explanation” in the way of symbolic interpretations. One is dealing with a non-sensuous experience, which the person experiencing it expresses for himself and for others through an image. The blue dress studded with stars is no more a symbol of the blue night sky or anything similar than the idea of the rosebush is a symbol of the evening glow in ordinary consciousness. In supersensible perception there is a much more active, conscious activity of the soul than in the case of the senses. — In the case of the wanderer at the 'Chymical Wedding', this activity is exercised through the formative forces body, as in the case of physical seeing through the bodily senses by means of the eyes. This activity of the formative forces body can be compared to the arousal of radiating light. Such light falls on the spiritual being that is revealing itself. It is reflected back by it. Thus the beholder sees his own radiated light, and behind its boundary he becomes aware of the limiting being. The 'blue' comes about through this relationship of the spiritual being to the spiritual light of the body of formative forces; the stars are not reflected, but are absorbed by the being as parts of the spiritual light. The spiritual being has objective reality; the image through which it reveals itself is a modification, brought about by the being, in the radiance of the body of formative forces. This imagination must not be confused with a vision either. The subjective experience of the bearer of such an imagination is completely different from that of the visionary. The visionary lives in his vision through an inner compulsion; the bearer of the imagination adds it to the designated spiritual being or process with the same inner conscious freedom with which a word or a sentence is used as an expression for a sensual object. Someone who has no knowledge of the nature of the spiritual world may think that it is completely unnecessary to clothe this spiritual world, which reveals itself in imageless experiences, in imaginations that evoke the appearance of the visionary. In reply to this, it is true that imagination is not the essence that is perceived spiritually, but it is the means by which this essence must reveal itself in the soul. Just as one cannot perceive a sensual color without the definite activity of the eye, so too can one not experience something spiritual without encountering it from within with a definite imagination. This does not prevent the use of pure concepts, as they are common in natural science or philosophy, when presenting spiritual experiences that are made through imagination. The present remarks are based on such concepts in order to trace the content of the 'Chymical Wedding'. But in the seventeenth century, when J. V. Andreae wrote the book, it was not yet customary to make use of such concepts to such an extent; one directly presented the imaginations through which one had experienced the supersensible beings and processes.

In the spiritual form that reveals itself to him, the wanderer at the “Chemical Wedding” recognizes the being that can give him the right impulse for his journey. Through his encounter with this figure, he consciously feels that he is standing in the spiritual world. The way in which he stands in this world points to the particular direction of his path of knowledge. He does not walk in the direction of the mystic in the narrower sense, but in that of the alchemist. In order not to misunderstand the following exposition, one should keep away from the concept of “alchemy” everything that has been attached to it through superstition, fraud, adventurism and the like. Think of what the honest, unprejudiced seekers after truth who coined this term were striving for. They wanted to recognize the lawful connections between the things of nature that are not conditioned by the activity of nature itself, but by a spiritual essence that reveals itself through nature. They sought supersensible forces that are active in the sensual world but do not allow themselves to be recognized in a sensual way. The wanderer of the 'Chymical Wedding' sets out on the path of such researchers. In this sense, he is a representative of alchemical research. As such, he is convinced that the supersensible forces of nature hide themselves from ordinary consciousness. He has brought about experiences within himself which, through their effect, enable the soul to use the body of formative forces as an organ of perception. Through this organ of perception, he gains insight into the supersensible forces of nature. He first wants to recognize the extra-human, supersensible forces of nature in a spiritual form of existence, which is experienced outside the realm of sensory perception and ordinary mental activity. Equipped with the knowledge of these forces, he then wants to see through the true essence of the human body itself. He believes that through knowledge gained by the soul in conjunction with the body of formative forces, which is activated independently of the physical organism, one can see through the human body and thereby come close to the secret that the universe works through this being. For ordinary sensory perception, this secret is veiled; the human being lives in it; but he does not see through what he experiences. Starting from supersensible knowledge of nature, the wanderer in The Chymical Wedding finally aimed to arrive at beholding the supersensible essence of the human being. It is by this path of research that the alchemist, in contrast to the mystic in the narrower sense, strives. He too seeks to experience the human being differently from what is possible through ordinary consciousness. But he does not choose the path that leads to the use of the formative forces independent of the physical body. He starts from the vague feeling that a more intimate interpenetration of the physical body with the formative forces than is possible in ordinary waking life leads away from communion with the world of sense-perceptible beings and leads to communion with the spiritual world of human beings. The alchemist strives to withdraw himself with his conscious being from the ordinary context of the body and to enter into the world that lies behind the realm of sensory perception as the “spiritual nature” of the world. The mystic attempts to lead the conscious soul deeper into the context of the physical, in order to consciously immerse himself in that area of physicality that is hidden from self-awareness when it is filled with the perceptions of the senses. The mystic does not always seek to give a full account of this endeavor. He will only too often seek to characterize his path in a different way. But the mystic is in most cases a poor explainer of his own nature. This is connected with the fact that certain feelings become attached to the spiritual quest. Because the mystic's soul wants to overcome the kind of togetherness with the body that is experienced in ordinary consciousness, a kind of self-rapture takes hold of it, not only a certain contempt for this togetherness, but for the body itself. Therefore, she does not want to admit to herself that her mystical experience is based on an even more intimate connection with the body than that which produces ordinary consciousness. — Through this more intimate connection, the mystic perceives a change in his thinking, feeling and willing. He surrenders to this perception without developing any inclination to elucidate the reason for the change. This change reveals itself to him, despite having descended deeper into the physical, as a spiritualization of his inner life. And he has every right to see it as such. Sensuality is nothing other than the form of existence that the soul experiences when it is in the same connection with the body as that on which ordinary waking consciousness is based. When the soul unites more intimately with the body than is the case in this form of existence, then it experiences a relationship of the human being to the world that is more spiritual than that established through the senses. The perceptions that arise then are condensed into imaginations. These imaginations are revelations of the forces with which the formative body works on the physical body. They remain hidden from ordinary consciousness. The feeling is strengthened to such an extent that the etheric-spiritual forces, which radiate from the cosmos into the human being, are experienced as if through an inner touch. In the will, the soul knows itself to be dedicated to a spiritual work that integrates the human being into a supersensible world context, from which he separates himself through the subjective will of ordinary consciousness. True mysticism arises only when the human being carries his fully conscious soul being into the more intimate connection with the body that is characterized and is not driven by the constraints of the bodily organization to morbidly visionary or downcast consciousness. Genuine mysticism strives to experience the spiritual essence of man, which is too close to the human heart and which is covered by sense perception for ordinary consciousness. Genuine alchemy makes itself independent of sense perception in order to see the spiritual essence of the world that exists outside of man, which is covered by sense perception. Before entering into the inner life of man, the mystic must bring his soul into such a state that it does not expose its consciousness to fading or extinction in the face of the increased counter-pressure that it experiences through its closer union with the body. Before entering the spiritual world that lies beyond the sense realm, the alchemist needs to strengthen his soul so that it does not lose itself in the beings and processes of this world. The paths of research of the mystic and the alchemist lead in opposite directions. The mystic goes directly into the human being's own spiritual nature. His goal is what may be called the mystical marriage, the union of the conscious soul with one's own spiritual being. The alchemist wants to pass through the spiritual realm of nature in order to see the spiritual being of man with the powers of knowledge acquired in this realm after the successful journey. His goal is the “Chymical Wedding”, the union with the spiritual realm of nature. Only after this union does he want to experience the contemplation of the human being.

Both the mystic and the alchemist experience a mystery at the very beginning of their paths, which cannot be penetrated within the ordinary consciousness. It relates to the relationship between the human body and the human soul. As a spiritual being, the human being truly lives in the spiritual world; but at the present stage of development within the evolution of the world, he has no ability of his own to orient himself in the spiritual realm. Through the powers of his ordinary consciousness, he can only establish his relationship to himself and to the world outside of himself in the sense of truth if the body instructs him in the directions for soul activity. The body is so incorporated into the world that this incorporation corresponds to cosmic harmony. When the soul lives within the perception of the senses and the ordinary activity of the mind, it is given over to the body with just the strength by which the body can transmit its harmony with the universe to it. If the soul is lifted out of this experience according to the mystical or alchemical direction, it becomes necessary to take precautions so that it does not lose the harmony with the universe gained through the body. If he did not take such precautions, then on the mystical path he would be threatened with the loss of spiritual connection with the universe; on the alchemical path, the loss of the ability to distinguish between truth and error. Without this precaution, the mystic would, through the closer connection with the body, so intensify the power of self-consciousness that he would be overwhelmed by it and no longer be able to experience the life of the world in his own life. Thus he would enter with his consciousness into the region of a spiritual world other than that which corresponds to man. (In my spiritual scientific writings I have called this world the Luciferic.) The alchemist would, without the necessary precautions, come to a loss of discernment between truth and deception. In the great context of the universe, deception is a necessity. Man, however, cannot fall prey to it at his present stage of development because the realm of sense perception affords him protection. If deception were not in the background of human experience, man could not develop the various levels of consciousness. For deception is the driving force behind this development of consciousness. At the present stage of human consciousness, deception must indeed work towards the emergence of consciousness; but it must itself remain unconscious. For if it were to enter into consciousness, it would overwhelm the truth. As soon as the soul enters, by the alchemical path, into the spiritual realm that lies beyond sense perception, it enters into the vortices of deception. It can only preserve its nature in the right way within these vortices if it brings with it from its experience in the sense world a sufficiently developed power of distinguishing between truth and deception. If it failed to develop such a power of discrimination, the whirlpools of illusion would sweep it away into a world where it would have to lose itself. (In my spiritual writings I have called this world the Ahrimanic one.) — Before he begins his journey, the mystic needs to bring his soul into such a state that his own life cannot be overpowered; the alchemist must strengthen his sense of truth so that it will not be lost, even if he is not supported by sense perception and the mind that is bound to it.

The bearer of the experiences described in the “Chemical Wedding” is aware that, as an alchemist, he needs a strengthened ability to distinguish between truth and deception on his path. He seeks to gain his support from Christian truth according to the circumstances of life from which he begins his alchemical path. He knows that what connects him to Christ has already brought forth within his life in the sensual world a power in his soul that leads to the truth. This power does not need the basis of the senses and can therefore prove itself even when this basis of the senses is not there. With this attitude, his soul stands before the being in the blue dress, who points him to the path to the “Chemical Wedding”. At first this being could just as well belong to the world of deception and error as to that of truth. The wanderer on his way to the “Chemical Wedding” must distinguish. But his power of discrimination would be lost, error would have to overwhelm him, could he not recall in supersensible experience what binds him in the sense world to truth with an inner power. What has become in this soul through Christ arises out of it. And like its remaining light, the body of formative forces of this Christ-light radiates towards the revealing being. The right imagination is formed. The letter that points him to the path of the “Chemical Wedding” contains the sign of Christ and the words: in hoc signo vinces. The wanderer knows that he is connected to the appearing being through a power that points to the truth. If the power that had led him into the supersensible world had been one tending towards deception, he would have stood before an entity that would have paralyzed his memory for the Christ impulse living in him. He would then have followed only the seductive power that draws man to itself even when the supersensible world leads him forces that are pernicious to his nature and will.

The content of the letter, which is handed over to the wanderer after the “Chemical Wedding” by the being that appears to him, contains, in the language of the fifteenth century, a characterization of his relationship to the spiritual world, insofar as he has become aware of it at the beginning of the first day of his spiritual experiences. The symbol added to the words expresses how the mutual relationship between the physical body, the body of formative forces and the soul-spiritual has developed in him. It is significant for him to be able to say that this condition in his human existence is in harmony with the conditions in the universe. He has found, through “diligent recalculation and calculation” of his “annotated planets”, that this condition may occur in him at the point in time at which it is now taking place. Anyone who regards what is being considered here in the sense of the follies of some “astrologers” will misunderstand it, regardless of whether they are a believer in it or an “enlightened” person who smiles condescendingly at it. The author of The Chemical Wedding had good reason to add the date 1459 to the title of his book. He was aware that the soul-disposition of the one experiencing it must be in harmony with the state in which world-becoming has been attained at a certain point in time, if inner soul-disposition and outer world-content are not to result in disharmony. The outer supersensible world-content must meet the soul, which is independent of ordinary sense perception, in harmony, if the consonance of the two is to give rise to the state of consciousness that constitutes the “Chemical Wedding”. Anyone who believes that the constellation of the “annotated planets” contains a mysterious power that determines the state of experience of the person would be like someone who believed that the position of the hands on his watch had the power to cause him to undertake a journey that he had to take from his life circumstances at a certain hour.

The letter refers to three temples. What is meant by these is not yet understood by the bearer of the experiences at the time when he receives the hint. He who perceives in the spiritual world must know that he will occasionally receive imaginations, which he must first renounce in understanding. He must accept them as imaginations and allow them to mature in the soul as such. During this maturing, they bring forth in man's inner being the power that can effect understanding. If the observer were to explain them to himself at the moment they reveal themselves to him, he would do so with an unsuitable power of understanding and think inconsistently. In spiritual experience, much depends on having the patience to make observations, to accept them at face value at first, and to wait until the appropriate time to understand them. What the Wanderer experiences on the first day of his spiritual experiences at the “Chemical Wedding” is described by him as having been announced to him “seven years” before. During this time he was not allowed to form an intellectual opinion about his “vision” at the time, but had to wait until the “vision” had had such an effect on his soul that he was able to experience further things with understanding.

The appearance of the spirit being in the blue, star-studded dress and the presentation of the letter are experiences that the wanderer has at the “Chemical Wedding” without his soul's own free decision leading to it. He goes on to bring about experiences through such a free decision. He enters into a sleep-like state; one that brings him dream experiences whose content has a reality value. He can do this because, after the experiences he has had, he enters into a different relationship with the spiritual world than the ordinary one through the state of sleep. In the ordinary experience during the state of sleep, the human soul is not bound to the spiritual world by ties that can give its ideas a reality value. But the soul of the wanderer at the “Chemical Wedding” is transformed. It is so inwardly strengthened that it can take up in the dream experience what is connected with the spiritual world in which it finds itself. And through such an experience she first of all experiences her own newly won relationship to the sense body. She experiences this relationship through the imagination of the tower, in which the dreamer is locked up and from which he is freed. She consciously experiences what is unconsciously experienced in ordinary life when the soul, falling asleep, passes from the realm of sense experience into that of supersensible existence. The restrictions and hardships in the tower are an expression of the sensory experiences towards the soul's inner being when it frees itself from the realm of such experiences. What binds the soul to the body in such a way that the result of this bond is sensory experience, these are the life forces that promote growth. Consciousness could never arise under the sole influence of these forces. That which is merely alive remains unconscious. The forces that destroy life, in conjunction with illusion, lead to the emergence of consciousness. If man did not carry within him that which leads him towards physical death, he could live in the physical body but not develop consciousness in it. For ordinary consciousness, the connection between the death-bringing forces and this consciousness remains hidden. But for someone who, like the bearer of experiences in the “Chemical Wedding”, is to develop an awareness of the spiritual world, this connection must come before the “eye of the spirit”. He must experience that connected with his existence is the “hoary man”, the being who, by nature, carries within him the power of aging. Vision in the spiritual realm can only be granted to that soul which, while dwelling in this realm, beholds the power that in ordinary life lies behind aging. This power is capable of snatching the soul from the realm of sensory experience. The value of the dream experience lies in the fact that through it the wanderer to the “Chemical Wedding” is aware that he can now approach nature and the human world with a state of mind that allows him to see what is hidden in both of them from ordinary consciousness. This has matured him for the experiences of the next few days.

At the beginning of the description of the second day, it is immediately pointed out how nature appears to him in a new way. But he is not only to look into the background of nature; he is to look more deeply into the motives of human will and action than is possible in ordinary consciousness. The interpreter of The Chemical Wedding means to say that this ordinary consciousness only gets to know the outer side of the will and action, and that through this consciousness people are also only aware of their own will and action. The deeper spiritual impulses that pour out of the supersensible world into this volition and action, and that shape human social life, remain unknown to this consciousness. Man can live in the belief that a particular motive leads him to an action; in truth, this motive is only the conscious mask for one that remains unconscious. Insofar as human beings regulate their social life together according to ordinary consciousness, forces intervene in this life together that do not lie in the sense of evolution and are beneficial to humanity. These forces must be counteracted by others that are seen through supersensible consciousness and incorporated into social activity. The Wayfarer of the “Chymical Wedding” is to be led to the knowledge of such forces. To do this, he must see through people to the being that really lives in them, which is quite different from the one present in their belief or corresponds to the place they occupy in the social order determined by ordinary consciousness. The image of nature that reveals itself to ordinary consciousness is very different from that of a social human order. The supersensible natural forces, which spiritual consciousness gets to know, are related to the supersensible forces of this social order of man. The alchemist strives for a knowledge of nature that will become for him the basis of a true knowledge of human nature. It is the Way to such knowledge that the Wanderer to the “Chemical Wedding” must seek. But not one such Way, but several, are shown to him. The first leads into a region where the intellectual conceptions of ordinary consciousness, gained through sense perception, impinge upon the course of supersensible experience, so that insight into reality is killed through the interaction of the two experiential circles. The second holds out the prospect that the soul can lose its patience if it has to submit to long periods of waiting for spiritual revelations, in order to allow what must initially be accepted only as an incomprehensible revelation to mature fully. The third demands men who, through their already unconsciously attained maturity of development, are allowed to see in a short time what others must acquire in a long struggle. The fourth brings man to an encounter with all the forces from the supersensible world that cloud and frighten his consciousness when he wants to snatch himself from sensory experience. Which path is to be taken by the one or other human soul depends on the state into which the experiences of ordinary consciousness have brought it before it begins the spiritual journey. It cannot “choose” in the usual sense, because its choice would arise out of the sense consciousness, which is not entitled to decide in supersensible matters. The impossibility of such a choice is realized by the Wayfarer after the “Chemical Wedding.” But he also knows that his soul is sufficiently strong for behavior in a supersensible world to be led aright when such an inducement comes from the spiritual world itself. The Imagination of his deliverance “from the tower” gives him this knowledge. The imagination of the “black raven”, snatching the food given to the “white dove”, evokes a certain feeling in the soul of the wanderer; and this feeling, produced out of supersensible, imaginative perception, leads to the path whereon the choice of ordinary consciousness would not have dared to lead. On this path, the wanderer arrives where people and human relationships are to be revealed to his gaze in a light that is not accessible to experience in the sense body. He enters through a portal into a dwelling within which people behave in a way that corresponds to the super-sensible forces pouring into their souls. Through the experiences he has within this dwelling, he is to awaken to a new life, which he will be responsible for leading when a sufficiently large area of these experiences is covered by his super-sensible consciousness. Many critics have expressed the opinion that the “Chymical Wedding of Christiani Rosencreutz” is nothing more than a satirical novel about the doings of certain sectarians or adventurous alchemists or the like. But perhaps a truly correct view of the experiences that the author of the book has his wanderer undergo “before the gate” will show that the satirical mood that the work displays in its later parts can be traced back to soul experiences, the seriousness of which takes on a form that appears to be mere satire, which only wants to remain in the realm of sense experience. It would be well not to lose sight of this in considering the further experiences of the wanderer after the “Chemical Wedding”.

The second mental day's work brings the spiritual seeker, whose experiences Johann Valentin Andreae describes, to experiences through which it is decided whether he can attain the ability of true spiritual vision, or whether a world of spiritual error shall embrace his soul. For his perception, these experiences take the form of imaginations of entering a castle, in which the world of spiritual experience is administered. Not only the genuine, but also the fake spiritual seeker can have such imaginations. The soul reaches them when it follows certain lines of thought and modes of perception, through which it is able to imagine surroundings that are not conveyed to it through sensual impressions. From the way Andreae describes the society of unreal spiritual seekers, within which the “Brother of the Red Rose Cross” still finds himself on the “second day”, one recognizes that he is well aware of the secret of the difference between the real and the unreal spiritual seeker. Whoever has the opportunity to correctly judge such inner testimonies of the spiritual insight of the author of The Chemical Wedding will be in no doubt as to the true character of this writing and of Andreaes's intention. It is obviously written to provide enlightenment for people who are seriously striving for an understanding of the relationship between the world of the senses and the spiritual world, and of the forces that can arise for the human soul from the knowledge of the spiritual world for social and moral life. Andreae's unsentimental, humorous and satirical style of presentation does not speak against, but for, the deeply serious intention. Not only can one feel the seriousness within the seemingly light-hearted scenes, but one also has the feeling that Andreae is describing like someone who does not want to cloud the mind of his reader with sentimentality about the secrets of the spiritual world, but who wants to create in the reader a spiritually free, self-aware and rational attitude towards this world.

If someone, through the exercise of thought and feeling, has brought himself to imagine a supersensible world, such ability is by no means a guarantee that these imaginations will lead him to a real relationship with the spiritual world. In the field of imaginative experience, the Brother of the Rose Cross sees himself surrounded by numerous souls who, although they live in ideas about the spiritual world, cannot come into real contact with this world because of their inner condition. The possibility of this real contact depends on how the spiritual seeker attunes his soul to the world of the senses before approaching the threshold of the spiritual world. This attunement produces a state of mind in the soul that is carried across the threshold and reveals itself within the spiritual world in such a way that it either accepts or rejects the seeker. The right frame of mind can only be attained if the seeker is willing to discard everything at the threshold that determines his relationship to the world within the reality of the senses. In order to dwell in the spiritual world, those impulses of the mind through which man feels the character and validity – the weight – of his personality from his external circumstances and fate must become ineffective. If this necessity, by which man feels transported into a kind of psychic childhood, is difficult to fulfill, then the other necessity, to suppress the kind of judgment by which one orients oneself within the sense world, is even more contrary to ordinary feeling. One must come to the realization that this way of judging is gained in the sense world, that it can only have validity within it, and that one must be prepared to learn the way one has to judge in the spiritual world from the spiritual world itself. When the Brother of the Rose Cross enters the castle, he develops a mood of soul that arises from a sense of these necessities. He does not allow himself to be led into a chamber to spend the first night in the castle, but remains in the hall to which he has come through his participation in the events of the second day. In this way he protects himself from carrying his soul into a region of the spiritual world with which the forces at work within him are not yet able to unite worthily. The soul mood that prevents him from penetrating further into the spiritual realm than the second day has brought him is effective in his soul throughout the night and equips him with the capacity for perception and will that he needs the following day. Those intruders who have come with him without the ability of such a state of mind must be expelled from the spiritual world the following day, because they cannot develop the fruit of this mood. Without this fruit it is impossible for them to connect the soul with the world through real inner powers, of which they are, so to speak, only externally embraced.

The events at the gates, the encounter with the lion, the reading of the inscriptions on the two pillars at the entrance, and other happenings of the second day are so vividly described by the Rose Cross Brother that one can see his soul weaving in the described mood. He experiences all this in such a way that that part of it remains unknown to him which speaks to the ordinary mind bound to the sense world, and that he only absorbs that which enters into a spiritual pictorial relationship with the deeper powers of the mind. The encounter with the “cruel lion” at the second gate is a step in the self-knowledge of the spiritual seeker. The Brother of the Rose Cross experiences it in such a way that it acts as an imagination on his deeper powers of mind, but that it remains unknown to him what it means for his position within the spiritual world. This unknown judgment is passed by the “guardian” who is with the lion, who calms the lion and, according to the content of a letter that is also unknown to the person entering, speaks the words to the person entering: “Now welcome to me, God, the man I have long wished to see.” The spiritual vision of the “cruel lion” is the result of the spiritual state of the Brother of the Rosicrucians. This soul condition is reflected in the formative part of the spiritual world and gives the imagination of the lion. In this reflection, an image of the observer's own self is given. In the field of spiritual reality, the observer is a different being than in the realm of sensory existence. The forces at work in the realm of the sensory world shape him into a sensory human image. In the spiritual realm, he is not yet human; he is a being that allows itself to be expressed imaginatively through the animal form. Within this existence, the drives, affects, feelings and impulses of the will that live in the human being's sensory existence are held in chains by the life of perception and imagination bound to the sense body, which are themselves a result of the sense world. If man wishes to step out of the sense world, he must become conscious of what in him is no longer fettered by the gifts of the sense world and must be brought onto the right path by new gifts from the spiritual world. Man must see himself before the sensuous incarnation. This insight comes to the Rose Cross Brother through the encounter with the lion, the image of his own being before the incarnation. It should be noted here, just to avoid any misunderstanding, that the form of existence in which the underlying essence of man beholds itself in a spiritual way before becoming man has nothing to do with animality, with which popular Darwinism thinks the human species is linked by descent. For the animal form of the spiritual vision is one that, by its very nature, can only belong to the world of formative forces. Within the sense world, it can only exist as a subconscious element of human nature. The fact that the part of his being that is held in bondage by the sense body is still in the process of becoming human is expressed in the frame of mind in which the Brother of the Rose Cross finds himself upon entering the castle. He faces what he has to expect with an open mind, and does not cloud it with judgments that still come from the mind bound to the world of sense. Such clouding he must later notice in those who have not come with a rightful soul mood. They too have passed by and seen the “cruel lion”, for this depends only on their having received the corresponding currents of thought and modes of perception into their souls. But the effect of this spiritual vision could not be strong enough in their case to persuade them to abandon the way of judging to which they were accustomed in the sense world. Their way of judging appears to the spiritual eye of the Brother of the Rose Cross within the spiritual world as vain boasting. They want to see Plato's ideas, count Democritus' atoms, pretend to see the invisible, while in truth they see nothing. These things show that they cannot connect the inner soul powers with the world that has embraced them. They lack consciousness of the true demands which the spiritual world makes upon man when he would see it. The Brother of the Rose Cross can in the following days connect his soul-forces with the spiritual world because on the second day he admits to himself in accordance with the truth that he cannot see and do what the other intruders claim before themselves or others to see and do. The feeling of his powerlessness later becomes the power of spiritual experience for him. He must allow himself to be bound at the end of the second day because he is to feel the bonds of mental powerlessness in the face of the spiritual world until this powerlessness as such has been exposed to the light of consciousness for as long as it takes to transform itself into power.

Andreae wants to show how the seven “sciences and liberal arts”, into which knowledge gained within the sensory world was divided in the Middle Ages, are to serve as preparation for spiritual knowledge. The seven liberal arts were usually considered to be: grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. From the description in the “Chymische Hochzeit” one recognizes that Andreae thinks both the brother of the Rose Cross and his rightful companions as well as the unlawful intruders as being equipped with the knowledge that can be gained from these liberal arts. However, the newcomers possess this knowledge to a varying extent. The rightful ones, especially the Brother of the Rose Cross, whose experiences are described, have acquired this knowledge in such a way that through its possession they have developed the strength in their souls to receive from the spiritual world the unknown, which must still remain hidden for these “free arts”. Their soul is so prepared by these arts that it not only knows what can be known through them, but this knowledge gives it the weight by which it can gain experience in the spiritual world. The weight of these arts has not become the weight of the souls of the unlawful arrivals. They do not have in their souls the true world content of these “seven free arts”. On the third day the Brother of the Rose Cross participates in the weighing of souls. This is described by means of the imagination of a scale by which the souls are weighed in order to find out whether they have acquired, in addition to their own human weight, a weight equal to seven others. These seven weights are the imaginative representatives of the “seven liberal arts”.

The Brother of the Rose Cross has in his soul not only the substance that can match the seven weights, but also a surplus. This benefits another personality, which is not considered sufficient for itself, but which is protected from expulsion from the spiritual world by the true spiritual seeker. By describing this process, Andreae shows how familiar he is with the secrets of the spiritual world. Of all the powers of the soul that develop in the world of sense, love is the only one that can remain unchanged during the transition of the soul into the spiritual world. Helping weaker people according to the strength one possesses, that can happen within the world of sense, and it can also be done in the same way with the possessions that a person receives in the spiritual realm.

From the way in which Andreae describes the expulsion of the unlawful intruders from the spiritual world, it is evident that he wants to use his writing to make his contemporaries aware of how far far removed from the spiritual world and thus from true reality a person can be who, although he has familiarized himself with all kinds of descriptions of the path to this world, is still unaware of a real inner transformation of the soul. An unbiased reading of the “Chymical Wedding” reveals as one of the aims of its author to tell his contemporaries how pernicious for the true development of humanity are those who intervene in life with impulses that relate to the spiritual world in an unlawful way. Andreae expects right social, moral and other human community goals from a rightful recognition of the spiritual foundations of existence, especially for his time. Therefore, in his description, he sheds a clear light on everything that is harmful to human progress because it draws such goals from an unlawful relationship to the spiritual world.

On the third day after witnessing the expulsion of the illegitimate newcomers, the brother of the Rose Cross senses that the possibility is beginning for him to use the ability to reason in a way that is suitable for the spiritual world. The possession of this ability presents itself to the soul as the imagination of the unicorn, which bows down before a lion. The lion then calls forth a dove with his roar, which brings him an olive branch. He swallows it. If one were to treat such a picture as a symbol and not as a real imagination, one could say that it visualizes the process in the soul of the spirit-seeker, through which he feels able to think spiritually. But this abstract idea would not express the soul process that is actually at stake in its full essence. For this process is experienced in such a way that the periphery of personal experience, which for the sense being extends to the boundary of the body, is extended beyond this boundary. In the spiritual realm the seer experiences beings and processes outside his own nature just as man experiences the processes within his own body through the ordinary waking consciousness. When such an expanded consciousness occurs, then mere abstract conception ceases, and imagination presents itself as the necessary form of expression of what is experienced. If one nevertheless wishes to express such an experience in abstract ideas, which is necessary in particular in the present day for communicating spiritual-scientific knowledge on a large scale, then one must first bring the imaginations into the form of ideas in an appropriate manner. Andreae omits this in The Chymical Wedding because he wishes to present, without alteration, the experiences of a spiritual seeker from the middle of the fifteenth century; in those days one did not translate the experienced imaginations into ideas and concepts.

When imaginative knowledge has matured to the point reached by the Brother of the Rose Cross on the third day, then the soul itself with its inner life can enter into the region of reality from which the imaginations have come. Only through this ability does man arrive at a new way of seeing the entities and processes of the sense world from a point of view situated in the spiritual world. He sees to what extent these flow out of their true sources in the supersensible realm. Andreae remarks that the Brother of the Rosycross acquires this ability to a greater extent than his companions. He is able to see the library of the castle and the burials of the kings from the point of view of the spiritual world. That he is able to do this depends on his being able to exercise his own will to a high degree in the imaginative world. His comrades can only see what comes to them through the power of others, without such strong exercise of their own will. The brother of the Rose Cross learns more at the “burials of the kings” than is written in all the books. The vision of these burials is brought into direct connection with that of the glorious “Phoenix”. In these visions the secret of death and birth is revealed. These two borderline processes of life only take place in the material world. In the spiritual realm, birth and death are not followed by creation and decay, but by the transformation of one form of life into another. One can only recognize the essence of birth and death by looking at them from a point of view outside the material world, from a realm in which they themselves do not exist.

The fact that the Brother of the Rose Cross penetrates to the “burials of the kings” and beholds in the image of the Phoenix the arising of a young royal power from the dead body of the old kings is recorded by Andreae because he wants to describe the particular spiritual path of a seeker of knowledge from the middle of the fifteenth century. This is a turning point in time with regard to the spiritual experience of humanity. The forms in which the human soul could approach the spiritual world through the centuries were changing at this point into others. In the sphere of external human life, this change was manifested by the emerging scientific way of thinking of the new time and the other upheavals in the life of the peoples of the earth in this epoch. In the realm of the world in which the spiritual seekers search for the secrets of existence, the passing away of a particular direction of the human soul forces and the appearance of another reveal themselves at such turning points. Despite all the other revolutionary events in the historical development of humanity, the character of spiritual insight had remained essentially the same since the times of Greco-Roman life until the fifteenth century. The spiritual seeker had to carry the instinctive mind rooted in the mind, which was the essential soul power of this age, into the field of spiritual reality and transform it there into the power of spiritual insight. From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards, this soul power was replaced by the mind, which was operating in the light of full self-awareness and liberating itself from instinctive forces. To raise this to the level of intuitive consciousness is the task of the spiritual seeker.

In Christian Rosenkreuz, as the leading brother of the Rosicrucians, Andreae portrays a personality who has entered the spiritual world in the way that came to an end in the fifteenth century. The experiences of the “Chymical Wedding” present this ending and the emergence of a new way to his mind's eye. He must therefore penetrate into secrets which the rulers of the castle, who would like to continue to administer the spiritual life in the old way, want to conceal from him. Andreae wants to characterize for his contemporaries the greatest spiritual researcher of the end of an expired epoch, but who sees through the death of this epoch and the rise of a new one in the spiritual field. He found that they were content with the traditions of the old epoch, that they wanted to open up the spiritual world in the sense of these traditions. He wanted to tell them: your way is a fruitless one; the greatest who has walked it in the end has seen through its fruitlessness. Recognize what he has seen through, and you will acquire a feeling for a new way. Andreae wanted to place Christian Rosenkreutz's spiritual path as the legacy of the spiritual research of the fifteenth century in his time, in order to show that the initiative must be taken for a new kind of spiritual research. In the continuation of efforts, as they began with Johann Valentin Andreae, the spiritual researcher still stands in them, who understands the signs of his time. He encounters the strongest resistance from those spiritual seekers who want to pave the way into the supersensible world by renewing or reviving old spiritual traditions.

Andreae speaks in delicate terms of the insights that must arise from humanity's contemplative consciousness in the epoch that began in the mid-fifteenth century. Christian Rosenkreutz advances to a great globe, through which the dependence of earthly events on extraterrestrial, cosmic impulses penetrates his soul. This marks the first glimpse of a “cosmology” that has its beginning with the Copernican view of the world, but which sees in it only a beginning that can only give what is valid for the sensory world. In the spirit of this beginning, the more recent scientific conception continues to research to this day. In its world picture, it sees the earth surrounded by “heavenly processes”, which it only wants to grasp with intellectual concepts. In the terrestrial area itself, it seeks the forces for the essential processes of the earth event. When it examines the conditions under which the germ for a new being arises in a mother being, it looks only at the forces that can be found in the hereditary current of the earthly ancestors. She is not aware that in the formation of the germ the “heavenly surroundings” of the earth are at work in the earthly process, that in the mother being is only the place where the extraterrestrial cosmos develops the germ. This way of thinking seeks the causes of historical events exclusively in the facts that preceded these events in earthly life. It does not look up to the extraterrestrial impulses that fertilize earthly facts, so that the events of one epoch give rise to those of the next. In this way of thinking, only the inanimate earthly processes are influenced by the extraterrestrial. For Christian Rosenkreutz, the prospect of an organic, spiritual “celestial science” opens up, which can no longer have anything in common with the kind of ancient astrology that rests on the same foundations for the supersensible as Copernicanism does for the sensual.

One can see how Andreae treats imaginative life quite appropriately in the “Chymical Wedding”. Everything that comes to him from Christian Rosenkreutz as revealed knowledge, without the intervention of his own will, is brought to him by forces that find their representation in images of the feminine. The path that the spirit-seeker's own will paves for itself is illustrated by images of guiding boys, by the masculine. Whether man is a woman or a man in the sense of the senses, the masculine and the feminine are at work in him as polar opposites. It is from this point of view that Andreae characterizes. The relationship between the conceptual and the volitional is brought into the right relationship when this relationship is presented in images that recall the relationship of the masculine and the feminine in the sensory world. Again, to avoid misunderstandings, it should be noted that the imagination of the male and female should not be confused with the relationships of man and woman in the sensual world itself; just as little as the imagination of the animal form, which arises in the seeing consciousness, has to do with the animal nature to which popular Darwinism relates humanity. At present, many a person believes that they can penetrate the hidden secrets of existence through sexual physiology. A superficial acquaintance with genuine spiritual science could convince him that this endeavor does not lead to the secrets of existence, but away from them. And in any case, it is nonsense to bring the opinions of such personalities as Andreae into any kind of relationship with ideas that have something to do with sexual physiology.

Andreae clearly points out important things that he wants to include in his “Chymical Wedding” in his characterization of the “virgin”, to whom he brings the spiritual seeker into a particularly close relationship. This “Virgin” is the imaginative representation of a supersensible knowledge that, in contrast to the “seven liberal arts” acquired in the sensible field, must be taken from the spiritual realm. This “Virgin” gives, in a somewhat mysterious way, her name, which is “alchemy”. Andreae is thus saying that true alchemy is a different kind of science from those that arise from ordinary consciousness. In his opinion, the alchemist performs his operations with sensible substances and forces not because he wants to know the effect of these substances and forces in the realm of the senses, but because he wants to let a supersensible reality reveal itself through the sensual process. He wants to look through the sensual process to a supersensible one. What he does is different from the investigation of the ordinary natural scientist in the way he looks at the process.

One of the experiences of the “third day” is the complete overcoming of the belief that the way of judging to which man is accustomed in the sense world can also be a guiding force in the supersensible world in its unaltered form. In the society in which Christian Rosenkreutz dwells, questions are put which lead to a reluctance to decide on an answer. This is to draw attention to the limitations of ordinary judgment. Reality is richer than the possibility of decision, which lies in the mind trained on the sense world. After describing these experiences, Andreae introduces a “duchess”; he thus relates Christian Rosenkreutz to the supersensible kind of knowledge characterized by her, to theology. The effect of this knowledge on the human mind is characterized. It is of particular importance that after all these experiences, the spiritual seeker is still haunted by the dream in the following night, which shows him a door that he wants to open and which resists him for a long time. This image is reflected in his soul by the idea that he should not regard all his previous experiences as valuable for their immediate content, but only as a producer of a force that must submit to further efforts.

The “fourth day” is crucial for the spiritual seeker's position in the supersensible world. The spiritual seeker encounters the lion again. The old inscription that the lion presents to him essentially contains the challenge to approach the source from which inspiration flows from the spiritual world. The soul that wishes to remain in merely imaginative experience could, so to speak, only allow itself to be addressed by the spiritual world and use the strength of its own will to bring the revelations to its understanding. If the full power of the human 'I' is to enter the supersensible world, then this 'I' must carry its own consciousness into this world. The soul must rediscover the 'I' with its sensory experiences in the spiritual world. In the supersensible, so to speak, the memory of the way the sensory world is experienced must arise. Andreae presents this by placing a 'comedy' among the experiences of the 'fourth day', that is, an image of events in the sensory world. In beholding this image of the world of sense, which is gained within the supersensible realm, the “I” of the spiritual seeker is strengthened, so that he feels the close connection between the soul element that experiences in the supersensible and that which is active in the sense world through the body.

From this insight into Andreae's appropriate mode of presentation, it can be concluded that he seriously wanted to talk to his contemporaries about a path to the spiritual world that is appropriate to the epoch of human development that began in the sixteenth century, at the beginning of which the author of the “Chymische Hochzeit” (The Chemical Wedding) feels he is. The fact that the realization of what Andreae presented to his contemporaries as ideal demands initially faced severe obstacles is rooted in the devastating impact of the turmoil of the Thirty Years War and all that it brought to recent times. But progress in the evolution of mankind is only possible if personalities like Johann Valentin Andreae counter the inhibiting forces of a certain world current with truly progressive ones.

Whether Andreae succeeded in describing to Christian Rosenkreutz a spiritual seeker who, from the path he has taken from the spiritual experiences of a bygone era, can effectively point to the new one that corresponds to the new era, can only be asserted if it is possible to show that the last “days” of the “Chymical Wedding” report experiences that open up the perspective into this new period; if Christian Rosenkreutz can carry his “I” over into this period.

The most significant experience for Christian Rosenkreutz on the “fourth day” is his presentation before the kings and their subsequent beheading. The author of The Chemical Wedding interprets the nature of this experience through the symbols that stand on a small altar. In these symbols, the human soul can see its relationship to the universe and its becoming. In such symbols, the spiritual seekers have always sought to make the soul understand how its own essence lives in the essence of the cosmos. The book points to the thought content of the human being, which, in accordance with the human organization, is an influx of objective world-creative thoughts into the soul. In the “Little Light” it is indicated how the world-creative thoughts are effective in the universe as light ether and how they become knowledge-producing and enlightening in man. Cupid's intervention by blowing out the little light refers to the view of the spiritual seeker, who sees two opposing forces in the essentiality that underlies all existence and becoming: light and love. But this view can only be correctly understood if we see in physical light and in the love active within the physical world the materially effective revelations of the primal spiritual forces. Within the spiritual power of light, the creative thought element of the world lives out itself, and within love, the creative will element. A “sphere” is among the symbols to suggest how human experience is part of the all-experience. The clock speaks of the soul's interweaving with the passage of time in the cosmos, just as the sphere speaks of its interweaving with the cosmos's spatial existence. The Brünnlein, from which blood-red water flows, and the skull with the snake, point to the way in which birth and death are conceived by the spirit-recognizer in the universe. Valentin Andreae uses these symbols in his description in a similar way to how they have been used since time immemorial in the meeting places that served such societies, through which the people admitted to them were to be initiated into the secrets of life. By using them in this way, he shows that, in his opinion, they are imaginations that are truly based on the development of the human soul and that can inspire the soul to feel the secrets of life.

The question arises: What does the “King's Hall” represent, where Christian Rosenkreuz is led, and what does he experience through the presence of the kings and their decapitation? The symbols point to the answer. The spiritual seeker should see how he is grounded in the essence of the universe with his own being. He must see what is in him in the world, and what is in the world in himself. He can only do this if he recognizes in the things and processes of the world the images of that which is active and alive in him. He comes to see what is going on in him not only through images drawn from the soul, but he sees the experiences of this soul through images that represent the evolution of the universe. The kings present themselves before Christian Rosenkreutz to show him: thus live the powers of your soul within yourself; and the experiences of the kings reflect what must happen in the soul under certain conditions. Christian Rosenkreutz stands before the events in the “King's Hall” in such a way that his soul beholds itself in them. The beheading of the Magi is an event within the development of his own soul. He has come to the “King's Hall” with the powers of knowledge, which still only have the nature that the entity was able to acquire before entering the spiritual world. However, by becoming familiar with this world, these powers of knowledge gain experiences that also relate to the material world. Not only does the spiritual world shine before the soul, but the material world also reveals itself in forms that cannot be fully grasped by those who stop at the material level of observation. One of the things these experiences reveal is the ambivalence of the human condition. The forces that underlie physical growth also show themselves to be effective in phenomena that are usually described as psychological. The power of memory and the impulses that give rise to imagination prove to be based on physical conditions that are similar to those of growth. Only the forces of growth work in such a way that they are in an ascending development in human childhood and adolescence, that they then decline and, through their decay, cause death in themselves, while the forces that form memory and imagination assume the possibility of decaying within themselves from a very early point in life. In each waking period, these forces undergo the descending development that extends to decay, which the whole organism undergoes from the second half of life until death. In each sleep period, this decay is compensated for, and memory and imagination experience a resurrection. The soul organism is superimposed on the human total organism like a parasite on a host. The soul organism can provide the conditions for memory and imagination because, in the course of the day, it undergoes the path to death that the total organism takes in the course of life on earth. In this way, for the spiritual seeker, the soul organism becomes a metamorphosis of the total organism. The soul organism appears as that part of the whole organism which brings forth the forces that reveal life from birth to death in a more intense way, so that they provide the basis for the life of imagination. Into the daily decay of the soul organism's forces, the creative thought-being of the world pours in and thus becomes a life of imagination in the human being. The essential thing is that the spiritual seeker recognizes the material basis of the soul processes as the transformed general material processes of the whole organism. The paradoxical fact is that on the path to the spirit one first sees the material conditions of soul life. This fact can be the starting point for an attempt. One can stop at the discovery that the soul processes reveal themselves in their material form. Then, in seeking the spirit, one can be driven into a materialistic world view. But if one really sees through what is at hand, then the opposite occurs. One recognizes in the material basis of the soul life the effective spiritual powers that reveal themselves through the material formations, and thus prepares the possibility of also recognizing the underlying spirit in the entire organism and its course of life.

Christian Rosenkreutz is thus confronted with the important experience that an alchemy taking place in the natural process reveals to him. The material processes of the whole organism are transformed before his spiritual eye. They become such that the soul processes shine through them like the light that reveals itself in the external process of combustion. But these soul processes also show him their limits. They are processes that correspond to what leads to death in the whole organism. Christian Rosenkreuz is led before the “kings” of his own soul being, before his powers of knowledge. They appear to him as that which the whole organism metamorphoses out of itself. But the life forces of growth are only transformed into powers of knowledge by absorbing death into themselves. And therefore they can only carry the knowledge of what is dead within them. Death is integrated into all processes of nature in that the inanimate lives in everything. The ordinary process of knowledge is directed only towards this inanimate. This process grasps the inorganic because it is dead; but it only grasps the plant and every living thing to the extent that they are tinged with the inanimate. Every plant contains inorganic processes in addition to what it is as a living being. These grasp the powers of knowledge in the ordinary view; they do not grasp the living. This only becomes visible insofar as it presents itself in the inanimate. Christian Rosenkreutz observes the death of his “soul kings”, his powers of knowledge, as they arise from the metamorphosis of the material forces of the whole organism, without the human being passing from natural alchemy to artificial alchemy. This must consist in man's giving his powers of knowledge a character within the soul that they do not have through mere organic developmental processes. What is essential in the ascending growth, what death has not yet gnawed at, must be awakened in the powers of knowledge. The natural alchemy must be continued.

This continuation of natural alchemy forms the fifth day's work of the “Chymical Wedding”. The spiritual seeker must penetrate with insight into the processes that nature brings about in bringing forth growing life. And he must introduce this natural creation into the powers of knowledge, without allowing death to prevail in the transition from the processes of growth to the processes of the soul. He receives the powers of knowledge from nature as dead entities; he must give them life by giving them what nature has taken from them when she has carried out the alchemical transformation into powers of knowledge with them. When he sets out on such a project, temptation draws near to him. He must descend into the sphere in which Nature works, conjuring up life out of that which, by its very nature, strives towards death, through the power of love. In doing so, he exposes himself to the danger of his vision being seized by the instincts that prevail in the lower realm of matter. He must come to know how an element akin to love lives in matter, which is imprinted with death, and which underlies every renewal of life. This process of the soul, exposed to temptation, is meaningfully described by Andreae in that he lets Cupid drive Christian Rosenkreutz before Venus. And it is clearly indicated how the characterized spiritual seeker is not held back from his further path by temptation, not only through his own soul power, but through the rule of other powers. If Christian Rosenkreutz had only to walk his own path of knowledge, he could also conclude with temptation. That this is not the case points to what Andreae wants to describe. Christian Rosenkreutz is to point the way from a past epoch to a dawning one with his spiritual path. It is the forces at work in the course of time that help him to permeate his “I” with the powers of knowledge that correspond to the new era. In this way he can begin the ascent to the “Tower” by taking part in the alchemical process by which the dead powers of knowledge experience their resurrection. Thus on this ascent he has the strength to hear the siren song of love without falling prey to its temptations. He must allow himself to be influenced by the spiritual elemental force of love; he must not allow himself to be misled by its manifestation in the sensual realm. In the Tower of Olympi, the dead forces of knowledge are brought into line with the impulses that in the human organism only come into play in growth processes. It is pointed out how Christian Rosenkreutz is allowed to participate in this process because his soul development is to take place in the sense of the changing temporal forces. He goes out into the garden while he should be sleeping, looks up at the starry sky and says to himself: “Because I had a good opportunity to reflect more deeply on astronomy, I found that on this particular night such a conjunction of the planets is taking place, the like of which cannot soon be observed elsewhere.”

In the experiences of the sixth day, the imaginations are described in detail, which bring to life in the soul of Christian Rosenkreutz how the dead powers of knowledge, which the organism develops in the ordinary course of its life, are transformed into the powers of supersensible insight. Each of these imaginations corresponds to an experience that the soul undergoes in relation to its own powers when it experiences how that which previously could only penetrate into itself with the dead becomes capable of awakening living knowledge within itself. Another spiritual seeker would describe the individual images in a different way from Andreae. But what matters is not the content of the individual images, but the fact that the transformation of the soul forces takes place in the human being by having the process of such images as a reflection of this transformation in a sequence of imaginations.

In The Chymical Wedding Christian Rosenkreutz is portrayed as the spiritual seeker who senses the approach of the age in which humanity will direct its gaze at natural processes differently than in the one ending with the fifteenth century, in which humanity no longer, when observing nature, , in this observation itself the spiritual content of natural things and natural processes, in which it can come to a denial of the spiritual world if it does not consider a path of knowledge possible by which one can see through the material basis of the soul life and yet still absorb the essence of the spirit into knowledge. To be able to do this, one must be able to spread the spiritual light over this material basis. One must be able to see how nature proceeds by shaping her forces of activity into a soul organism through which the dead is revealed, in order then to divine from the nature of nature itself the secret of how spirit can be juxtaposed to spirit when nature's creative activity is directed towards the awakening of the dead powers of knowledge to a higher life. In this way, knowledge is developed that is placed in reality as spiritual knowledge. For such knowledge is a further sprout on the living being of the world; through it, the evolution of reality continues, which prevails from the very beginning of existence up to the life of man. Only that which is present in nature in a germinal state and is retained in the working of nature itself at the point where, in the metamorphosis of existence, the powers of cognition are to develop for the dead, is developed as higher powers of cognition. That such a continuation of natural activity beyond what it itself achieves in human organization leads out of reality and into the formless is not an objection that will be raised by anyone who understands the development of nature itself. For this consists everywhere in hindering the progress of the growth forces at certain points, in order to bring about the revelations of the infinite possibilities of form at certain stages of existence. In the same way, a formative potential is also held within the human organization. But just as such a potential is held within the green leaf of the plant, and yet the formative forces of plant growth then go beyond this form in order to bring forth the green leaf in the colored petal at a higher level, so too can the human being progress from the form of his powers of knowledge, which are directed towards the dead, to a higher level of these powers. He experiences the reality of this progression by becoming aware within himself of how he thereby takes up the soul organ in order to grasp the spirit in its supersensible revelation, just as the transformation of the green leaf into the colored floral organ of the plant prepares the ability that is realized in the formation of the fruit.

After the completion of the art-alchemical process, Christian Rosenkreutz was appointed “Knight of the Golden Stone”. One would have to go into great detail in a purely historical account if one wanted to point out the name “güldener Stein” and its use from the relevant serious and the far more fraudulent literature. That is not the intention of this essay. However, it is possible to point out what can be gained from a study of this literature as a result of this use. Those serious personalities who have used the name wanted to use it to point to something in which dead stone nature can be viewed in such a way that its connection with living becoming is recognized. The serious alchemist believed that artificial natural processes could be brought about, in which dead, stony matter is used, but in which, if they are properly observed, something of what happens when nature itself weaves the dead into the living becoming can be recognized. By observing very specific processes in the dead, the aim was to grasp the traces of creative natural activity and thus the essence of the spirit that prevails in the phenomena. The symbol for the dead, recognized as a manifestation of the spirit, is the “golden stone”. Anyone who examines a corpse in its immediate present essence becomes aware of how the dead is incorporated into the general process of nature. But the formation of the corpse contradicts this general process of nature. This formation could only be a result of spiritual life. The general process of nature must destroy what has been formed by spiritual life. The Alchemist is of the opinion that ordinary human knowledge of nature as a whole involves something of which it only grasps as much as is present in a corpse. A higher knowledge should be found for natural phenomena, which relates to them as spiritual life does to a corpse. This striving is for the “güldenen Stein” (the golden stone). Andreae speaks of this symbol in such a way that one can see that he believes that only someone who has gone through the experiences of the six days he describes can grasp how to proceed with the “güldenen Stein”. He wishes to intimate that anyone who speaks of this symbol without knowing the nature of the transformation of the powers of knowledge can only have a mirage in mind. He wishes to portray Christian Rosenkreuz as a personality who can legitimately speak about something that many speak about without authorization. He wishes to defend the truth against the false talk about the search for the spiritual world.

Christian Rosenkreuz and his comrades, after they have become the true workers with the “golden stone,” receive a symbol with the two sayings: “Art is the handmaid of nature” and “Nature is the daughter of time.” In the spirit of these guiding principles they are to work out of their spiritual knowledge. The experiences of the six days can be summarized in these sentences. Nature reveals her secrets to him who, through his art, is able to continue her work. But this continuation cannot succeed for anyone who, for his art, has not first eavesdropped on her in the sense of her will, who has not recognized how her revelations come about through her infinite possibilities of development being born out of the womb of time in finite forms.

The relationship in which Christian Rosenkreutz is installed as king on the seventh day characterizes how the spiritual seeker now stands in relation to his transformed cognitive abilities. Attention is drawn to the fact that he himself gave birth to them as the “Father”. And his relationship to the “first gatekeeper” also appears as such to a part of his own self, namely to the one who, before the transformation of his powers of knowledge as the “Astrologus”, was indeed in search of the laws but who was not equal to the temptation that arises when the spiritual seeker comes to a point such as that at which Christian Rosenkreutz found himself at the beginning of the fifth day when he stood before Venus. He who succumbs to this temptation cannot enter the spiritual world. He knows too much to be completely removed from it, but he cannot enter either. He must stand guard before the gate until another comes who succumbs to the same temptation. Christian Rosenkreutz initially believes that he has succumbed to it and is therefore condemned to take over the office of the guard. But this guardian is, after all, a part of his own self; and by surveying this part with his transformed self, he has the opportunity to overcome it. He becomes the guardian of his own soul life; but this office of guardian does not prevent him from establishing his free relationship with the spiritual world.

Christian Rosenkreutz has become a knower of the spirit through the experiences of the seven days, and he is allowed to work in the world through the power that has come to his soul from these experiences. What he and his companions accomplish in their outer life will flow from the spirit from which the works of nature itself flow. Through their work, they will bring harmony into human life, which will be a reflection of the harmony at work in nature, overcoming the opposing disharmonies. The presence of such people in the social order should be a continually active cause for maintaining the health of life in the social order itself. Valentin Andreae points to Christian Rosenkreuz and his companions as an answer to those who ask: What are the best laws for the coexistence of people on earth? Andreae answers: Not what one expresses in thoughts, that it should happen in one way or another, can regulate this coexistence, but what people can say who strive to live in the spirit that wants to express itself through existence.

In five sentences, what guides souls that want to work in the sense of Christian Rosenkreutz in human life is summarized. It should be far from them to think in a different spirit than the one that is revealed in the work of nature, and they should find the human work by becoming the continuers of the works of nature. They should not place their work in the service of human desires, but should make these desires mediators of the works of the spirit. They should serve people lovingly so that the active spirit may be revealed in the relationship between people. They should not be deterred in their pursuit of the value that the spirit can give to all human work by anything that the world can give them in terms of value. They should not fall into the error of mistaking the physical for the spiritual, like bad alchemists. Such people believe that a physical means of prolonging life or something similar is a supreme good, and forget that the physical has value only as long as it proves itself through its existence as the rightful revealer of the spiritual that underlies it.

At the end of his description of the “Chymical Wedding”, Andreae hints at how Christian Rosenkreutz “came home”. In all the externals of the world he is the same as he was before his experiences. His new situation in life differs from the old one only in that from now on he will carry his “higher self” within him as the ruler of his consciousness, and that what he will accomplish can become what this “higher self” may work through him. The transition from the last experiences of the seventh day to the finding of oneself in the familiar surroundings is no longer described. “Here about two quart of leaves are missing.” One might imagine that there are people who would be particularly curious about what should have been on these missing pages. Well, it is that which can only be experienced by those who know the nature of the transformation of the soul as their own individual experience. Such a person knows that everything that leads to this experience has a general human significance that is shared as one shares the experiences of a journey. The reception of the experience by the ordinary person, on the other hand, is something very personal, is also different for each person and cannot be understood by anyone in the same way as by the person who has experienced it. The fact that Valentin Andreae omitted the description of this transition to the familiar situation can be taken as further proof that the “Chymische Hochzeit” expresses true connoisseurship of what is to be described.

The preceding remarks are an attempt to characterize what is expressed in the “Chemical Wedding”, merely from such a consideration of its content as it arises from the author of this presentation. The judgment should be substantiated that the writing published by Andreae should point in the direction that one should follow if one wanted to know something about the true character of a higher kind of knowledge. And as a fact, these remarks would like to show that the special kind of spirit knowledge that has been demanded since the fifteenth century is described in the “Chymical Wedding”. For anyone who understands the content of this writing in the same way as the author of this exposition, it is an historical account of a spiritual current in Europe that goes back to the fifteenth century and is directed towards gaining knowledge about a context of things that lies behind the external phenomena of the world.

There is, however, a fairly extensive literature on the effectiveness of Johann Valentin Andreae, in which the question is discussed whether the writings published by him can be considered real proof of the existence of such a spiritual current. In these writings, this current is presented as the Rosicrucianism. Some investigators are of the opinion that Andreae was only indulging in a literary joke with his Rosicrucian writings, intended to ridicule the dreamers who show themselves wherever higher knowledge is spoken of in a secretive way. Rosicrucianism would then be a fantasy of Andreae's, intended to mock the ravings of giddy or fraudulent mystics. The author of these remarks does not believe that he should approach his readers with much of what has been said in this direction against the seriousness of Andreae's intentions, because he believes that a proper consideration of the content of the “Chymical Wedding” makes it possible to form a sufficiently well-founded view of what is intended by it. Certificates taken from a field outside this content cannot change this view. Those who believe that inner reasons can be recognized in their full weight hold that external documents should be evaluated according to these reasons, and not the inner according to the outer. If, therefore, these remarks are made outside of the purely historical literature on Rosicrucianism, this is not intended as a negative judgment of historical research itself. It is only meant to indicate that the point of view adopted here makes a detailed discussion of Rosicrucian literature unnecessary. Only a few more remarks should be added. It is well known that the manuscript of the “Chymische Hochzeit” was completed as early as 1603. It was not published until 1616, after Andreae had published the other Rosicrucian writing “Fama Fraternitatis R. C.” in 1614. This writing, above all, has given rise to the belief that Andreae only spoke in jest of the existence of a Rosicrucian society. This belief is supported by the fact that Andreae himself subsequently referred to Rosicrucianism as something he would not want to advocate. Some of his later writings and notes in letters, which he made, cannot be interpreted in any other way than that he only wanted to tell a tale about such a school of thought in order to “fool” the curious and enthusiastic. However, in the exploitation of such testimonies, it is usually disregarded what misunderstandings writings like those published by Andreae are subject to. What he himself later said about them can only be correctly judged when one considers that he was compelled to speak after opponents had appeared who heretically denounced the designated school of thought in the worst possible way, that “followers” had appeared who were visionaries or alchemist swindlers, and who distorted everything that was meant by Rosicrucianism. But even if one takes all this into account, if one wanted to assume that Andreae, who later showed himself to be a more than pietistic writer, soon after the appearance of the Rosicrucian writings had a certain shyness about being considered the confessor of what was expressed in these writings, one cannot gain a sufficiently well-founded view of this personality's relationship to Rosicrucianism through such considerations. Yes, even if one wanted to go so far as to deny Andreae's authorship of the “Fama”, one would not want to do so with respect to the “Chemical Wedding” for historical reasons.

The matter must also be considered from another historical point of view. The “Fama Fraternitatis” was published in 1614. Let us leave open for the moment whether Andreae intended this writing to address serious readers, in order to speak to them of the school of thought known as Rosicrucianism. But two years after the publication of the “Fama”, the “Chymical Wedding” was published, which had already been completed thirteen years earlier. In 1603, Andreae was still a very young man (seventeen years old). Did he, as such, already have the maturity of mind to play a prank on the starry-eyed enthusiasts of his time by mocking them with a construct of his imagination in the form of Rosicrucianism? And even if he was willing to speak of a Rosicrucianism that he seriously believed in in the “Fama,” which, incidentally, had already been read in manuscript form in Tyrol in 1610, how did he, as a very young man, come to write the “Chymische Hochzeit,” the document that he then published two years after the “Fama” as a message about the true Rosicrucianism? The questions regarding Andreae seem to become so entangled that it becomes difficult to find a purely historical solution. One could hardly object to a mere historical researcher who tried to make credible that Andreae had found the manuscript of the “Chymische Hochzeit” and the “Fama” - perhaps in the possession of his family - and had published them in his youth for some reason, but later wanted nothing to do with the school of thought expressed in them. But if this were a fact, why did Andreae not simply make it known?

From a spiritual scientific point of view, one can come to a completely different conclusion. From Andreae's own judgment and maturity at the time he wrote the “Chymical Wedding”, one does not need to deduce its content. In terms of content, this writing proves to be one that was written out of intuition. Such a work can be written by people who are predisposed to do so, even if their own judgment and life experience do not speak into what is written down. And yet what is written down can still be a message from a reality. The content of the “Chymical Wedding” demands to be understood as a message about a real spiritual current in the sense indicated here. The assumption that Valentine Andreae wrote it intuitively throws light on the position he later took up to Rosicrucianism. As a young man he was predisposed to give a picture of this spiritual current without his own mode of cognition playing a part in it. But this mode of cognition developed in the later pietistic theologian Andreae. The intuitive side of his nature receded in his soul. He himself later philosophized about what he wrote in his youth. He does this as early as 1619 in his writing 'Turris Babel'. The connection between the later Andreae and the intuitive writer of his youth did not come clearly before his soul. If Andreae's attitude towards the subject-matter of the “Chymical Wedding” is considered in the light just indicated, one is compelled to consider the contents of this writing without reference to what its author himself expressed at any time about his relation to Rosicrucianism. Whatever of this spiritual current could reveal itself at Andreae's time, revealed itself through a personality suited for the purpose. Those who are convinced from the outset that it is impossible for the spiritual life active in world phenomena to be revealed in this way will indeed have to reject what is said here. But there could also be people who, without starting from superstitious prejudices, come to the conviction of such a form of revelation precisely through calm consideration of the “Andreae case”.

Introductory words from Roman Boos: Dear attendees, the appearance of a number of scientifically working personalities is of course not intended to present anything firm, final, or conclusively formulated and to submit it to public discussion. Rather, these lectures are intended to show the direction in which the individual subject areas can be developed what is represented here from the Goetheanum as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science and what has been presented to the public for some time now in its artistic effects in numerous eurythmy performances and in the construction of the Goetheanum as an architectural work. In all modesty, however, we believe that our lectures, which are only intended as a beginning, can compete with what is represented today in the circles of the academies and universities.

For anyone who has studied in any faculty with a living soul must have become more and more aware in recent times of how the purely material, the purely quantitative, loads a person with a multitude of facts, so that one can no longer stand up to it, not only in a personal sense, but absolutely in a spiritual sense. This means that the human being, with his spiritual powers, is less and less able to really

21 enormous material is brought to him, really to cope with. And because in anthroposophy the view is directed to the human being, and not just to the human being himself, but to the human being as a point within the whole of reality, what lies within the realities themselves can express itself, but in such a way that these realities do not confront him only quantitatively, weighing on him and oppressing him, but so that, by expressing themselves in man himself, the union of man with the spiritual can also take place and thus also with objective reality.

The opportunity will be given here for a debate from within the circle of scientific workers. In the form of debates, questions and so on, the opportunity is offered to further develop one or other of the topics touched upon in the lectures. For anyone approaching scientific movements with the attitude from which the entire anthroposophical movement builds its works will see a major task in cleansing the field of science and social life from the polemical spirit, which in the field of science takes the form of and in the social life as throwing hand grenades and setting machine guns going; he will see the main task as being the necessity to further expand and deepen the problems, as is to be done here.

And we also hope that at the scientific lectures, Dr. Steiner will be able to add some more to what is given by the experts.

We would also like to ask you to initially only raise questions that are related to today's lecture topic, and to come back to special cases in the following scientific lectures.

The topics of the specialist lectures are:

on March 25, 1920: Dr. Carl Unger on “Anthroposophy and the Epistemological Foundations of Natural Science”

March 26, 1920: Dr. Friedrich Husemann on “Weltanschauung, Nervousness and Spiritual Science”

March 27, 1920: Dr. Rudolf Steiner on “The World Picture of Modern Science”

on March 29, 1920: Dr. Walter Johannes Stein on “Anthroposophy and Physiology”,

on March 30, 1920: Dr. Eugen Kolisko on “Anthroposophy and Chemistry”

on 31 March 1920: E.A.Karl Stockmeyer on “Anthroposophy and Physics”

on 1 April 1920: Dr. Oskar Schmiedel on “Anthroposophy and the Theory of Colors”

on April 6, 1920: Dr. Roman Boos on “Anthroposophy and Jurisprudence”

on April 7, 1920: Dr. Rudolf Steiner on “Hygiene as a Social Question”

Rudolf Steiner: Dearly beloved attendees! This lecture today is intended to serve as a kind of introduction to the following eight lectures, which arise in large part from a circle of friends who have gathered here during this time with a very specific scientific goal. Lectures will be given on the most diverse scientific subjects, from the fields of epistemology and physiology; biological questions will be addressed; physics and chemistry will be discussed, and finally, I would like to point out the problem of hygiene as a sociological problem. Today, the outside world often judges, albeit superficially, that in all that is presented here through the spiritual current of which the Goetheanum is a representative, on the one hand it is a sect and on the other a scientific dilettantism. These lectures should at least partly draw attention to the fact that both are very much mistaken about what is presented here. There is neither scientific dilettantism nor religious sectarianism.

Proof of this is that a circle of serious-minded physicians has come together here in these weeks, and that they have been joined by a small circle of such personalities who are inclined to build bridges from medical science to other branches of life. This group has come together here out of the feeling that something like medical life today needs real new impetus; they have come together with the aim of receiving and giving impulses for this new impetus. What is being presented here, I do not want to say as a medical course, but as a course for doctors, that implies that it is about serious striving, about serious willpower in the face of the great tasks of our time. This course follows on from two courses that I have already held in connection with the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, about the necessary new foundation of the physical sciences. All this will be sufficient proof, even for those who, after superficial evaluation, express the opinion just mentioned, that here we are looking at the great, serious tasks of our time, and that we are seeking to determine what is necessary to impact the spiritual culture and thus the whole culture of the present and the near future, based on what these serious, great tasks dictate. If we look at the terrible events of recent years with the aim of ascertaining, through an unprejudiced judgment, how these terrible events are connected with aberrations of the human consciousness, then we will come away from much of what some, I might say light-heartedly, consider to be sufficient for a renewal of life.

For example, how often is the judgment pronounced today that, in the face of what is swirling in time, what is emerging as chaos in time, care must be taken to broaden knowledge, to broaden understanding. And in many circles it is emphasized on all possible occasions that something is missing in our time; on all possible occasions it is emphasized that knowledge must be spread, let us say through adult education centers or similar institutions. The spiritual scientific worldview movement, for which the Goetheanum is the representative here, cannot readily agree with these assessments, which are being made in this direction. For, my dear attendees, in the face of such judgments, the question arises: Do we actually already have a science that is effective in the future, a science that is capable of intervening in life? Do we have something to carry it into the widest circles in adult education centers?

Based on truly profound judgment, those who are the supporters of the spiritual science practiced here are convinced that, before anything else, a renewal of scientific life itself is needed, an infusion of new elements into scientific life, before we can think of spreading knowledge to the widest circles, for example through adult education centers or the like. We are not thinking here merely of a popularization of present-day science, but rather that an anthroposophically oriented worldview must think in terms of a real renewal of these present-day sciences, based on an understanding of the state of these sciences. Naturally, in this introductory lecture, I can only sketch out the task for these evenings. And so I would like to first point out the two main directions of current scientific endeavor, in order to show how these present sciences actually relate to life.

On the one hand, we have everything that can be characterized by saying that it is scientific in the natural scientific sense; we have to refer to everything that occurs in the field of natural science. In speaking about this field here, I must indeed emphasize again and again that I am not starting from a superficial polemic against the current direction of natural science, but that, on the contrary, because I fully recognize everything that natural science has achieved in the course of the 19th century and into our days, because I must admire the great progress of natural science in itself and of the most diverse branches of human technology, it is precisely out of this admiration that I come to think differently about the further course of natural science than it has developed into our days.

On the other hand, we have the historical sciences with all that belongs to them, which also includes, for example, jurisprudence. You know, my dear audience, that natural science has increasingly come to focus on observing external facts and following experiments. They know that there was a strong endeavor, especially in the 19th century, to connect the enormous wealth of facts that have emerged through observation and experimentation with each other through great ideas and to strive towards certain so-called laws of nature. But the one who can really understand this whole scientific life knows that today, in the most diverse fields – in the field of physics, chemistry, biology – we are faced with the most incisive facts and that, with what is commonly known as science, what the facts tell us, we are not in a position to penetrate in any way into the essence of that which obviously must be behind it, yes, that the facts, I would say, stun us, that we cannot keep up with the abundance of facts using scientific methods. The outward course of science actually confirms this.

Even if very few people still pay attention to this today, it must be said that the last twenty years have actually brought about the greatest conceivable revolution in the field of physics. Ideas that were still considered unshakable thirty years ago have now been thoroughly revolutionized. One need only mention the name Einstein or the name Lorentz, the Dutch physicist, and by mentioning these names one can point to a whole range of facts and discussions that have revolutionized and shaken physics as it was just thirty years ago. Of course, I cannot go into the details here. But the fact that physics has been revolutionized, which is well known in certain circles, must be pointed out. Now, however, one can say: While, for example, something as significant as the revolution of the old concept of mass and matter through the newer radiation theory of electricity is at hand, our scientific ways of thinking cannot cope with what has actually been presented to man through the abundance of experiments. From the observation of radiant matter in a glass vacuum, it could be seen that the same properties that were previously attributed to matter, for example a certain speed and acceleration, must now be attributed to radiant electricity; so, so to speak, the concept of matter has been lost. It became clear from the abundance of experiments that nothing could be put in the place of the old concept of matter; and from Einstein's theory of relativity, with its terribly cold abstractions, nothing can be gained that resembles a real conception of what one is actually dealing with in external nature.

All this is said only to point out how the works have come into a flow that has developed in such a way that there is a wealth of observed and experimental material that cannot be mastered by our modes of representation. I would like to say that the development of science has shown that, although we can look at nature on the surface in the modes of perception that have been preserved from the past, we are not able to interpret what nature presents to us today in countless phenomena in the form of rays. A peculiar method has crept into physics in recent times. It is called the statistical method. Whereas in the past it was believed that precisely formulated natural laws could be arrived at by means of exact measurement, observation or experimentation, today we work very much with what is really similar to that statistical method, which resorts to probability calculation, which we find applied when we set up insurance companies, for example. There we also make assumptions, for example, that of the kind that so many of a certain number of people of a certain age have inevitably died after a certain number of years. With these statistical methods – which are based on probability theory and are similar to the methods of modern physics – one can get along quite well if, for example, one has to arrange something like life insurance; everything is correct and one can rely on this method. But the essential defect of the method is that it says nothing about the nature of that for which the method is used – which is clear from the fact that no one will believe that they must really die in the year that was calculated as their year of death using probability calculations and statistical methods. Such methods serve to summarize the facts, and for a certain action based on statistics, but they say nothing for penetrating into any essence. Thus, in the external, scientific field, we are, as it were, condemned to remain on the surface of things.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is most evident when this scientific method is to be applied in the practical treatment of the sick person, when it is to be applied in medicine. And it is precisely because of the dissatisfaction that arises today from the scientific basis of medicine that an arrangement such as the course for doctors that is taking place here in these weeks has been created. When approaching the sick person, one cannot subject him to treatment without really recognizing his nature. The physical and scientific methods must also be put to the test when approaching the human being. And all that can be deplored about medicine and its effects today is connected with the inadequate scientific foundation of our present-day sciences. This is one of the tasks of anthroposophy in relation to the present-day sciences. It has the task of finding real scientific methods through which the abundance of facts that are available to us today can really be seen through in such a way that we can penetrate through these facts into the essence of what surrounds us in the world.

Something very similar is the case with historical science. While at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century we still have attempts to observe human life in such a way that both the natural course of events in the development of the human race and that which comes from within the human being in a soul-spiritual way are taken as a basis – while At the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, we have studies such as Herder's “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humanity”. During the 19th century, what historical science is becomes more and more abstract and abstract, more and more intellectual and intellectual. We see how those who cannot profess a certain materialism in history speak of ideas that are supposed to work in history. As if abstract ideas could be any kind of real agent that carries historical development! As if ideas were not initially something merely passive! Because our modes of thought are incapable of penetrating through observation or the facts provided by experimentation to the basis of nature, we remain, I would say, merely on the surface of what takes place in human life with our modes of thought. We are unable to connect what we grasp through our thoughts of the people acting in history or of the events occurring in history with the great forces that carry history.

We see, and this is particularly interesting, how in the 19th century, for example, such minds as Herman Grimm's appear. He is really very characteristic of the historical method of the 19th century. There is perhaps nothing that speaks about historical phenomena in such a wonderfully, deeply satisfying way as Herman Grimm does in his treatises, for example on Goethe's “Tasso” or on Goethe's “Iphigenia”. There is something there that is already in the realm of human spiritual creation. In this case Herman Grimm can set about something that can be grasped by thought because it has already been raised to the level of thought. But when Herman Grimm wants to go further, when he wants to go into reality, when he does not just want to look at something like Goethe's works “Tasso” or “Iphigenia”, but when he wants to present Goethe himself as a real human personality Herman Grimm also wrote a book about Goethe. One sees that the whole Goethe whom he describes is actually a kind of shadow figure and nowhere is there the possibility of penetrating the full intensity of the real. What Herder still attempted, namely to grasp thoughts that are historical and at the same time embrace nature, was no longer possible with the historical method of the 19th century. These thoughts are too thin to penetrate reality from a historical point of view. And so we have a historical science that cannot get out of thought, remains in thought, and cannot penetrate from thought into reality.

Here again, for anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, there is the necessity not only to grasp what the soul experiences in abstract thoughts, but to grasp it in such a way that the forces that really underlie the external reality are seen in these soul experiences. On the one hand, we must try to understand nature in such a way that we can apply our understanding to the human being – so that we can understand the human being, as we do in the art of medicine or in the art of education, and on the other hand, we must try not to get stuck in the abstract not to get stuck in abstract thoughts and ideas of history, but to penetrate to such a living inner soul life that we can truly grasp what has happened historically – an understanding so saturated with reality that it in turn is close to natural occurrence, to natural becoming.

Just as the inadequacy of the natural-scientific basis has become apparent in medicine, so too has the inadequacy of the historical method in social life. What has caused so-called historical materialism, the Marxist view, to begin to be put into practice in our time, to the misery of humanity in this much-tried Europe? What has caused people to arise who declare everything spiritual, everything legal, everything moral, and so on, to be an ideology, and see reality solely and exclusively in the economic production process? What has caused this? It has caused the historical methods of the 19th century to be incapable of grasping this reality. The historians or those who wanted to be historians in any field have remained with abstractions that have nothing to do with reality. And social democracy, meanwhile, has developed for itself what was not offered to it by the leading circles, and it did so according to what it alone knew something about: the economic process. The fact that we have a materialistic foundation of history and today a policy of economic science that is ruining Europe is the original sin of non-existent historical thinking. The facts are serious today, and only those who refuse to see their gravity can deny that it is necessary to strive for greater depth in both the natural and historical sciences and to work towards a new foundation.

This is what should be seen through within the spiritual current, for which this building, the Goetheanum, is the representative, so that - this should be explained here in all modesty - so that a science can arise that can really step out into our elementary schools, that can really flow into life. And one would like that not only the intellectual impulses of people of the present would be seized by these efforts, one would like that above all the hearts of people of the present could be there and feel how deeply connected all the social misery of our time, all the decline, the chaos of our time is with the aberrations present in the striving for knowledge and in the scientific striving of our time, which must be healed.

What I have just characterized should be contrasted with what can be gained from the spiritual scientific method for the natural scientific direction and for the historical direction. And I do not want to speak in abstractions, but I would like to point out two facts, which should only serve as examples of what is being sought here. The first example is taken from the field of natural science. It is intended to show the point where the scientific foundation of our scientific endeavor becomes insufficient when confronted with the concepts of the human being. Today, if you look around you at the scientific endeavor of the present, you can repeatedly find an insight into the human heart. This view of the human heart has been developed directly from the natural scientific basis of life. Just as mechanics, physics, chemistry and biology are today, so is our view of the human heart, because we have a very specific chemistry, physics, biology and so on, because we have a specific natural scientific basis. What is this view of the human heart? Well, you find it characterized everywhere as follows: the human heart is a pump that pumps blood through the human organism in such a way that this blood washes away certain useless substances, exchanging them for others that it carries to certain places in the human organism. If today, even the slightest doubt is expressed to certain people that this human heart could be a very ordinary pump, that the human heart works in the middle and pumps blood out to the various parts of the body, then the people who have adopted scientific views today – I have experienced it – they become downright wild. And yet, my dear audience, here is the point where a recovery of the scientific foundation can bring about a complete reversal.

Here the spiritual scientific world view will have to show that the heart is not a pump, but that the heart in its activity is only the result of the self-regulating currents and interactions that occur in the human organism. Man is a dual being. Everything that, to put it schematically, lies below the heart and everything that lies above it is organized in fundamentally different ways. What drives the development of carbon is fundamentally different from what happens when carbon combines with oxygen to form carbonic acid. But the actual agent, the actual driving force, lies in the forces that interact from the lower human being and from the upper human being - from the upper and the lower. Just as positive and negative electricity want each other when there is an electrical charge, and just as an apparatus that would be connected to this charge of positive and negative electricity would carry out certain activities, so the human heart carries out activities as a result of the currents that are in the human organism. The human heart is not the pump of the human organism. Everything that the human heart does is purely the result of the inner life, of a certain current in the human organism. The opposite of popular belief is the case.

But with that, my dear audience, one points at the same time to a complete reversal of the science of the nature of man. For only by considering this great contrast between the upper and lower human being, in which the activity of the heart is harnessed and, as it were, expressed as mediation, only by considering this, are we able to bring the human being into the right contrast to the whole of the environment, to understand how the lower human being stands in a certain relationship to the outer world of solid, liquid and gaseous bodies, and also to the outer world of thermal phenomena, while everything in the upper human being that contrasts to some extent with the workings of the lower human being must be paralleled with light and with other etheric processes in the earthly and extra-terrestrial realm.

We will only learn to place the human being in the right way in the whole universe when we stop believing that the heart is the pump that pumps blood through the organism. In reality, the blood has an inner life, and in the congestion that occurs between the lower human being and the upper human being, the heart is so involved that the result of this congestion becomes apparent in the movement of the heart. In the movement of the heart, we basically have nothing other than where the upper human being and the lower human being touch and where, in certain unconscious regions, the activity of the lower human being is perceived by the upper human being. The heart is, so to speak, a sense organ within the human being. Just as the sense organs that lie outside are organs for mediating the outer experiences of the human being, so the heart is the organ that mediates the experiences of one's own being, albeit in the subconscious. With these things, I only want to suggest that something as essential as the heart teaching, which is suitable for reforming all medical thought, needs a thorough reform today. But that is only one example – it is an example of how cause and effect are almost confused today, I would say in all areas of nature observation.

My dear attendees! Spiritualists claim that they have photographed spirits. Photographing is an external process, and I do not want to dwell here on whether or not one can photograph spirits. But with no more right than the spiritualists claim that they have photographed ghosts, certain physicists today claim that they have photographed the configuration of atoms. Certainly, one can throw X-rays at crystals, one can make these X-rays reflect, the reflected rays interfere, and then photograph them, and one can claim to photograph the configuration of the atoms. The essential question is only: Are we really photographing the atomistic agents here, or are we photographing certain effects that come from the macrocosm and show up only at the points where we believe the atoms are present? It is essential everywhere to find ways of thinking and imagining that are able to go from appearances to the essence of things in the right way. Because scientific methods are so inadequate, they cannot suffice for application to the human being, whether in the field of medicine or in the social realm.

Thus we see that people who believe they have been trained in natural science are now setting about solving social problems, like Lenin and Trotsky. But the fact is that only a few individuals have studied what natural science establishes from its facts, but this is insufficient as conclusions, as results. As a rule, such people do not allow themselves to be drawn into discovering what one believes to know about things and what one believes to have discovered as laws, and then to actually test them against the individual facts. When someone tells you that he has photographed the configuration of atoms, such people do not think about the value of such a photograph. Of course, it is terribly impressive when one announces to the world in popular presentations: Atoms exist; they have even been photographed. - The layman naturally says: Well, how can anyone who is not a layman deny that atoms exist, which are the agents in all natural effects, when these atoms have even been photographed.

But the point is to have an insight into how something like this comes about. We suffer tremendously in the present from the fact that things are asserted as popular worldviews, monistic or otherwise, that consist in nothing more than in abstract summaries of all kinds of results, without going back to their real foundations. What do people present at monistic gatherings other than what they have read about in books or heard in lectures? Where is the opportunity to actually go into the reality of the things from which such results are actually drawn? Therefore, there is no possibility of a real overview of the implications of the results in this field. We are experiencing in today's science - when it develops into a world view and thereby believes itself to be very exact - that the processes that we experience in history are then used to calculate the processes that are supposed to have taken place on our earth over millions of years or that are supposed to have taken place millions of years ago. These calculations are always correct; for if, for example, one calculates how much debris the Niagara Falls deposited in a certain number of years, then one can, of course, calculate a great deal from such layer formations. But what is the actual method of calculation? The method of calculation is as follows: we observe the processes in the human stomach, say for five years, and then we calculate what these processes were like 10, 20 years ago, 150, 200, 300 years ago. We will get exact results – except that the person with this stomach and its processes obviously did not even exist as a physical human being 300 years ago! In this way, one can also calculate the changes in the human stomach and then the nature of the whole person in 10, 20, 30, 100, 200, 300 years – only then the person has long since died, and the whole calculation – which is completely correct as a calculation – has not the slightest value. The same value attaches to calculations that relate to the state of the earth millions of years ago or millions of years in the future, because they do not take into account whether the earth existed at that time or will still exist then. What use is it to know that after so many millions of years, when we, let us say, paint egg white on the wall and this will glow due to the changes in the earth, when the earth will no longer be there! Today, people still do not understand that some calculation or similar result can be absolutely correct, but that it cannot be applied to reality.

Two things are necessary today if one is to make a judgment: first, that the judgment is built on the basis of a correct logical method – the method of calculation is also a logical method – and second, that the judgment is also built on an appropriate insight into reality. A judgment must be both realistic and logical. The former is usually forgotten today, which is why the only logically correct judgments play such a large role in our ordinary scientific life, but under certain circumstances they have no application to reality. This is the concern of the spiritual current of which this Goetheanum is the representative: not only to have logically correct views, which can then also lead to errors, but to have realistic views, ones that really build a bridge between what lives in man as a world view and what develops outside as reality, for only such realistic views can be used for life. Only such realistic views can help our present life, which is drifting so much into chaos, to recover.

So I have shown you by one example – I could only show the one example today, but it could easily be multiplied – by the example of heart science, how necessary it is to strive for a science that is in line with reality, and how the spiritual current that is cultivated here in particular sets itself the serious task of working towards such a necessary reform of this science. I would also like to give an example of how to work towards the historical sciences. Using this example, I would like to show how a rudimentary scientific method, I would say a stunted scientific method, has simply been applied to the historical being, and how this has led to disastrous errors.

In the field of natural science, I would like to point out the so-called biogenetic law. I do not want to talk about the more or less limited validity of this law, but I want to treat it as a kind of hypothetical natural law. What does this biogenetic law state? It states that every higher animal creature, including man, during embryonic development, that is, during the development from conception to birth, briefly undergoes the forms that have been experienced in the development of the species. For example, the human embryo shows a fish-like form during one particular period, then other forms. These forms, the metamorphoses through which the embryo passes, are reminiscent of what has taken place in the developmental series in the history of the species, so that it has been able to come up to the human being through various forms. - This so-called biogenetic law has a certain limited significance. There is no doubt that ontogeny is a brief repetition of phylogeny, that individual development is a brief repetition of tribal development. But now attempts have been made to apply what has been found in the natural field to the historical field. It was believed that what lives in a later culture must, in a brief repetition, also show what lived in an earlier culture. So when a new people emerges somewhere, in its initial stages it must, as it were, pass through the stages of human development as they have been experienced so far, and then add a new one on top, just as the human being adds the mature life to the embryonic repetition of the tribal history. Not much has come of it if one wanted to apply this law, which was initially formulated purely abstractly for historical development and was modeled on a series of scientific observations, to life. I would like to say that life experiences do not actually confirm this law in the historical field in such a way that one can do anything with it in the face of reality.

On the other hand, the following emerges for the spiritual scientist's sharpened sense of observation. The essential thing is that the inner work that the spiritual scientist has to do in order to arrive at his modes of conception, and then to penetrate into nature in the way I have shown, sharpens his view of reality, his sense of observation for reality. This is how it turns out for this sharpened sense of observation: in the early stages of its development, the human being undergoes certain metamorphoses. One must only have an unbiased sense of what is going on in the early stages of human development. We have an important stage of life in human life: from birth to the change of teeth around the age of seven. The soul life of the human being manifests itself in a very specific way during this period, and with the change of teeth it undergoes a transformation. Until the change of teeth, the human being is in the epoch of his life where he is an imitative being who wants to imitate everything that is done in his environment, down to the movements, down to the formation of speech sounds, and who wants to imitate these things through inner forces. Up to the age of seven, he adapts so well to the human environment that he then, up to the next important stage in life, which is linked to the onset of sexual maturity, has the need to accept, on the basis of authority, that which he is supposed to believe. Then the whole organization of the human being changes again, and so does his soul life. And anyone with enough sense of observation will be able to notice how the human being changes even in his early twenties, or perhaps in his late twenties. Later on, what corresponds to this youthful transformation of the human being can only be observed by the keen sense of observation of the spiritual researcher. When a person has really undergone spiritual training, it becomes apparent that towards old age certain, I would say shadowy, transformations of the soul life occur. They only appear in hints, but one notices quite clearly: in the forties, at the end of the forties, one becomes a different person and at the end of the fifties one becomes yet another person. These metamorphoses occur in a shadowy, rudimentary way, as only hinted changes within, but anyone who can observe them can compare them with the hints that occur in embryonic life and that are repetitions of earlier physical forms that have been passed through in tribal development.

But one cannot simply transfer the scientific biogenetic law to history; instead of looking at the beginning of life, as the natural scientist must do, the historian is compelled to look at the end of life, at these shadowy, rudimentary transformations of the soul life. And just as for the natural man the beginning of life presents itself as a repetition of tribal history, so these rudimentary hints at the end of life turn out to be repetitions of what the human race has gone through on earth as a whole. We learn to understand that what is only rudimentarily present in our aging today was present in a pronounced sense in prehistoric man; we learn to understand that we can go back to a humanity that has undergone such transformations of the organic-mental life into old age as we do during the change of teeth and sexual maturation. And in our aging, we experience a rudimentary repetition of what humanity has gone through in its historical development. This is where it will become clear what the correlate of the biogenetic law is for historical science.

Those who think abstractly are always satisfied when they have found something, they then expand it and build an entire system of worldviews from it; they want to expand the biogenetic law to the historical becoming of humanity. To the real observer – and this is the observable reality for the spiritual researcher – something quite different presents itself. It shows that we are able to see in our own ageing and its rudimentary changes a repetition of what we find in earlier historical stages of human development. We look back to ancient Indian and Persian times and know that even in old age people remained so capable of development that a metamorphosis could be seen in their organism even in the forties and fifties of human life, as can only be observed today during the change of teeth and sexual maturation. You see, here we have the difference between true observation of reality and the abstract desire to transfer, which has arisen precisely through materialism. And we then understand how, in primeval times, the human being lived as a child and young person alongside the old person and said to himself: One experiences something in old age that brings something completely new into life. Let us consider how deeply this true law allows us to see into the inner process of human development, how we can see into a state of humanity in which we understand patriarchal life because young people anticipated old age in such a way that they said to themselves: this old age offers me something completely new. And so we do not look at prehistoric humanity in the same way as today's materialistic anthropologist does. We look at this primitive humanity and understand it, I would say intimately human, and we can also recognize that in its entire element something quite different was present for this primitive humanity than for present-day humanity. But we must take an interest because we are approaching something directly human, for this metamorphosis from primitive man to our present time. And if we have to admit that the human organism has changed, we will also be able to point out other changes in the human organism in the right form.

I will point out just one thing, my dear audience, which is revealed by spiritual science, but which, because it is relatively close to us and can even be proven externally by philological-historical research, is that the Greeks had their culture, which has such a profound effect on us, because they viewed their environment differently than we do today. Spiritual science shows us that what was in the Greeks was still capable of organic development to a much greater age than it is in us. We reach the end of an ascending organic capacity for development at the end of the twenties; the Greeks continued it well into their thirties. This necessitated greater activity in the Greeks, and that meant that the Greeks invested even more activity in their sense organs than we are able to invest. Therefore the

the Greeks were not yet a reflective race. Mankind has only become reflective since the middle of the 15th century. The Greek race was one that still transferred all its inner activity into the world of the senses, still saw the whole world, I might say, more brilliantly, more warmly than we do. We have to imagine that the Greeks had no interest in dark colors, that they had the keenest interest and the greatest sensitivity for bright, warm colors. And we find external confirmation when we discover that the Greeks have a single word for both dark hair color and lapis lazuli, the blue stone used for painting. People have never had blue hair; so if dark hair and lapis lazuli are both referred to by the same word, it is clear that the blue is seen as dark. And the other peculiar thing is that the Greeks had one word for green = chloros, and at the same time they used this word for what we call yellow, honey. And so I could cite many more examples that would prove to us that the Greeks' vision was similar to blue-blind vision. Roman historians tell us that the Greeks painted only in four colors: black, white, red, and yellow.

From this we can see that when we look into history, we do not have to look at the great so-called war events, at the great so-called formations and fallings of states, but we have to look at the intimate, we have to see how the individual human being has developed. In this way we again meet the needs of our present time. The conquests of Alexander the Great interested only those generations who were first oriented towards this interest through school. Today, the broad masses are called upon for education and intellectual life, and they want to be interested in something other than the conquests of Xerxes or Alexander the Great, of Caesar or even later ones; they want to be interested in what emerges in every human being as the truly human. But a science of history arises for our soul's eye that describes how man was different five, six, seven millennia ago, how he was different in Greek times than he is now. A history arises that approaches everything individually human directly, that allows the Greek to arise before our soul's eye, so that the person of the present can compare the Greek with himself spiritually and mentally. What concerns every human being will be of interest to those who, as the broad masses, strive for education today; what concerns not only Alexander the Great or Alcibiades and Caesar, but what concerns every human being, what, so to speak, is in every human being because he himself is a descendant of those who saw the world so completely differently.

Again, it is a serious question, especially in view of the social needs of the present, to strive for a historical science that is closely related to the human being; and such a science, because it touches the innermost part of the human being, will also be able to release the moral and legal impulses in the human being. In the externalized life of the state, we have gradually come to something that is nothing more than a legislative convention. But what lives in our state laws does not reach into the depths of the human soul where the moral impulses arise. How do today's legal measures live in the individual human being? They do not live. The lawyer himself often does not live them until he has looked them up in the law books, because he usually does not know much about them before he has looked up the relevant paragraph. But what has gradually become a mere historical abstraction does not live in people. If we establish another historical science, it will be one that can trigger impulses in life. Such a historical science alone will be able to grasp people and lead them to reasonable social desires – in contrast to the historical materialism that Lenin and Trotsky cultivated. Because people have been offered nothing but abstract, insubstantial ideas, Lenin and Trotsky were able to confront them with what people alone understand: the results of economic life.

Today, the great, serious demands of life raise the question: in what way can natural science and historical science be revitalized? If we want to take life seriously today, we have to think about such a revitalization of the sciences. I can well imagine that those people who today receive their education through everything that such an education achieves today will be shocked by what I am saying here and probably find it radical – while we, after all, must find it absolutely necessary simply because of the seriousness of life. But is it not our time itself that points to the seriousness of life in every moment?

Dear attendees, it can be hypothesized that this hall would be very full today if it were not for the delayed celebration of Carnival – if you can call it a celebration. But it is entirely to my liking that this evening is being held here today, to show that there are still places where people feel that serious matters must be discussed in a time of need, in a time like the one we are living in today. In such a time, there is still much that cannot be reconciled with the seriousness of life that is necessary to think of something like what has been suggested in today's introductory lecture.

But when one expresses something like this, my dear audience, one feels reminded of the saying of someone who, in his time, also felt compelled to speak of the great impulses in contrast to the little interest of human beings: Johann Gottlieb Fichte once spoke about the destiny of the scholar and gave lectures on the subject. When these lectures were published, he introduced them with just a few words. He said, addressing himself to all those who so well proved from their life practice that ideals cannot be realized after all - he actually did not address these, because they are not teachable, but he spoke with reference to these - he said: That ideals cannot be realized in direct life, we others know that just as well as these so-called life practitioners. But that life must be directly oriented towards them, we must say with all seriousness. And Johann Gottlieb Fichte added that there are people who are unable to see how necessary it is, in the serious hours of world history, to also begin something correspondingly serious, which only proves that these people simply cannot be counted on in the world plan. And so, said Fichte, may they be given by the spirit that guides this world plan “in due time rain and sunshine, wholesome nourishment, and undisturbed circulation of the juices” and - if it is possible - also “wise thoughts”; but otherwise one cannot count on them when talking about the impulses that lie in the great world plan.

But one would like, especially in today's serious world situation, to find a sufficiently large number of people who can feel this seriousness and, out of it, can feel the necessity that not small things, but great things must happen in impulses, and that they must happen precisely in the realm of human consciousness itself, so that we can move forward. It is out of such impulses that I have tried to speak to you today, using individual examples to illustrate the relationship between anthroposophy and contemporary science. I have only been able to sketch what I wanted to say, but if, through this sketch, I could evoke such impulses in a sufficiently large number of people, which could then have a stimulating effect on what must happen - a renewal of our entire scientific life - then I would consider what can actually happen through such impulses to have been fulfilled, at least for the time being.

In our time, science is very proud when it says that it wants pure knowledge. In Greek times, when imagination was closer to life, the word “catharsis” was used for the most important moment in a tragedy, when the hero's fate was decided. In this way, something was introduced into aesthetics that was taken from medicine. For in Greek life, “catharsis” was regarded as a kind of crisis, whereby certain pathological processes in the organism are counterbalanced or paralyzed by other processes. In this healthy Greek age, ideas were transferred from what takes place in nature to the artistic field. Today, we need a science that does not allow a rift to develop between theory and practice; we need a science that is viable and full of life, we need a science that can build up life.

However, only those people who really understand and feel the seriousness of contemporary life will long for such a powerful science. And as for the rest, let me say this at the end, we must, in accordance with the old saying of Fichte, leave them today to a kind cosmic plan, which provides them with food and drink at the right time, which gives them sunshine and rain at the right time, which gives them postponed carnival fun and - if possible - also wise thoughts. It will be difficult!

But what is needed today lies in another area and can be described as follows: spirit-estranged research must find its way back to the spirit. And it is this path back to the spirit that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science wants to find, and to this end it calls on humanity. That is the truth, despite all the prejudices and defamations that are otherwise leveled against this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in the world.

[Lively applause.

Roman Boos: In thanking Dr. Steiner for his lecture, I would like to express the hope that the lectures that will now follow will have the effect in our circle and in the outside world that was indicated in Dr. Steiner's lecture. I would now like to ask that after a short break, those who may still have questions about today's lecture come forward. I would particularly like to ask all our scientifically working friends to take this opportunity, since Dr. Steiner is prepared to add something supplementary in this or that respect.

Eugen Kolisko: In what Dr. Steiner said about research into the reverse biogenetic law, how can it actually be established that we are dealing here with a time that lies so far back that it corresponds to a particular period? How can we determine from the processes observed in the phenomena of old age how far back this lies in earlier times?

Friedrich Husemann: Is the blue blindness of the Greeks something that has only to do with the individual development of this people, or is it perhaps something that occurs in the general course of development of a race or a people, which would therefore correspond to a certain age of this race? What about the Chinese, for example, who have been depicted in blue colors since very early times? Are there other factors at work here?

Walter Johannes Stein: How are changes in sensory perception related to changes in thinking among the Greeks, who, according to the book 'The Riddles of Philosophy', still had a much more pictorial perception?

Roman Boos asks Dr. Steiner to give the closing remarks.

Rudolf Steiner: In the sense of a closing word, I would like to address the questions that have been asked. The first question, ladies and gentlemen, is of course one that would require a very comprehensive explanation in order to answer it.

First of all, I have to mention that a real exploration of these things is only possible by applying the spiritual scientific method, that is, the method that actually teaches us to look at what we are otherwise accustomed to looking at from the outside, now to look at from the inside. You can get an idea of what actually comes into consideration in the following way. When you look at the physical organism, you have to take the present moment as your basis. You have to stick to the configuration and outer activity that the physical organism has in the present moment. If you then move on to observing the soul life, you will not find in this soul life the necessity for restriction to the present moment, but you will find in the soul life - initially in the individual soul life - the expansion back into the sixth, fifth, fourth year of life. The experiences are incorporated into memory, so that when you move from observing the physical person to observing the soul, you move from the present to an individual past. To acquire spiritual scientific methods means to develop certain abilities that go beyond the ordinary soul life. These abilities, which go beyond the ordinary soul life, then also expand that which, during the transition from the physical into the soul, extends over a certain period of time, up to the period of childhood. These spiritual scientific methods expand the observation beyond the individual human being, and what enters is the inner observation of the world process. It is certainly a long path, which you will find described in my books, but it is a path that can certainly become a reality for human development.

Just as the inner experiences are immanent in time in a certain way in the memory-based review of the individual life path, one will - but only through comparative treatment of what one has in one's memory - arrive at the design of the time scheme for what presents itself to inner vision, if one only really knows how to work methodically. In this way one arrives at a truly methodical approach. The person who acquires the observant sense for what I have called the rudimentary soul metamorphoses of old age – but which are also matched by rudimentary bodily metamorphoses – will find that there are certain periods of time in which such metamorphoses take place. There is such a period at the end of the forties, again at the end of the fifties, and in the middle of the fifties, so that one does indeed get certain periods of inner experience for this rudimentary soul metamorphosis. Now, if one really applies inner methodology in the expansion of inner vision to the extra-individual realm and thereby arrives at certain time determinations, one can either rely on them directly, which is entirely the case with a developed spiritual-scientific method, or one can try to corroborate what presents itself in this way by verification from outside. For example, you can say to yourself that today, when you have already sharpened your sense of observation, let's say around the age of 35, you experience a certain life metamorphosis. Now you look for this in what is presented to you in the outer historical life, and you thereby fix a certain historical point in time. One then tries to find another life metamorphosis, for example that which presents itself at the end of the 1920s – one arrives at a later point in time. This provides us with individual epochs for what happens historically and what corresponds to an inner metamorphosis of life. In this way, one can relate these individual, unique life epochs to the past historical development of humanity. Is this indicative of the path? Of course, I can only sketch out this path. If you follow the idea, it will become clear to you that this path is an exact one.

As for the so-called blue blindness of the Greeks, I would ask you to please bear in mind that I really only want to speak of a so-called blue blindness. It is more a sensitivity of the Greeks for the bright, warm colors and a lesser interest in the dark, blue, cold colors. One must be clear about the fact that the process itself that is taking place is much more spiritual for the Greek people than it is for today's partially blue-blind people. It is only an analogy, but it is precisely this mental blue blindness that is so strongly present in the Greeks that we can still prove it in the Greek language. But you have probably already been able to deduce from the lecture that we should not regard this as an individual characteristic of the Greek people, but as something that occurs in a particular period of a people's development. Of course, it must be borne in mind that the relative epochs of the peoples living side by side on earth do not coincide absolutely. It must be realized that the Chinese people, for example, had long since emerged from the period of blue blindness when they entered history. So, to a certain extent, one must perceive the periods of time as layered next to each other, then one will see what I have said in the right light. I have tried to describe the thought process as it manifested itself in the Greeks in my “Riddles of Philosophy”; this thought process of the Greeks was also somewhat different from our present-day thought process. Our thought process is that we are aware of a certain activity of thought with which we accompany external facts. We ascribe the formation of thoughts to this activity of thoughts, of which we are aware, and ascribe only the sensory impression to the objective. The Greeks were different. In the Greeks - you can easily prove this by looking at the Greek philosophers with an unbiased judgment - there was a clear awareness that they saw thoughts in things just as they saw colors in things, that they therefore perceived thoughts. The Greeks experienced the thought as something perceived, not as something actively formed. And that is why the Greeks were not really a reflective people in the sense that we are. People have only really become reflective since the middle of the 15th century. The thinking process has become internalized. It has become internalized at the same time as the course of the sensory process. I would say that the Greeks saw more of the active part of the spectrum, the red, warm side of the spectrum; they only sensed the cold, blue side of the spectrum indistinctly. And today we certainly have a very different perception of the red and warm side of the spectrum; we see it much more shifted towards the green than the Greeks, who were still sensitive to it beyond our outermost red. The Greek spectrum was shifted entirely towards the red side. The Greeks therefore saw the rainbow differently than we do. And by having our sensitivity more on the other side of the spectrum, we are turning our attention to the dark side, and that is something like entering a kind of twilight. It makes you think. If I describe it more figuratively now, don't be offended; it is based on a very real process of human development. With the shift of sensitivity from the warm part of the spectrum to the dark part of the spectrum, something similar occurs in the development of humanity as a whole, as it does in a person when they experience twilight from full brightness, where they begin to rely more on themselves, to follow the inner path of thought, and where they become pensive. I would say that in the twilight, in the dark, thinking is more active than when the sensitivity is directed towards the lively, warm colors, where one lives more in the outer world, experiences more of what is in the outer world. The Greek was more absorbed in the outer world with all his thinking. He therefore also saw his thoughts in the outer world. Modern man, who has shifted the whole spectrum of vision more towards the dark side, cannot see his thoughts in the outer world. Just as one will not claim that what the soul experiences is outwardly visible at night when it is dark all around, but knows that it takes place in the soul, so what what man experiences since the shift of the spectrum view, happens more on the dark side in the soul, and one can say that a shift in thinking has occurred since Greek times.

These are the kinds of things that arise from research in spiritual science. I can only sketch them out here; I hope that some of what has been suggested today can be developed further here in the next few days, and I wish my subsequent speakers good luck in dealing with the most interesting questions possible in the next few days.

Tomorrow I shall begin my discussion of the problems related to the connection of the spiritual scientific impulses with various unclarified tasks of the present time, and the influence that spiritual science must exert on individual, especially scientific, problems. Then I should like to refer to what I may call, in the sense of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the karma of human vocation.

Today I shall take as my point of departure something that seemingly has little to do with that theme, but it will afford an opportunity to connect various related matters. I shall endeavor to point out the element in Goethe's life that characterizes him especially as a personality of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and much to which I have recently referred will, of course, be echoed in my remarks. I should like to bring before your souls the very facts pertaining to this personality that will enable anyone to distinguish important phenomena of the advancing post-Atlantean cultural epoch. In relation to the spiritual interests of humanity, the life and personality of Goethe are comprehensive and decisive to an extent that can hardly be ascribed to any other individual. Still, it may also be said that, in spite of much that has occurred, his life and personality have had the least possible effect on our lives. This, however, must be attributed to the very nature of our modern culture. It may be asked how it can possibly be said that the life of Goethe has remained without effect. Are not his works known? Has not an edition of his works, consisting of hundreds of volumes, been published recently? Did not his published letters number six or seven thousand by the turn of the century, and today number almost ten thousand? Is there not a wealth of literature concerning Goethe, one might almost say in every civilized language? Do not his works continue to be produced on stage? Is not his major work, Faust, brought again and again before the minds of men?

Now, I have often referred recently to the strange error of an illustrious contemporary scholar, which is really far more symptomatic of the character of our time than one might assume. A dominant scientist, this scholar speaks of the significance of the scientific world conception in such a way that he presents it as being the most brilliant, not only of our age, but of all ages in human history. He concludes that although it is hard to prove that we live in the best of all worlds, it is certain to the scientist, at least, that today we humans live in the best of all epochs, and we might exclaim in the words of Goethe:

‘Tis delightful to transport
Oneself into the spirit of the past,
To see in times before us how a wise man thought,
And what a glorious height we have achieved at last.’¹

This noted scientist² is gravely in error; he presents this as his own innermost sentiment and believes that he is thereby associating himself with Goethe, who is renowned for his knowledge of the world and of man. But he is really associating himself with Wagner, whom Goethe sets up as a foil to the Faust figure. Yet such a blunder contains at least a good bit of the honesty of our age because this person speaks more genuinely than the numerous people who, in quoting Goethe, have Faust on their tongues, but really have an undisguised Wagner attitude of mind. As a basis for subsequent reflections, let us, then, bring up before our mind's eye the life of Goethe as a spiritual phenomenon.

If we wish to study human life in connection with the important question of destiny, if we study the questions of karma, we should remember that Goethe was born in a city and under conditions clearly of much meaning for his life. The family of Goethe's father had come to Frankfurt in the seventeenth century, whereas his mother's family, the Textors, was old, established, and highly respected, so much so that from it the mayors of Frankfurt were chosen. This fact alone signifies the respect enjoyed by the family at that time. Goethe's father was a man with an extraordinarily strong sense of duty, but for a man of his time, he also possessed a broad range of interests. He had traveled in Italy and representations of important Roman creations, about which he liked to talk, hung on all the walls of his Patrician Frankfurt home. What was dominant in the French culture of his time completely permeated the life of Frankfurt and most intimately influenced Goethe's home. The important world events were part of the life in his home, and his father took a deep interest in them. Goethe's mother, moreover, was a woman of the most spontaneous human sentiment, sharing directly in everything that connects human nature with the legendary, the fabulous, everything that lifts man aloft above the commonplace as if on the wings of poetic fantasy.

In Goethe's boyhood days it was much more possible to grow up unconfused by those disturbing influences that affect children today because they are dragged into school at a relatively early age. This did not happen to young Goethe; he developed extraordinarily freely in his parents' home under the austere but never harsh influence of his father and his poetically endowed mother. In later years he could recall with inner happiness these years of his boyhood and childhood that led to a ripe humanness. Many things that we read today in Goethe's story of his life, Poetry and Truth, though decked out in a somewhat pedantic humor, have more meaning than may be supposed. In telling how he practiced the piano,³ there is a profoundly human significance; the fingers of his hands, as if playing mythological roles, become soul-endowed, independent figures. They become Thumbling, Pointerling—I say this without sentimentality—and acquire certain mystical relations to the tones. This indicates how Goethe was to be guided into life as a complete human being. Not only a piece of this man, the head, should be guided, as so often happens, one-sidedly into life to be followed by the support of the rest of the body, developed through all sorts of athletics and sports; but, on the contrary, the body permeated by spirit to its very fingertips should be related with the outer world.

We must take into account from the very first the marked individuality of the innate endowments and nature of Goethe. From his earliest youth, everything pointed to a definite orientation of his life. As he grows in childhood, he is just as strongly inclined to follow with complete absorption the charming and stirring fairy tales and other narratives of his mother, thus even as a boy bringing his fantasy into living activity, as he is also inclined to escape from her and especially from his austere father. Slipping away into the narrow alleys, he would observe all sorts of things and also become entangled in varied situations through which he experienced in vital sentiments and emotions much that is stored up in human karma. His stern father guides the boy in a certain matter-of-fact way to what people in those days thought could provide support and direction in life. The father is a jurist who has grown up among, and is permeated with, Roman points of view; the son's soul, too, absorbs these views. In this process, however, through viewing the works and treasures of Roman art that represented what is essentially Roman, there was kindled in the boyish soul a certain aspiration for what had been created in the culture of Rome.

Everything tended to situate Goethe in a quite definite way within the life of his time. In this way, he became, between the third and fourth centuries of the fifth post-Atlantean period, a personality bearing within him all the impulses of that period. Early on, he becomes a self-sustained personality, living out of his own nature, free of everything that binds a man in a fixed, pedantic way to those certain forms of one or another group of social ties. He learns to know social relationships in such a way that they affect him, but he is not united with them. He always keeps a certain isolated pedestal upon which he stands and from which he can establish connections with everything. From the very beginning, however, unlike so many others, he does not excessively identify himself with anything or with the environing circumstances. To be sure, all this results from a peculiarly favorable karma in which, when considered objectively, we shall find a solution for profound questions and problems regarding karma in general.

After Goethe had been introduced by his father to the field of jurisprudence, he was sent to the University of Leipzig, which he entered in 1765 at a relatively early age. We must not forget that when he joined this university life he was not tormented and exhausted by those strenuous exercises that must be suffered for an even longer period of time by young people in our day who are trying to pass the battery of final examinations at the conclusion of high school, the Abitur. After having passed their examinations, these young people are anxious to wipe the most recent learning experiences from their minds and enter a university in order to enjoy life. No, young Goethe had not entered the University of Leipzig simply to idle away his time but, nevertheless, he was not above skipping lectures and using the time saved for something else, as was done by many students. However, as he enlisted in the lofty and famous scientific life of the university, he came into circles that had never failed to awaken a longing in him whenever he had heard about them. Indeed, he knew above all that the famous Gottsched⁴ worked at the university, Gottsched whose head held all the learning of the time and who expressed it in writing and orally to those associated with the contemporary culture of Leipzig. To be sure, Lessing's⁵ great impulse was still to be felt in Leipzig, but it was natural for Goethe to think that the lofty Gottsched would introduce him to the entire scope of contemporary wisdom, enabling him to study conjointly jurisprudence and philosophy and whatever else a man of the world might derive from theology and learning regarding supernatural things.

Goethe, however, who possessed without doubt a certain sense for aesthetics, was slightly disillusioned when he first called on Gottsched. He appeared at Gottsched's door. I do not know whether or not the servant sensed something of Goethe's nature, but he admitted him directly into the presence of Gottsched without taking the time to announce him in the proper manner. So Goethe came upon the great man without his wig, standing there quite baldheaded. To a learned man in the year 1765 this was something quite dreadful. Goethe, who was sensitive to such things, had to witness how Gottsched seized his wig with a graceful turn and jammed it on his head, and how with his other hand he slapped his servant on the face. Goethe's enthusiasm was a little chilled. But he was still more chilled by the fact that Gottsched's entire demeanor corresponded little with that for which he longed.

Nor did Gellert's⁶ moralistic lectures speak to him of the comprehensive intellectual horizons he desired. Therefore, he soon turned his attention more to the medical and scientific lectures, which were in a way continued in the home of Professor Ludwig, where he took his lunch and where much of a similar nature was discussed. It cannot really be said that Goethe “studied thoroughly jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy and, unfortunately, also theology”⁷ in Leipzig, but he got a view of them and, most important, it was in Leipzig that he absorbed many a scientific concept of his time. After having busied himself with the sciences, having experienced various aspects of life, and having been involved in various affairs, he then became so ill that he stood face to face with death. Such things must be taken fully into account by one who considers the human being in a spiritual scientific way. We must realize how much passed through his soul as he actually faced death because of extremely severe and recurring hemorrhaging. He was weakened, had to return home, and could not resume his university studies for some time.

When Goethe did continue his studies in Strassburg, he joined the circle of an important personality who became of exceptional significance to him. In order to judge with what feelings he met this personality, we must recall that, when he returned to Frankfurt under the influence of those inner experiences through which he had passed in Leipzig when he was face to face with death, he had already begun to enter more deeply, through association with various persons, into a mystical experience and a mystical conception of the world. He had immersed himself in mystic, occult writings and sought in a youthful way to elaborate a systematic world conception that took its point of departure in mystical—one might say, mystic-cabalistic—points of view. Even then he endeavored to learn “what secret force/ dwells in the world and rules its course”⁸ and to open himself to the influence of “every working force and seed.”⁹ He was unwilling merely “to trade in words,” as he had seen this done in Leipzig.

Then he came to Strassburg where he could again attend lectures on science, and this is what he did at first. Jurisprudence, which was so dear to his father but less so to him, would be taken care of somehow, no doubt, but his most urgent impulse was to investigate how various laws of nature conform to one another. As he was once ascending a flight of stairs, he met a personality who immediately made a tremendous impression on him, not only through his external appearance, but also through an inner light that radiated through a highly intelligent countenance. Externally, a man approached him who had, indeed, somewhat the appearance of a priest, but who wore his long overcoat in such a curious way that the train was stuffed into his hind pockets. The man who made such a grand impression on¹⁰

Goethe now entered vitally into all that then stirred tempestuously in Herder, and that was indeed a good deal. One might say that Herder bore within him an entirely new world conception. Basically, what had never before been undertaken, Herder bore it brilliantly within himself; that is, the endeavor to trace the phenomena of the world from the simplest entity, the simplest lifeless thing, through the plant world to the animal kingdom, on to man, to history, and even to the divine governance of the world in history. At that time, Herder's mind already harbored a vast, comprehensive view of the world, and he spoke with enthusiasm about his new ideas; but he also on occasion spoke with indignation against all pedantic, traditional ideas. Many of these conversations with Herder animated Goethe. That everything in the world is in process of evolution and that a spiritual plan of the universe sustains all evolution was a connection Herder perceived as no one ever had before. But this was still growing in him, and he had not yet expressed it on paper. Goethe received it in this state of being born and shared in Herder's aspiration, contemplation, and struggle. We may say that Herder wished to trace the evolution of the world from a grain of dust through all the kingdoms of nature up to God. He then did this in a splendid comprehensive fashion, as far as was necessary at that time, in his incomparable work, Ideas for a Philosophy of Human History. Here we can really see that Herder's mind grasped everything that was then known of the facts of nature and of the human realm, but all this knowledge was condensed into a world conception permeated with spirit.

Beside this, Goethe received through Herder an idea of Spinoza's contribution to the evolution of a new concept of the world, and this worked on him. The leaning that Goethe showed throughout his life toward Spinoza¹¹ was planted in him at that time in Strassburg by Herder.¹²

Herder was an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare,¹³ which was something unheard of at that time. Just think how this peculiar polarity of souls must have worked between Herder and Goethe when Goethe, yearning to perceive these things that contemporary culture could not give him, found in Herder a revolutionary spirit of the first rank storming the culture of his day. Up to that time Goethe had learned to revere that art of form that is found in Corneille and Racine,¹⁴ and had taken all this in as one takes in things that are said to be the most important in the world. But he had absorbed all this with a certain inner indignation. When Herder introduced him to Shakespeare, it worked on his mind like a breath of fresh air. Here was a poet free from everything formal—who created characters directly from human individualities; who possessed nothing of all the unity of time, place, and action that Goethe had learned to value so highly, but who presented human beings in his plays. We may say that a revolutionary cultural mood came to life in Goethe, now baptized in the name of Shakespeare, which we may express thus: I want to comprehend what constitutes the human being himself, not how he is put into the interrelationships of the world by formal rules and laws, or by the network of unities of situation, time, place, and action.

In this regard, he was able to become acquainted with men then in Strassburg who sought to look into the deeper and more intimate aspects of the life of the soul. One of them was the remarkable Jung-Stilling,¹⁵ for example, who was studying the occult aspects of the life of the soul and knew how to describe them thoroughly. His life history, his description of what he calls the “gray man” who rules in the subterranean sphere of the earth, belongs among the finest descriptions of occult relationships. It may be said that Goethe was introduced by Herder to all that belongs to the life of nature and history, the aesthetic in life, and by Jung-Stilling to the occult aspects of human life, with which he had already familiarized himself in Frankfurt through an exhaustive study of Swedenborg.¹⁶

Such ideas fermented in Goethe's mind in connection with what had been passed on to him as the laws of nature while he was attending lectures on the sciences in Strassburg. Then he began to see the great problems and questions of human life. He looked deeply into what can be cognized and what can be willed by man, and into the relation between human nature and universal nature. Earlier in Frankfurt he had become acquainted with the work of Paracelsus¹⁷ in connection with all this. And thus, a profound longing to perceive “every working force and seed” took a hold of him, especially in Strassburg along with all that he otherwise experienced there.

It must not be imagined that, in Strassburg, Goethe simply trifled away his time during his frequent visits to the pastor's home in Sesenheim,¹⁸ although I certainly do not want to deprecate the importance of these visits. He was always capable of uniting life in the depths of man's will and cognition with life in association with the immediately human and ordinary, and with every human destiny.

After he had defended his dissertation, he became a sort of Doctor of Jurisprudence—Licentiate¹⁹ and Doctor of Jurisprudence. He thereby satisfied his father and could return home. The practice of law began, but there was a notable disharmony in the soul of this man who had to study legal documents at the Supreme Court in Wetzlar that were often literally hundreds of years old. There “law and rights like an endless illness” dragged along their weary way. Even in later times much of this sort of thing could still be experienced elsewhere. In a place where I grew up—permit me to interject this—I was able to experience the following. In the 1870s when I was a boy, we once heard that a man was to be imprisoned—in the seventies! He was a much respected man who had a rather large business for such a place. He was imprisoned for a year and a half, I think, because in 1848 he had thrown stones at an inn during the revolution! The lawsuit had actually continued from 1848 when, as a young boy, this person had thrown stones at an inn, until his present age. In 1873 he was imprisoned for a year and a half. It was, perhaps, not so bad then as when Goethe studied the documents at the Supreme Court, but it was still bad enough.

Goethe's work gave his father immense pleasure, and he shared with counsel and help the problems Goethe had to solve with the dusty documents. This is not to say, however, that Goethe was lacking in skill as a lawyer. That was by no means the case. He made his contribution as an attorney and his work at that time belies the recurring belief that a great spirit, living in the world of ideals, must be deficient in practical life. He was not at all lacking as an attorney. When lawyers these days point to their busy schedules and call attention to the fact that they have no time to read Goethe's works, one should point out to them that Goethe was unquestionably just as good a lawyer as they. That can be documented, as can many things related to his work. But in addition to being just as practical as only a practical man can be, Goethe at this time also carried within him the idea for his book, Götz von Berlichingen.²⁰ Indeed, he bore within him the idea for his Faust, too, which had already emerged in Frankfurt from his scientific studies and later from his acquaintance with Herder and Jung-Stilling.

Götz von Berlichingen—Gottfried von Berlichingen—evidences at once, as Goethe forms it into a work of art, what his own nature really was. Goethe's way of being introduces a new element into the intellectual activity of humanity. As artist or poet, he cannot be compared with Dante, Homer, or Shakespeare. He stands in a different relationship to poetic creation, and this is bound up, in turn, with the way his mode of being relates to the age in which he lives. This age, as it was expressed in his immediate, and also in his more comprehensive, environment, did not permit such a spirit as his to blend wholly with the period. The life of the state that we today take for granted did not exist around him. After all, he lived in a region where certain territories had, to a high degree, taken on individual forms. How this came about is not important, but he did not live in a large state. No great all-encompassing conformity spread over the area where he lived and grew up. The life about him was not narrowly organized and thus he could experience it everywhere in its individual manifestations and simultaneously expose himself to its universal meaning. And this is what distinguishes Goethe from other poets.

One day a book came into his hands that is, indeed, badly written but that interested him immensely. It was Autobiography of the Iron-handed Gottfried of Berlichingen, which dealt with that strange individual who participated in so many events of the sixteenth century, but whose part in them was of such a peculiar nature. When we read this autobiography, we see how, under the Emperor Maximilian and Charles the Fifth, he came into contact with every possible kind of person and took part in every possible kind of quarrel and battle during the first half of the century.

His activities, however, always come about in such a way that he takes part in one event, is wholly involved in it and expresses himself completely therein. Then he becomes involved in another event in an entirely different role; he is drawn into that, fights for the most varied issues, and is later captured. After he has bound himself by an oath not to take any further part in quarrels and is thereby left at peace in his castle in middle South Germany, he becomes involved in the peasant uprising. All this, however, occurs in such a way that we see he is never forced by the events; but what holds these disparate episodes together is really his personality, the character of Gottfried himself. When one reads the autobiography of this man, I will not say that the events in which he is involved bore one to death, but we are not really interested in his quarrels and battles. Yet, in spite of all the boredom of the single events, we are always interested in his personality, so strong in character and so rich in content.

These traits, however, are just what attracted Goethe to Gottfried of Berlichingen. Thus, he could see the substance, the life, and the struggle of the sixteenth century concentrated in one personality as he could never otherwise have seen it. This was what he needed. To him, this meant taking up history and becoming acquainted with it. The way in which one or another historian, after having searched through attics and wastebaskets, telescopes together in a few “pragmatic maxims”²¹ individual historical periods would certainly not have suited Goethe. But to see a man standing alive in the midst of it, to see reflected in a human soul what is otherwise not of special interest, this had some meaning for him. He took this tedious, badly written autobiography of Gottfried of Berlichingen, read it, and really changed its content remarkably little. For this reason, he called the first version of this drama, if we choose so to designate it, The History of Gottfried of Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, Dramatized. He did not use the term drama, but dramatized. He had really only dramatized the history of Gottfried of Berlichingen, but in such a way that the whole period became alive through this man. Bear in mind, it was the sixteenth century, the time of the dawn of the post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe perceived this time through the character of Gottfried of Berlichingen, the man who grew up in middle South Germany.

At that time a fragment of life had already passed through Goethe's mind that is historical but seen really within actual life, not in what is “historic.” It would not have been possible for him then, with all those problems of humanity in his mind to which I have alluded, to take just any individual and dramatize his life according to history. However, to dramatize the stammering autobiography of a being who worked upon him with complete humanness in such a way that it would reflect the dramatic art as revealed to him through the reading of Shakespeare, that was something he could do. So he became known in certain circles that were interested in this sort of thing since he had lifted a fragment of the past, which was a book sealed with seven seals, into his own present world. Of course, just as little was then known about what Goethe disclosed by means of the badly written history of Gottfried of the Sixteenth Century as is known today by many a pastor about the super-sensible life.

Goethe had taken hold of human life. He had to, since his life style was one that made him blend with life as it revealed itself directly to him. To be sure, he continued to stand on an isolated pedestal, but as life touched him, he became one with it.

Goethe was to be brought into union with life in still another way. There is little conception today of something that constituted a profound trait of the soul life in the so-called cultured world surrounding Goethe. People had become bound, as it were, to what had come about since the sixteenth century. In public life, the laws and statutes had been handed down like an inherited disease,²² but the souls of men were, nevertheless, touched in a certain way by what we recognize as the impulse of souls of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The result was that, for the most deeply endowed natures, a profound disharmony ensued between what they sensed within the soul and what took place in the external world. This, to be sure, led to a marked sentimentality in experience.

To sense as strongly as possible how wide the gulf was between the actual world and what a true and warm human soul could feel, to express this contrast with all possible emphasis, was felt by many to be a profound necessity. The eye was directed toward the life of the world in which various ranks of society and the people with their various interests lived. But they often had little soul contact with each other in this public life. Yet, when these human beings were alone, they sought for a special life of the soul existing apart from external life, and for them to be able to say to themselves that this external life was wholly unlike all that the soul would strive after and hope for was felt to be a great relief. To get into such a sentimental mood was a characteristic of the age. Life, as it was publicly manifest, was felt to be bad and defective. People strove to search for life where it had not been besmirched by indifferent public existence, and where they could really enter in a vital way into the silent working and weaving of the world of nature, the peaceful life of animals and plants.

From this a mood gradually arose that affected many cultured spirits. To be able to weep over the disharmonies of the world afforded a tremendous satisfaction. Those writers were especially honored whose works tended to induce a flood of tears to fall upon the pages that were being read. To be unhappy constituted for many the very happiness for which they longed. Someone takes a walk in the forest; he then returns and, sitting quite still in his room, reflects: “How many, many little flowers and tiny worms that I did not notice and trod under foot have sacrificed their lives to this walk of mine!” Then he weeps hot tears into his handkerchief over the discord between nature and human life. Letters written to beloved friends who were as sentimental as the writer begin with such expressions as “Dearly beloved Friend,” and this, too, is moistened by a tear that falls on the paper and hastens away with the letter as a precious testimony to the friend.

This life still permeated a large part of the cultured world in the second half of the eighteenth century. It also surrounded Goethe, and he had much understanding of it, for there was much truth in this feeling of the disharmony between the frequently unconscious or vague feelings of the soul and what was afforded by the outer world, and Goethe could feel the truth in it. In those days, the silent plan of life between souls was not at all similar to what took place in the world as a whole. He had to go through this because he could be, and needed to be, touched by everything. But, in his contact with these things, he had to draw health-giving forces from his inner self repeatedly.

And thus in his youthful novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, he wrote himself free of this whole temper of the age, which we call Siegwart,²³ or Werther, fever, and which had taken possession of a large part of educated society. In the figure of Werther he concealed to such a degree as to come near to suicide what he had shared of this sentimental mood and the disharmonies of the world. It is for this reason that he has Werther end his life through suicide. It is well to consider that, on the one hand, it was possible for Goethe to be bound up with everything in the souls of those about him, even though he was so firmly rooted in his own individuality. On the other hand, what he was writing about cleansed his soul and at the same time became a work of art. After he had finished Werther, he was completely cured of him, whereas in many cases other persons were only then possessed because through the influence of the Werther, Werther fever raged in the most widespread circles. Goethe, however, was cured.

In estimating such things, we must not overlook the fact that Goethe possessed a broad inner horizon so that he could, in a sense, live within himself in polaric contrasts. He went through the Werther sickness and wrote himself free of it through The Sorrows of Young Werther. Yet, there is truth in what he wrote to a friend at that time. He sketched a picture of his loftily sentimental mood, but also said there was a Goethe other than the suicidal Goethe who harbored thoughts of hanging himself and who entertained thoughts for which he ought to be hanged. There was also a carnival Goethe,²⁴ who could put on all sorts of masks and disguises, and this Goethe also really lived artistically. We need only allow the more or less fragmentary dramatic creations of that time, Satyros and Pater Brey, to work upon us, and we shall be able to sense the scope of his inner life: on the one hand, the sentimentality of Werther, on the other, the humor of the Satyros and Pater Brey.

Satyros, the deified forest devil who develops a veritable pantheism and does not enjoy the fruits of culture, wants to return to nature in genuine Rousseau fashion. Raw chestnuts—what a royal repast! Such is the ideal of Satyros. But he is really a philosopher of nature who is quite familiar with its secrets, and—if you will excuse me—he wins his followers especially among women, is deified, but finally behaves quite badly. Here all false yearning after authoritarian belief is ridiculed with immense humor. Then in Pater Brey we see the cult of false prophets play a part and, under the mask of holiness, do all kinds of things. This, indeed, is not ridiculed but objectively presented with much humor. Here Goethe is a humorist in the most vital sense—a blunt humorist, expressing it all from the same constitution of soul that created Werther. He was able to do this not because he was superficial but because he was profound enough to grasp the polarities of human life.

Especially the Werther book gained Goethe a far-reaching reputation. It became well-known rather early,²⁵ and it was really this work that led the Archduke of Weimar to take an interest in him. The Gottfried of Berlichingen made a decided impression, but not among those who then considered themselves capable of understanding culture, art, and poetry. “An abominable imitation of bad English works; a disgusting platitude,” said an eminent man of the time about this book.²⁶

It was in 1775 that Goethe was able to transfer his activities to a different field of operation, to Weimar. The Duke of Weimar²⁷ became acquainted with Goethe and called him there, where he became the minister of state.

Nowadays, after the event, people have the feeling that Goethe had already written the Gottfried of Berlichingen, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and even carried with him to Weimar a large part of his Faust; they see in all this his most important accomplishment. He himself did not consider them to be of first importance at that time, but they were only the scrapings of his life. The Duke, likewise, did not appoint him court poet, but minister of state, which caused the pedants in Weimar to be beside themselves with anger. The Duke had to address a sort of epistolary decree to his people in which he justified himself by saying that Goethe was in his eyes simply a greater man than the pedants. The fact that he was made minister of state without having been previously—what shall I say?—under-councillor and upper-councillor, required at least some justification from the Duke, and that is what he produced.

Goethe was by no means a bad statesman and performed his ministerial duties not as part time work, but as matters of first importance. He was a far better statesman than many a minister who was not a Goethe in our sense. Anyone who personally convinces himself—as I may say with all modesty that I have done—of the way in which he performed his ministerial obligations will know that he was an excellent minister for the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar and was completely devoted to his duties. Being a minister was his chief occupation, and he achieved a good deal during his ten years in this capacity.

He had brought with him a part of his Faust, which is listed in the collected works under the delectable title, The Primordial Faust (Ur-Faust). All that we might call the upward vision of Faust was already alive in this version. How directly had Faust been taken from the life that touches every human soul!

In Weimar it was evident again that Goethe could not be completely captured by his environment. We often become acquainted with persons who are, in greater or lesser degree, merely the exponents of their files. Goethe, however, was not merely the exponent of the numerous documents he drew up as a Weimar functionary. In addition, he acclimated himself to the conditions in Weimar and, even though he remained on his isolated pedestal, he was nevertheless touched by everything human. The immediately human took form with him as art. Thus we see how the character of a woman, Frau von Stein,²⁸ with whom he formed a friendship, became a life problem for him. It was fundamentally his immediate view of her character that was the cause of his dramatizing the figure of Iphigenia. He wished to put into artistic form what worked on him in the character of Frau von Stein, and the legend of Iphigenia was only the means for solving this life problem. The relationships at the Weimar court, his life with Duke Karl August, whose character was so strangely endowed, his view of the fate of the Duchess, and other connected circumstances, all became problems to him. Life became a question. He again needed a subject in order to master these relationships in an artistic way, and to do so he took that of Tasso. It was, however, really the Weimar situation that he artistically mastered.

It is, of course, impossible to enter here into the many details of Goethe's mental life, yet I wish to place these facts before you in order that we may form a spiritual scientific contact with them as examples. Even in the most early period of his stay in Weimar, through the various circumstances into which he was brought, the possibility arose of deepening his studies in natural science by independent work. He continued his plant studies and began anatomical studies at the University of Jena. He endeavored in everything to confirm in detail the ideas of the universal interrelationships he had received from Herder. He wished to study the connections within the plant kingdom and what was spiritually alive in plants. He wished to hold the kinship among the animals before his mind and to find the path upward from them to man. He wished to study the idea of evolution in direct connection with actual natural objects. You see, Goethe had taken up Herder's great idea to study the evolutionary phrases of all entities, a unitary spiritual process of becoming. In this thought he and Herder then stood practically alone because those who dominated the intellectual life of the time thought quite otherwise; everything was pigeonholed.

All intellectual activity can be found to work in two polaric directions: toward separation and toward union. It was important for Goethe and Herder to bring unity into diversity and multiplicity; others were simply content with neat classifications and clever division. For these people, the problem was to show, for example, how man is distinguished from the animal. Man, it was said, has no intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw in which the incisors are rooted, but only a unitary jawbone; only the animals have an intermaxillary bone. Goethe was certainly not materialistically inclined, and he had no desire to establish materialism. The thought, however, that the inner harmony of nature could not be confirmed because of such a detail offended his intelligence. He therefore undertook to prove, in opposition to all scientific authorities, that man also has an intermaxillary bone, and he succeeded. He thus arrived at his first important scientific treatise entitled, An Intermaxillary Bone Is to Be Ascribed to Man as Well as to the Animal.²⁹ He had thereby introduced a single detail into the evolution of thought with which he opposed the entire scientific world, and which is now an obvious, undisputed truth.

Goethe appears, not as the poet of Werther, of Gottfried, and of Faust, or as the poet in whose head Iphigenia and Tasso came into being, but as one possessing a profound insight into the interrelationships of nature, so that he now studies and labors as a genuine research scientist. We have here, not a one-sided scientist, poet, or minister; he is a complete human being aspiring in all directions.

Goethe lived in Weimar for about ten years and then could no longer suppress his yearning to go to Italy. So in the late eighties he undertook a journey to Italy as if it were an escape. We must not forget that he then, for the first time, entered into situations that he had longed for and cherished from his earliest youth. This was his first introduction to the world at large; you must remember that he had never before seen any other large city except Frankfurt. We must also not forget that Rome was the first city through which he viewed the theater of world history. This must be included in his life and also that he felt the whole stream of life pulsating in Rome as it had risen in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe united what then worked upon him as world history with the comprehensive world conception germinating in his mind. He traced the idea throughout the multiplicity of forms of plants, stones, and animals he had compared, and now followed them over the Apennine peninsula. He endeavored to confirm the idea of the "archetypal plant" over the broadest area and was able to do so. Every stone and plant interested him. How the multifold comes into form as the unit, this he allowed to work upon him.

Goethe also exposed himself to the influence of the great works of art, which revealed to him ancient Hellenism in its last feeble outgrowth. As he directed his objective glance over the multiplicity of nature, so also could he feel in the depths of his soul all the intimacies of the great art of the Renaissance. One need only read the words he spoke upon viewing Raphael's Saint Cecilia in Bologna, how, as he looked at it, he experienced in a wonderfully profound and intense manner all those feelings that lead man out of the sensory world into the super-sensible. One need only read in his Journey to Italy how, as he gradually deepened his ideas of nature, he sensed in the presence of works of art that man really creates such works only when art works creatively from the depths of life. Greek art, he said, now became clear to him: “I have an intimation that they proceed according to the same laws by which nature proceeds and which I am tracing,”³⁰ and “These lofty works of art, being also the highest works of nature, have been created by man according to true and natural laws. Everything arbitrary, all mere fancy, falls away; there³¹ So he wrote to his Weimar friends.

Goethe took into himself something stupendous, and what he had previously felt and surmised now took form. Scenes of great importance in his Faust were composed at this time in Rome. Iphigenia and Tasso had already been sketched and partly completed in Weimar. Now he rewrote them in verse. As he exposed himself constantly to classic works of art, he was now able to find the classic style that he wished to pour into these works. This was a regeneration, an actual rebirth of the soul, that he experienced in Italy. Thus, something peculiar now took form in his soul. He sensed a profound contrast between the aspirations of his age in what he had observed in his environment and what he had learned to feel as the loftiest expression of the purely human.

Goethe returned to Weimar to the world where works had been produced that entranced everybody. Schiller's The Robbers,³² Heinse's Ardinghello, and other such literary reproductions seemed to him barbaric stuff; they contradicted everything that was now rooted and living in his soul. He felt within like an utterly lonely person and had, indeed, been almost completely forgotten when a path was opened for the friendship with Schiller.³³ The approach was difficult because nothing was more repugnant to him when he first returned than Schiller's youthful works. But the two men discovered one another, and in such a way as to establish a bond of friendship almost without counterpart in history. They stimulated one another, and Hermann Grimm rightly remarks that in their relationship we have, not only Goethe plus Schiller, but Schiller plus Goethe as well.³⁴ Each became something different through the other; each enriched the other.

Profound, all-embracing human problems arose in the soul of Goethe and Schiller. What had to be resolved by the world in a political way—the vast problem of human freedom—was present before their minds as a spiritually human problem. Others gave much thought to the question of how an external institution that would guarantee man freedom in his life could be established in the world, but to Schiller the problem was: how does man find freedom within his own soul? He devoted himself to this problem in developing his unique work, Letters Regarding the Aesthetic Education of Humanity. For Schiller the question was how man guides his soul above himself, from the ordinary status of life to a higher status. Man stands, on the one hand, within sensory nature, said Schiller; on the other, he stands face to face with the realm of logic. In neither is he free. He becomes free when he enjoys and creates aesthetically, when his thoughts develop in such a way that they are under compulsion, not of logic, but of taste and inclination, and at the same time, free of the sensible. Schiller demanded a middle position.

These Letters Regarding the Aesthetic Education of Humanity of Schiller belong among mankind's most cultivated writings. But it was a question, a human riddle, that he and Goethe had faced in thought. Goethe could not penetrate this problem philosophically in abstract thoughts as Schiller had done. He had to attack it in a living way, and he resolved it comprehensively in his own way in the fairy tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. When Schiller undertook to show philosophically how man ascends from ordinary life to a higher life, Goethe undertook to show in his fairy tale, through the interplay of spiritual forces in the human soul, how man evolves spiritually from an everyday soul life to a higher one. What Schiller brought to light in a philosophic, abstract way, Goethe presented it in a magnificent visible form in this fairy tale. This he attached to a description of external life in his novel-like piece Conversations of German Emigrants. There really came to life in the inspired friendship between Goethe and Schiller all that man proposes to himself in riddling questions about life, and that is related to Faust's explanation of why he turned to a magic interpretation of the world:

[That I might]
Her vital powers, her embryo seeds, survey,
And fling the trade in empty words away.³⁵

Whoever penetrates the intellectual exchanges between Goethe and Schiller and sees what at that time came to life in the spirit of these two men receives through it as yet unrecognized and unrealized spiritual treasure—a treasure which manifests the aspirations of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in an extraordinary manner. The innermost concern of the two was manifested through the way in which Schiller undertook to solve the riddle of man philosophically in his Aesthetic Letters, the way Goethe addressed himself to the realm of color in order to oppose Newton, and the ways he depicts the evolution of the human soul in the fairy tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. All this comprises comprehensive questions that were destined, it would seem, to be of vital concern to but a few people.

Even though we have wished thus far to touch only upon such facts as bear upon the life of Goethe, it must also be remarked that, although many people nowadays believe they are capable of speaking about him, for many this Goethe period belongs to the past and is a book sealed with seven seals. In a certain sense, we may really feel pleased when someone is quite honest about this. It was, of course, narrow-minded of the famous scientist Dubois-Reymond³⁶ to deliver his discourse Goethe and No End. The same man, a rector of a university, who had previously described the limitations of a knowledge of nature and had made so many remarkable physiological discoveries, delivered his discourse on Goethe and No End! His remarks were narrow-minded because they arose from the opinion: “Yes, so many people talk about one who, after all, was only a dilettante; Goethe, the universal dilettante, is forever the subject of discussion. But how much have we since acquired about which he was, of course, totally ignorant—the cell theory, for example, the theory of electricity and advances in physiology!” All that was present in Dubois-Reymond's mind. “What was Goethe in comparison? People talk about his Faust as if he had given us an ideal of humanity.”

Dubois-Reymond cannot see that Goethe really did set before us an ideal for humanity. He asks: “Would it not have been better to make Faust greater than Goethe made him and more useful for humanity? Goethe places before us a wretched fellow”—Dubois-Reymond did not use this expression but what he says is approximately the same—“a wretched fellow who cannot even master his own inner problems. Then, if Faust had been a virtuous fellow, he would have married Gretchen instead of seducing her; he would have invented the electric generator and the air pump and have become a famous professor.” He says quite literally that if Faust had been a decent man, he would have married Gretchen and not seduced her. He would have invented the generator and air pump and would have performed other services for humanity and not have become such a debauched genius who got involved in all sorts of spiritistic nonsense.

Such a rectoral address, heard at the close of the nineteenth century, was certainly narrow-minded. Yet at least it is honest. We could wish that such honesty might appear more often; it is delightful because it corresponds with the truth. Thrice mendacious, however, is much of the laudation for Goethe and Faust that is brought forth by people who are happy “only when they find earthworms.” The quotations from Goethe that we often hear are really only spiritual earthworms even though they are Goethe's own words.

Precisely through the relationship of our time with such a spirit as Goethe's is it possible to study the deep untruth of the present age. Many people do nothing more than “trade in words,”³⁷ even trade in the very words of Goethe, whereas his world conception contains an element of everything that leads to and must come to birth in the future evolution of mankind. As we have already suggested, this element not only unites with spiritual science, but is by its very nature already tied to spiritual science.

• 1. These words are spoken by Faust's student Wagner in Faust, Part I, lines 570–573. The German text reads as follows:
  
  Verzeiht: Es ist ein gross Ergotzen
  Sich in den Geist der Zeiten zu versetzen
  zu schauen, wie vor uns ein weiser Mann gedacht,
  und wie wir's dann so herrlich weit gebracht.
  
  
  The German word "Ergötzen" connotes a passive and fleeting delight and is a contrast to the activating joy (“Erquickung“) Faust experienced in line 568. Wagner's conclusion in line 573 symbolizes the shallow optimism of the materialistic Enlightenment. Wagner himself is incapable of true spiritual perception.
  
  Except when noted otherwise, quotations of Goethe's works are from translations by Ann Swanwick.
• 2. Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927), Swedish physicist, chemist, and astronomer, was the author of Die Vorstellungen vom Weltgebdude im Wandel der Zeiten [Conceptions of the Structure of the World in the Changing Course of the Ages] (Leipzig, 1908). The foreword of this book contains the quote from Faust.
• 3. See Goethe's Poetry and Truth, IV.
• 4. Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766) was a writer and a Professor of Literature in Leipzig. He is best known for his efforts to reform the German theater and for having established rules for drama that conformed to French models.
• 5. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) was the foremost poet and critic of the German Enlightenment.
• 6. Christian Fiirchtegott Gellert (1715–1769) was a Prussian poet of the German Enlightenment.
• 7. Faust, Part I, lines 1-3. Faust reviews his past education and questions his knowledge.
• 8. The translation is from Walter Kaufmann, Goethe's Faust (Anchor Books: 1963), p. 95. This pronouncement in the third scene of Part I, lines 382–383, reveals Faust's search for a cohesive spiritual force that holds the universe together. Later in the poem he admits that he has been seeking this knowledge through alchemy.
• 9. Lines 384–385 in Faust, Part I; cf. footnotes 8 and 35. The German word “Samen“ [seed] refers to a term used in alchemy, but it is not certain that the word “Wirkungskraft“ [working force] does. Some scholars think Goethe invented the word.
• 10. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was a famous German theologian and cultural philosopher.
• 11. Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) was a Dutch philosopher, a rationalist, and a monist. His Ethics, published posthumously in 1677, exerted a profound influence on Goethe.
• 12. In the introduction to Goethe's Scientific Writings I (1883), pp. LV-LVIII, Rudolf Steiner depicts Goethe's relationship to Spinoza. Fritz Jacobi helped to deepen Goethe's knowledge of Spinoza's philosophy in the summer of 1774. After Goethe and Herder had renewed their friendship in Weimar, the two men and Frau von Stein studied Spinoza together. Goethe the Scientist (New York, Anthroposophic Press, 1950).
• 13. William Shakespeare (1564–1616).
• 14. Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) established a theory of French tragedy. Jean Baptiste Racine (1639–1699) was a famous writer of French classical tragedy.
• 15. Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740–1817) was a German physician and writer.
• 16. Emanuel von Swedenborg (1688–1772) was a Swedish natural scientist and theosopher.
• 17. Paracelsus, Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541) was a Swiss physician, natural scientist and alchemist.
• 18. The reference is to Goethe's relationship with the pastor's daughter, Friederike Brion (1752–1813).
• 19. Goethe received the degree of “Licentiate of Law,“ a title which in Germany was regarded as being equal to the doctorate. From then on, Goethe used the title, “Doctor juris.“
• 20. Götz von Berlichingen (1480–1562) came from an old Swabian family. He became the leader of the peasant uprising in 1525, fought against the Turks in 1542, and against France in 1544. His autobiography was published in 1731.
• 21. The reference is to Faust, Part I, line 584: “mit trefflichen Maximen.“ Faust, in lines 575–585, replies to Wagner's remarks (cf. footnote 1):
  
  My friend, the times that antecede
  Our own are books safely protected
  by seven seals. What spirit of the time you call
  Is but the scholar's spirit, after all,
  In which times past are now reflected.
  In truth, it is often pathetic,
  And when one sees it, one would run away:
  A garbage pail, perhaps a storage attic
  At best a pompous moralistic play
  With wonderfully edifying quips,
  Most suitable to come from puppets' lips.
  
  
  The translation of these lines is by Walter Kaufman (cf. footnote 8); he renders “pragmatic maxims“ with “edifying quips.“
• 22. Faust, Part I, lines 1972–1975, trans. by Walter Kaufmann. Mephisto says to the freshman student:
  
  The laws and statutes of a nation
  Are an inherited disease,
  From generation unto generation
  And place to place they drag on by degrees.
• 23. Siegwart, a sentimental novel by Johann Martin Miller, was published 1776, two years after Goethe's Werther, and immediately became a best seller.
• 24. The reference is to Goethe's letter from Frankfurt to Countess Auguste von Stollberg-Stollberg, dated February 13, 1775.
• 25. Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774. One year later, Goethe received Duke Kark August's invitation to Weimar and arrived there on November 7, 1775.
• 26. Frederick the Great in De la litterature alemande (1780).
• 27. Karl August, Duke of Weimar (1757–1828), son of Duchess Anna Amalia.
• 28. Charlotte Freifrau von Stein (1742–1827).
• 29. This treatise was written in 1784 and was published in Jena in 1786.
• 30. Goethe's letter from Rome, dated January 28, 1787.
• 31. Goethe's letter from Rome, dated September 6, 1787.
• 32. The Robbers had been published in 1781. In his Glückliches Ereignis [Happy Event] (1817), Goethe writes: “After my return from Italy, where I had endeavored to educate myself to a more definite and pure understanding of all branches of the arts and where I did not care what in those days was going on in Germany, I discovered that some recent, as well as some older, poetic works were in high repute and had widespread appeal. Unfortunately, they included some works that I found extremely disgusting such as Heinse's Ardinghello and Schiller's The Robbers.“
• 33. Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) was a dramatist, poet and historian and is regarded as one of the greatest German literary figures.
• 34. Hermann Grimm in the 21st “Goethe“ lecture: “When two superbly gifted men combine in common endeavors, their strength is not doubled but multiplied fourfold. Each one has the other invisibly next to himself. The formula would not read G + S, but (G + S) + (S + G). The strength of one accrues to the strength of the other.“
• 35 Faust, Part I, lines 384–385. The German text reads as follows:
  
  
  Schau alle Wirkungskraft und Samen
  Und to nicht mehr in Worten kramen.
  
  
  The Kaufman translation (cf. footnote 9) of this passage, although preferable as a whole, leaves “Wirkungskraft und Samen“ [vital power and embryo seed] untranslated and renders the two lines as follows:
  
  
  Envisage the creative blazes
  Instead of rummaging in phrases.
  
  
  To do justice to Steiner's remarks, I have here used Ann Swanwick's translation of these two lines. (P.M.)
• 36. Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818–96) was a physiologist in Berlin.
• 37. Cf. footnote 35.

When, after repeated requests, I decided to speak about some aspects of most recent history leading up to the present, I expressly stated that my concern was the understanding of the facts and that there was no question of entering into politics or anything to do with politics. I frequently repeated this statement. Despite this, it seems to me that a definite carelessness—not to use a stronger word—is gaining ground amongst us in this respect. People do not consider that when someone is speaking the truth with the intensity that has been the case, he has a right to claim that attention is also paid to the manner of its expression. It appears that here and there people have been speaking about these lectures as if they were political lectures. Lack of consideration has for a long time been the order of the day among some of our members—only a few, of course; I refer only to those who are meant. Everything I have said and repeated over and over again out of anxiety for our concerns has fallen on deaf ears in some quarters. It is perfectly apparent that again and again the matters we speak about here are reported to outsiders in the strangest manner.

As such, I have nothing against reports if they remain within the obvious bounds. But it is clear from various recent publications—among them a most scandalous compilation from the Vollrath camp—that matters are not reported in a manner befitting the way they are discussed here, but in a manner—perhaps from want of a better understanding—that enables the most horrible distortions to be fabricated. I know very well that the source of this is to be found in our midst, and if again and again I hold my peace and refrain from taking steps against those so-called members who behave in this way, it is out of love for our whole Movement and our whole Society. It is surely not possible to hold a constant succession of hearings. It would, however, be possible for members who understand what is going on, to approach in a suitable manner those of whom it is known that their attitude to the spiritual content given here is not what it ought to be. I do not even want to maintain—though sometimes it is indeed the case—that there is a direct lack of morality in people's behaviour, but there is certainly a lack of insight into the way one might behave. If someone wants to speak about what he has heard, it is incumbent upon him to ask himself with honest—let me say—self-knowledge, whether he has really understood it in a way which enables him to pass it on.

It is necessary, unfortunately, to draw attention to this from time to time. I assure you that I am not doing so without good reason. If things go on as they are, it will become necessary to remain silent about certain matters, and it is easy to see what would then become of our Movement. And a share in bringing this about would lie with those members who again and again fail to prevent themselves from using the most awful expressions which can then lead to frightful distortions. Surely it is not necessary to speak about these things in places where they can be overheard by people who do not belong amongst us, and to use expressions which might come easily to the tongue, but which in no way correspond to the whole purpose on which these lectures are founded!

I must admit that having decided after repeated requests to give these lectures, I can only view as entirely personal attacks the instances in which they have been described as ‘political lectures’.

Now that we have discussed the many considerations contained in the lectures of the past few weeks, it will today be possible to draw some of them together in order to throw light on aspects which can help us to understand what is happening today. I shall first endeavour to recount quite baldly, in the most external fashion, the historical sequence of events as they occurred, and then, on the basis of the insights gained over the past weeks, I will point out some of the deeper-lying causes. I want to state expressly that, particularly today, I shall attempt to weigh carefully every single expression so that each one provides an exact delineation within which the view it expresses can come to light. Let me start, then, by describing quite externally and briefly certain events, viewpoints and impulses.

As you of course all know, the present painful events have come about in connection with the murder in June 1914 of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne. This assassination was followed in the whole of Europe by a newspaper campaign which showed, in what might be called surging waves, the degree to which passions had been aroused in every quarter. All this led to the well-known ultimatum from the monarchy of Austria-Hungary to Serbia which, in the main, was rejected by Serbia; then on to the Austro-Serbian conflict which was intended by the leading Austrian statesmen to consist of a military entry into Serbia, without any annexation of Serbian territory, for the purpose of exerting military pressure in order to force an acceptance of the ultimatum. The purpose of the ultimatum was to prevent Serbia from inciting unrest against the stability of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy via Austria's southern Slav population.

As you know, Austria comprises quite a number of nations—there are thirteen recognized languages and many more than thirteen distinct peoples. In the southern region the population is Slav; more to the West are the Slovenian Slavs; to the East, adjacent to them, the Dalmatian, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Serbo-Croat population; then also the various groups who live in the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were annexed by Austria in 1908, though occupied by her long before that. Serbia borders on the territories populated by these southern Slavs. Austria believed it could be proved—and evidence of this proof can be found all over the place by anyone who cares to seek it—that Serbia was inciting unrest with the aim of founding a Southern Slav kingdom under the sovereignty of Serbia and entailing the detachment of the southern Slav population of Austria.

At all costs the assassination of Franz Ferdinand had to be linked with these things, for the following reason: From 1867 onwards, the monarchy of Austria-Hungary was a dual state comprising, in accordance with a not very concise description ‘the kingdoms and lands represented in the Reichsrat’, and secondly ‘the lands of the Holy Crown of St Stephen’. Among the lands represented in the Reichsrat were Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Istria, Dalmatia, Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Bukovina. To the lands of the Holy Crown of St Stephen belong first and foremost the Magyar regions to which was annexed what had formerly been Transylvania, which is inhabited by a number of peoples; further, Croatia and Slavonia, the latter enjoying a kind of limited self-government within the Hungarian state. A dual monarchy, in other words.

Now it was known that Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, wanted to overcome the drawbacks of the dualism of Austria-Hungary and replace this dualism with a ‘triadic’ reorganization. This triadic structure was to come about by making the southern Slav territories belonging to Austria self-governing, in the way the lands and kingdoms represented in the Reichsrat and also the lands of the Holy Crown of St Stephen were self-governing. This would have put a triadic structure in place of the existing dualism. You can see how, had it been realized, this would have led to an individualization of the separate southern Slav peoples within a kind of southern Slav community in the Austro-Slav regions. It would have meant a step closer to the aim of assimilating the western Slavs with western culture, thus working against what I have called Russianism in these lectures. This could quite well have worked out, for the structure of the Austrian state is entirely federalistic, not centralistic, and before the war it tended anyway increasingly to grant federal status to the different peoples. From 1867 to 1879 centralism was the aim; from 1879 onwards the efforts to centralize had to be seen as a failure, and from then on federalism was the aim.

In opposition to this were the efforts on the part of Serbia to found a confederation of southern Slavs under the hegemony of Serbia. This did not arise from within the Serbian people, but I have described to you how peoples are, in a way, led simply by means of suggestion. For this to happen, the southern Slav territories would, of course, have to be wrested from Austria-Hungary.

This concludes my brief summary of what lies behind the Austro-Serbian conflict. What I have just been telling you is all to do with the Austro-Serbian conflict. It is thinkable that this conflict could have been ‘localized’—I have used this expression once before. Had this come about—I am speaking hypothetically—the European world war would have been avoided. What would have happened if the strictly circumscribed intentions of the Austrian statesmen had been realized? Part of the Austro-Hungarian army would have marched into Serbia and stayed there until Serbia agreed to accept the ultimatum which would have quashed the possibility of a southern Slav conferation under Serbian hegemony, and, of course, Russian supremacy. If no other European power had interfered in this matter, if they had all done nothing more than stand to attention, as it were, then nothing would have taken place except the acceptance of this ultimatum. For Austria had guaranteed that she had no intention of annexing any parts of Serbian territory in any way. As a result, such assassinations as took place many times—that of Franz Ferdinand was only the last in a whole sequence incited by Serbian agitators—such assassinations would not have taken place, and without such agitation the establishment of a southern Slav confederation under the supremacy of Russia is, or rather would, of course, have been impossible. If events had taken this course—I speak hypothetically again—this war need never have broken out.

So what is the connection between this Austro-Serbian conflict and the World War? To comprehend this connection it is necessary to pass beyond an understanding of the external situation and, if I may say so, enter the deeper secrets of European politics. It is not politics we want to enter; we want to understand in our soul what it was that lived in these politics. I want to answer the question: How did a European conflict arise out of the Austro-Serbian conflict? What is the link between the Austro-Serbian question and the European question?

We must turn our attention to what I have just said about the southern Slav confederation. It was the British Empire, the more it took on a conscious form, that was interested in a southern Slav confederation, independent of Austria, but under the supremacy of Russia. In the societies I have mentioned it was the establishment of what was termed the Danube confederation—by which was meant this southern Slav confederation, which was to comprise the southern Slav peoples together with Romania and include the southern Slavs of Austria—that was expressly discussed. In the nineties of the nineteenth century we find everywhere in the occult schools of the West, under the direct influence of British occultists, indications that such a Danube confederation would have to come into being. Attempts were also made to manipulate the whole of European politics towards the creation of this Danube confederation, which would entail the relinquishing of the Austro-Slav territories.

Why was the British Empire interested in this Danube confederation, a project which was anti-Austrian and pro-Russian? The powers which have been in opposition to one another most strongly in recent times as a consequence of the imperialism which has broken out across the world, those powers which actually coexist with the greatest hostility, are the British Empire and the Russian Empire. Such hidden hostilities can indeed manifest outwardly as friendships and alliances. When there is such bitter hostility between countries outwardly coexisting peacefully, a certain consequence results from the fact that our earth has a specific characteristic: namely, that it is spherical in shape. If our earth were a flat plain stretching in all directions, such conflicts could not come about. But since our earth is round, not only do we eventually arrive back at our starting point if we walk long enough in a straight line, but something else also happens: Expanding empires come up against each other at a certain point, and when they collide they have to follow through with their opposing interests. This occurred between the British and the Russian Empires. Among many other situations, it became most obviously apparent when they collided with great force in Persia. The question was: Should Russia succeed in moving down against India and there gradually hem in the British Empire, or would the British Empire erect defences?

When your aim is to gain sovereignty, you can pursue it by means of war, or by other means, depending on which seems the most favourable. For the British Empire it seemed for the moment—in the case of states, only limited periods of time are reckoned with—more favourable to prevent Russia from proceeding against India by providing a different channel, by diverting her attention in another direction in which she could achieve the satisfaction of her natural ambition. Empires are always ambitious. This was to be brought about by conceding to Russia the sovereignty over the so-called Danube confederation. Thus the British Empire was indirectly interested in making the Danube confederation as extensive as possible, for the Slavs in the South wanted to belong together, and this feeling of belonging was stirred up in the way I have described to you. Thus the confederation of southern Slavs was to be played into Russia's hand so that she might withdraw her attention from other directions. This was why the confederation of southern Slavs, to be set up under Russian sovereignty, was in the British interest. It was a long story, prepared well beforehand.

Here we see one of the threads linking the Austro-Serbian question to the question of sovereignty on a world scale. This is how the whole relationship between the British and the Russian Empires was drawn into the matter. It was not a matter of Austria and Serbia, for the whole Austro-Serbian question necessarily became the question: Should Austria take the step towards a triadic structure, thus diverting the confederation of southern Slavs from its path, or should steps be taken towards a Russian-dominated southern Slav confederation? In this way the Austro-Serbian question became coupled with the European question.

When such situations exist—for what I have just described lived in human beings as absolutely real impulses—it is like an electric charge which will at some point have to be discharged. This, then, was one of the threads.

It is still, however, highly questionable whether the Austro-Serbian conflict would have led to the World War, if there had not been further aspects in addition to those we have just discussed. Indeed, it is highly unlikely that it would have done, if there had been no other causes. But there were plenty of other impulses, all of which reinforced the situation. First and foremost among these was the Franco-Russian alliance within the general European situation. This Franco-Russian alliance had existed since the nineties of the nineteenth century and, looking at the situation objectively, it could not have been more unnatural. No one will doubt that France had entered into this alliance with a view to winning back Alsace-Lorraine, for there is no other imaginable reason for this alliance. All other reasons would only have spoken against such an alliance. In the end, though, those other reasons carry little weight in comparison with the driving forces, for the fact is that an alliance such as this exists; through its very existence it represents a real force. It is there. Much more important than the actual aim of this alliance is the fact that here are a western and an eastern state who in combination constitute a monstrous military power. And between them lies Germany who could not but feel permanently threatened militarily by the scale of this combined French and Russian military might. It was this encirclement of Germany to West and East by the Franco-Russian alliance which became one of the driving forces in European affairs.

To discover further influences which played a part we must look at the following: In recent decades, imperialism has led to a general desire for expansion. You need only look, for instance, at the monstrous growth of the British Empire. Or think of France, whose territorial expansion over the last few decades has been incomparably greater than at any earlier time, when France, as she herself said, marched at the head of European civilization.

The events of recent decades have been like a chain reaction: In every case what came next could not have taken place without what had gone before. The most recent point of departure—of course we could go back further—lies in the British Empire's seizure of sovereignty over Egypt. For today's way of thinking it is perfectly reasonable to justify such an action by claiming the necessity of rounding off and securing one's assets. The expansion of British sovereignty over Egypt was justified by saying that a bridge to India was needed. The hope was that Arabia could be gained too, thus creating a direct link with India.

The expansion of the British Empire to include Egypt provided, to some extent, a protective barrier against any awkward expansion of the Russian Empire westwards; any such expansion westwards need not have harmed the British Empire to any great extent if Egypt had been able to provide the necessary link with India.

Now since the earth is spherical, there is insufficient territory for unlimited expansion outwards by empires because eventually they will clash. In consequence the expansion of one empire generates in the other an equal lust for expansion. Thus the expansion by France to include Morocco, in two stages in 1905 and 1911, was nothing other than a consequence of the expansion of the British Empire to include Egypt. The mutual recognition of these expansions—France's recognition of British dominion over Egypt and British recognition of France's dominion over Morocco—provided the threads with which an Entente Cordiale between the French and the British Empires could be spun. But because Germany was in the middle, efforts were made, as you know, to establish the Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria, Italy.

However, the distribution of Morocco and Egypt, and what followed this, meant that, at the Algeciras Conference, and particularly with the help of an elderly Italian politician who was well versed in these things, Italy was even then successfully drawn into the sphere of influence of the western entente between France and England. After the Algeciras Conference sensible people in Central Europe no longer believed that Italy would be able to remain faithful to the Triple Alliance. Because of the way she had behaved there had to be consequences for her, resulting from the seizure of Morocco by France. And the consequence was that Italy was permitted to establish herself in Tripoli. In effect this meant that Italy had been given permission by the West to wage war on Turkey. So Egypt led to Morocco, and Morocco to Tripoli. Then, because Tripoli meant a new weakening of the Turkish position, Tripoli led to the Balkan War. These events took place like a chain reaction, Egypt-Morocco-Tripoli-Balkan War; each is unthinkable without its predecessor.

Turkey having been weakened by the Italo-Turkish, or Tripoli War, the southern Slav peoples, with the others in their wake, and also the Greek peoples, believed themselves strong enough to win the Balkan peninsula for themselves. As a result of this, the trend towards a southern Slav confederation became linked with the national aspirations of the Balkan countries. The linking of these two chains gave the Balkan War an outcome in which Serbia was the strongest winner. Serbia has grown very powerful, incomparably more so than she was before. In consequence there came a revival of the ideal of founding the southern Slav confederation under the hegemony of Serbia and the overall sovereignty of Russia. This led to the agitations which culminated in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which in turn led to the Austro-Serbian War. Now we have brought the two links together: The Austro-Serbian question was linked with the European question as a consequence of the whole historical process.

Those who followed these events with understanding were able to see under these circumstances many years ahead to the coming war, hanging like a sword of Damocles over European culture and civilization. Wherever these things were discussed you could hear how people realized that Russia's pretensions would lead to a conflict between Central and Eastern Europe. This conflict was inevitable. No one who studies the realities of history will say that this conflict between Central and Eastern Europe was not based on what may be called a spiritual necessity. Just as in ancient times conflict arose between the Roman and the Germanic peoples, so in modern times there had to be conflict between Central and Eastern Europe. There were manifold forms it could have taken, but conflict there had to be. Everything else, in so far as it had to do with the East, was included in this conflict.

It was the pretensions of Russianism that led to the expectation that somewhere or other these pretensions would lead to an attempt by Russia to impose sovereignty on the Balkan league. This was expected. The geographical situation made it inevitable that there would be a clash between Russia and Austria. And when this clash occurred—so said all those who had been contemplating these things over the years—everything else would automatically follow.

How, it was asked, would the situation be shaped by the existing structure of alliances at the moment of Russia's attack on Austria? Obviously no one expected Austria to attack Russia of her own accord. This was unthinkable; Austria could not possibly find herself in a position to launch an attack on Russia. It had to be supposed, therefore, that matters would arrange themselves in a way that would enable Russia to attack Austria. Well and good! Because of the alliance between Austria and Germany, Germany could be expected to stand by Austria and attack Russia in her turn. And as a result of Germany's attack on Russia—I am telling you what was presumed—the Franco-Russian alliance would come into action. France would be obliged to take Russia's side and attack Germany. And because of the relationship between France and England—whether laid down in a treaty or not—England would have to join in the attack on the side of Russia and France. These things were foreseen. The structure of treaties and alliances would automatically lead to a sequence of events.

In the end, the sequence was not quite what had been expected by those who concerned themselves day in, day out, with the future of Europe. What form did it take? Let us see. I have already described to you the history of the ultimatum, the rejection of the ultimatum, the resulting insistence by Austria on acceptance of the ultimatum. But the European powers did not remain indifferent to all this, for Russia immediately made ready to enter the fray as Serbia's protector. This made the localization of the Austro-Serbian question unthinkable. From the British quarter came all sorts of meaningless suggestions of the kind made by those who either want to take a hand in affairs without thinking things through properly, or who want to build up for themselves from the start a world-wide reputation of having endeavoured to settle the matter by peaceful means. This is not actually the aim, but it has to be possible later on to say that it was.

So the meaningless suggestion was made to call a conference made up, of all things, of England, Germany, France and Italy, to decide about the questions pending. Just imagine what would have been the outcome of such a conference! A majority verdict would have been required on whether Austria's demands to Serbia were justified or not. On the basis of the real situation, imagine, please, how the voting would have gone! Italy had inwardly deserted the Triple Alliance, France was on Russia's side, Russia was obviously only satisfied if Austria was refused the right to insist on acceptance of the ultimatum, England was in favour of the Danube confederation. Leaving aside Austria, the majority would have gone to Italy, France and England. Germany would obviously have been out-voted at all costs. This conference could not possibly have led to anything other than a refusal for what Austria, from her position, was compelled to demand. That means that if this conference had been held it would have been nothing but a farce, for Austria would either have been forced to give up her pretensions, or, regardless of the outcome of the conference, she would have continued to demand acceptance of the ultimatum. In other words, the conference would have been nothing but a bluff, as they say. A thorough study of the documentation reveals, however, that from the start Russia's pretension was to interfere in the Serbo-Austrian question. So it is really irrelevant whether the World War came about as the result of an automatic sequence of events or of deliberate scene-setting leading inevitably to the War.

It was the scene-setting that took place for, in addition to the various impulses, you must also take into account a quite particular mood. Maybe no other world event, no other historical event but this, has ever been quite so dependent on a certain mood. The mood of soul of those participating in the outbreak of the War at the end of July 1914 was certainly one of the most important causes. Of course there were also agitations at the outbreak of earlier wars, but they did not sweep in with such stormy, such hurricane force, as did the events between 24 July and 1 August 1914. Within a few days a monstrous agitation had gathered over the participants, an agitation in which was concentrated all the accumulated anxiety of the many years during which this coming event had been foreseen. This mood must definitely be taken into account. Those who do not do so can only speak in empty phrases.

All kinds of points could be brought in to characterize this mood, but I shall draw your attention to only one. An event had taken place which was indirectly, though in fact very strongly, connected with the outbreak of the War. If it is to be evaluated properly it will, and must, be seen in its proper place amongst the other events in Europe. This was the German defence bill, laid before Parliament after the Balkan War, which budgeted for an enlargement of the German army by means of a single large defence payment. This enlargement of the German army, which, by the way, was not anywhere near completion by the time the War broke out, can be studied by anyone in connection with the results of the Balkan War. These results showed that for an uncertain time in the future the clash between Russia and Austria was being manipulated. It was only because of certain situations, which I do not want to go into here, that Russia was prevented as early as 1913 from attacking Austria in order to gain sovereignty and dominion over the Balkan confederation. The enlargement of the German army was undertaken for no other reason—as I said, I am choosing my expressions very precisely today—than the threatened dispute with the East. Yet the French reaction followed promptly: If Germany is enlarging her army, then we must do something about strengthening ours. What this means is that the destiny, the inevitable necessity for Central Europe to take precautions with regard to the East, always produced reinforcements in the West, which naturally produced further reactions in their turn.

In this way matters progressed. In particular, everything connected with the defence bill after the Balkan War generated terrible anxiety in Central Europe because the whole of the European periphery was seen to have turned against Central Europe. Opinions differed only in the matter of Italy: Some still thought she would somehow throw in her lot with Central Europe, while others no longer held this to be possible.

Let us still assume—hypothetically—that the World War did not break out. There was only one precondition that could have prevented it. Russia would have had to refrain from immediate war threats—in other words mobilization, which under the prevailing circumstances could only be regarded as a war threat. Central Europe could not for one moment have thought that France would not go along with Russia, so an assault on two fronts had to be reckoned with. The only course of action open to those in positions of responsibility was to paralyse this assault in some way. No one in a responsible position could have thought: Let us spend the next fortnight at a conference! Not only could this conference have led absolutely nowhere, as I said, but it would have meant certain defeat. But no one can be expected to accept certain defeat from the outset. So the only possibility was to match the monstrous military superiority of West and East by means of speed.

For this the only possible course of action, as I showed earlier, was to violate international law and march through Belgium. Any other solution could only have led to the involvement of most of the German army in a long war of defence in the West while leaving the way open to invasion from the East. This was one of those historical moments at which—whether you can express it aptly or not—a state is forced to enter into a breach of the law in self-preservation. There is no other course of action open to those responsible for that state. In Central Europe it was—and I am choosing my words very carefully today in order to make my meaning quite clear—for some of those in responsible positions utterly monstrous to attempt war on two fronts at once.

So the attempt was made to restrict the matter to a single front. Careful, carefully intentioned, attempts were made to keep France neutral, and it was believed that France could be induced to remain neutral. No one in Central Europe had any intention of harming France. With a feeling of total responsibility it is possible to say that absolutely no one in Central Europe, no one in Germany, had any intention of harming France. What was done was done only with a view to tying matters up as quickly as possible in the West in order to prevent the threatened invasion from the East. It therefore never ceases to be astonishing that so much talk persists in the world about all the atrocities Germany has committed towards the West. None of the atrocities would have occurred if only France had declared her neutrality.

France was perfectly capable of protecting herself and Belgium against any attack. That France was forced to keep her agreement with Russia is her own affair and should not be trotted out in the same breath as the atrocities committed by Germany, for the allegiance of one state to another is no business of her enemies.

Since it proved impossible to keep France neutral by direct means, the attempt was then made via England—here, too, without success. I have touched a number of times on how England could have saved Belgium and, equally well, France. These things must be viewed absolutely objectively. Please accept as totally objective the statement that, once the war between Austria and Serbia could no longer be localized because Russia would not allow this, every effort was made at least to prevent it from spreading to the West. Truly, no one in Central Europe was seized with the madness of wanting to make war on two fronts, let alone subsequently on three.

That all the other universal untruths followed on from this is really not surprising now, when every day astonishes us with new lies, spoken, written and printed. Before coming here today I found someone had put on my desk a pamphlet by one of the participants engaged in the neutrality debate with Georg Brandes. Here, on the English side, you have William Archer, in whose pamphlet you find juxtaposed the black infamy of Germany and the pure innocence of the allies. Ten points illustrate the black infamy, and the angelic, utter innocence of the allies; we need consider only one of these, the second. The second point states that in Germany there exists a notable faction which is openly agitating for further territorial expansion, either in or outside Europe. In contrast it is said of the allies—in English, mark you: The allies have no desire for any territorial expansion, least of all at Germany's expense; even France's feelings for Alsace-Lorraine are exclusively peaceful.

My dear friends, much can be both printed and spoken these days! The other nine points are in similar vein. Just think of the expansion undertaken by England and France over recent decades; and then read that these countries have no desire for territorial expansion. It is quite possible nowadays to say and print the exact opposite of the truth, just as it is possible for countless people to believe it. People do indeed believe these things.

Here, then, you have the historical view of these events. Now we must link this external historical process with what we can discover through our knowledge of the impulses from the West which have been at work for a long time. Not all the impulses that make use to a greater or lesser degree of occult forces—such as we have discussed—are included in what might be called the outer ramifications: namely, Freemasonry, though as we have seen, a great deal is indeed brought about by western Freemasonry. Many strings are pulled by those involved there. And as I said, account is taken of long stretches of time.

Now add to the points I have been making the fact that modern Freemasonry undergoes a process of consolidation in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, on foundations, of course, which are older. Within Britain, not the Empire, but the United Kingdom, Freemasonry remains—let me use the correct expression—essentially respectable in the interests it pursues. But everywere else, outside Britain, chiefly—or indeed exclusively—political interests are pursued by Freemasonry.

Such political interests, to the most marked degree, are pursued for instance by the French Grand Orient, and also by other Grand Lodges. You could ask: What business is it of the English if political trends in other countries are pursued by certain orders of Freemasonry which possess an occult background? In reply you might remind yourself that the first Grand Lodge in Paris was founded under the jurisdiction of England, not France! Englishmen, not Frenchmen, founded it; and then they let the French in. Then also remind yourself that after the founding of this Grand Lodge in Paris in 1725, this Grand Orient in turn sanctioned the founding of a lodge under its own jurisdiction in Paris in 1729. There were, under the jurisdiction of England, foundations in Gibraltar in 1729, Madrid in 1728, Lisbon in 1736, Florence in 1735, Moscow in 1731, Stockholm in 1726, Geneva in 1735, Lausanne in 1739 and Hamburg in 1737. I could carry on for a long time with this list. I could show you how a network was founded of these lodges, which were to act as the external tools for certain occult, political impulses. They differed in character from those in the United Kingdom itself. In addition to the breathtaking sequence of changes as we see them in history, such as the Jacobins and the furore they created, the Carbonari and their political activities, the Cortes in Spain and others, they also have a strong influence on the culture of their time and send out shoots which even show in the works of the greatest spirits of their time. We need only think of Rousseau's natural philosophy, or the critical philosophy of Voltaire, which became ever more cynical though its aim was to enlighten, or the efforts of the Illuminati, who wanted to overcome the prevailing cynicism, and similar circles. These progressive circles were crushed by reactionary streams, but continued to work in manifold ways underground.

So here you have the source of much that I have been describing. And you must attach a degree of importance to the following: The English Freemasons can maintain today that their lodges are entirely respectable and that any others are none of their business; yet if you look beyond the historical connections and the interplay of opposing currents, you are sure to find high-level British politics hiding in the background.

To understand the deeper meaning of these politics it is necessary to draw a little on recent history. Preparations having been under way from the sixteenth century onwards, there has been a tendency ever since the seventeenth century towards the democratization of society—in some countries more quickly, in others more slowly—by taking power away from the few and giving it to the broad masses. I am not here involved in politics and I shall not therefore express myself in favour of either democracy or anything else. I simply wish to state facts. The impulse towards democracy is having its effect in modern times at varying speeds, and so different streams are coming into being. It is a mistake, where several streams are apparent, to follow the course of only one. The way streams flow in the world is such that one always forms a complement to the others. Let us say a green and a red stream are flowing along side by side. Nothing occult is meant by these colours—it is simply to illustrate that there are two streams flowing side by side. Usually people are, let me say, hypnotized into looking at only one of the streams, while they fail to see the other flowing beside it during the same period in history. As you know, if you push a hen's beak into the ground and then draw a line leading away, the hen will always walk along this line. In the same way people today, especially university historians, see only the one side, and can therefore never really understand the historical process.

Parallel with the democratic stream there came into being the use of occult motives in the various secret societies—in isolated cases, also Masonic orders. In their purposes and aims these are not, of course, spiritual, but there developed, let us call it, a spiritual aristocracy parallel to that democratic stream which was at work in the French Revolution; the aristocracy of the lodges developed. To see clearly as a human being today, to be open to the world and to understand the world, it is necessary not to be dazzled by democratic logic—which has a place only in its own sphere—by empty phrases about democratic progress and so on; it is necessary also to point to that other stream which asserted itself with the intent of gaining power for the few by means that lie hidden within the womb of the lodge—the ritual and its suggestive influence. It is necessary to point to this also.

This has been forgotten during the age of materialism, but before the fifties of the last century people did point these things out. Study the philosophical historians prior to 1850 and you will see that they pointed to the connection between the lodges and the French Revolution with all that followed it. During the period that can be seen as preparatory for today, western historical development, the western world, never emancipated itself from the lodges. The influence of the lodges was always strongly at work. The lodges knew how to find channels through which to impress certain directions on people's thoughts. Once a web like this has been spun—of which I have shown you merely a few strands—the button need only be pressed for things to be set in motion.

Emancipation from all these situations, and the impartial embracing of humanity as such, only really came about under the influence of such great spirituality as developed in German philosophy beginning with Lessing, and developing through Herder and Goethe. Here you have a spiritual stream which took account of all that lives in the lodges, but in such a way that the mystery was brought out of the obscurity of the lodges and transformed into a purely human matter. You need only glance at Goethe's fairy tale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, at Wilhelm Meister and other of Goethe's writings. This was material with which the step to emancipation could be taken and which still today makes emancipation possible. So you may view that whole part of German cultural history portrayed in my book Vom Menschenrätsel as a forgotten reverberation which is entirely independent of all the intrigues of the lodges.

In western culture over the last few centuries preceding our own day you will easily find many ways of demonstrating how the character of ideas in the exoteric world stemmed from the esoteric thinking of the lodges. Obviously this does not apply to the time before Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare but it is certainly true of what came later. But the spiritual culture linked with Lessing, Herder and Goethe has no such connections. You might ask: What about German Freemasonry—in Austria it is proscribed, so there is none there—or Magyar Freemasonry? Well, the others did not allow them to join in. They are quite an innocuous crowd. Though they might appear as thick as thieves with regard to their secrets, this is nothing but show.

The real, mighty impulses emanating from the quarters I have described to you are truly not found in German Freemasonry, which I have no wish to offend. So you can easily understand how it was possible for some rather strange occurrences to take place. Suppose, for instance, someone were to make known in Germany the things I have told you about societies, their secret connections and their external branches—the lodges of Freemasonry. It could be rather useful to make these things known there, but what would be the consequence? Experts would be asked to corroborate these things, and in this case the experts are the Freemasons themselves. But it would never occur to any Freemason in Germany to say anything other than that the English lodges do not concern themselves with politics, that they are concerned only with entirely respectable matters. This is all he knows, for he is ignorant of anything else. You can even be told—and this has actually happened—if you ask about specific names, that they are not on the list of members. They have the list but are unaware that perhaps the most important of all are not included in the list. In short, German Freemasonry is a quite innocuous society.

This does not alter the fact, though—and this may truly be said without any kind of arrogance or nationalistic affectation—that the spiritual life cultivated by certain western secret brotherhoods actually stems from Central Europe. Look at this historically. Robert Fludd: pupil of Paracelsus; Saint-Martin in France: pupil of Jakob Böhme. The origin of the movement itself is to be found in Central Europe. From the West comes the organization, the establishment in degrees—some western lodges have ninety-two degrees; just imagine how elevated you can become if you rise to the ninety-second degree—the use of knowledge for political aims, and the introduction of certain external elements.

We have just had an example which is quite typical, one to which I drew your attention. I am only describing these things in order to make you aware of their objective nature, just as the facts of natural history can be described; not from any nationalistic affectation. I drew your attention to the recent appearance of a book by Sir Oliver Lodge, in which he reports on communications he has received through various mediums from his son who was killed in action. A book like this, written by such a distinguished scientist, is sure to cause quite a sensation. Now that I have read the book there is no need for me to retract anything I said to you a little while ago. I said at the time that I would return to this subject. The strongest proof offered by Sir Oliver Lodge is the following: Seances with various mediums result in the manifestation of the soul of Raymond Lodge, who died in action. These seances tell us nothing people do not know already and would be unlikely to make any strong impression on anyone. But one thing did make a strong impression on the eminent scientist Sir Oliver Lodge and his whole family, who up to that point had been very sceptical about such things. At one of the seances a group photograph was mentioned, showing Oliver Lodge's son together with other people. This photograph, one of several, was described as showing the same people at the same place, but in varying arrangements; the same people are seen, but with differing gestures. Raymond Lodge described this photograph through the medium at that seance in England. But Sir Oliver Lodge and his family knew nothing about this picture, for it had been taken at the Franco-Belgian front at the end of Raymond Lodge's life and sent by him to his family, though it had not yet arrived. So this medium described a group photograph which existed but was unknown to the family: the participants in the seance. They only saw it after it had been described by the medium.

For those who dabble in the occult, this is naturally tremendously convincing. What should you make of the fact that a group photograph is described at a seance, the participants of which know nothing about it? The family, the participants in the seance, know nothing of it and nor do the mediums, because it has not yet arrived in England. It is still on the way. It only arrived later. Yet an exact description is given of where Raymond Lodge is sitting in relation to the others and even of the way he has laid his hand on a friend's shoulder. What could be more convincing than this?

However, Sir Oliver Lodge's interpretation can only have been reached by someone who merely dabbles in the occult. If he had known nothing much but had investigated the literature—for instance Schubert or similar people who still wrote about such things in Germany around the first half of the nineteenth century—he would have found countless examples of something that every genuine occultist knows: When consciousness is damped down even slightly, future events can be seen. The most simple case of seeing a future event is when someone experiencing a moment of lowered consciousness sees a funeral procession which will not take place for several days. A person has not even died, yet someone sees his funeral. Something in the future is seen. This is quite normal when consciousness is lowered. So this is what took place: A photograph has been taken in Flanders and is on its way to England. The time will come when the family will focus their eyes and their understanding on it, when they will bear it in their thoughts. The medium foresees it as an image of the future. Whether you foresee a funeral procession, or whether you foresee how a family receives such and such a photograph of their son in a few days' time—it is the same phenomenon: that of seeing a future event in advance. This is just a phenomenon.

If he had known something about real occult facts, he would not have interpreted the event as he did. Such an interpretation arises because occult values, occult laws, are seen from a materialistic standpoint. It comes about because people avoid undertaking that form of development which would enable them to comprehend the spiritual world in an inward process. Instead they want to see the spiritual realm by laboratory means, purely materialistically. The spirit is made materialistic, whether by Sir Oliver Lodge or anybody else. But this is only one example of what happens to everything that is spiritual. These things can be observed, just as you can observe the progression from Paracelsus to Fludd, from Jakob Böhme to Saint-Martin; everywhere the spirit is made more materialistic.

As the Anthroposophical Society we only succeeded in saving ourselves from becoming materialistic by emancipating ourselves from the Theosophical Society. For impulses emanating from the kind of society I have described penetrate deeply into the social fabric. Naturally, here again I must beg you not to misunderstand me. I am not saying that this is a natural characteristic of the western nations. But it exists and has succeeded in influencing the course of history and is not even without influence on the untruthfulness which is now playing such a devastating part.

It is particularly to this untruthfulness that I am obliged to draw you attention, for this untruthfulness always takes the form of accusation, of blaming others. That dismal New Year's Eve note is really nothing but an accusation based on a distortion of the facts, just as is the article by Mr Archer which I read to you here. But you see such things are beginning to be believed, they are beginning to play their role. In a few weeks' time people will have long forgotten that an opportunity to achieve peace was present in a form that could not be overlooked by the world, and that this opportunity was thwarted by the powers of the periphery. People in Europe will once again begin to believe that the offer of peace was refused by the powers of the Entente on purely humanitarian grounds, on the basis of the extraordinary reasoning that if one wants peace one must prevent it from coming about. Even such grotesque untruths as this are believed nowadays. That they can be believed at all derives from preparations made by the kind of occultism I have been describing to you. It is indeed a sign of an arrant corruption of the soul when it becomes possible to write down side by side the two sentences I mentioned about the black and the white raven. And this corruption of the soul comes about as a consequence of an atmosphere tampered with by organizations such as I have described.

In this connection, too—I can say this quite objectively—there has been a tendency for Central Europe to emancipate itself. In all the Central European spiritual life thrown open by Lessing, Herder, Goethe, such as we have spoken about during the course of our anthroposophical life, you have seen clearly enough how the direction was towards a gradual evolution into the spiritual world. What it is not inclined to do, is enter into any kind of permanent compromise with what lives in the western streams such as those I have described to you. This is impossible. That is why things appear in a different way.

Let us look back for a moment to Fichte, so disparaged in the West today; let us turn to his Reden an die deutsche Nation. What is Fichte aiming at? That the German nation should educate itself! What he says in Reden an die deutsche Nation is not aimed at other nations; he is endeavouring to inspire Germans to improve themselves. But others seem to have what we might call a real ‘genius’ for misunderstanding whatever comes into being in Germany. That harmless national anthem Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, which, if you take the trouble to read the next few lines, speaks of nothing more than loving one's fatherland above all others—for only the different parts of the fatherland are named—is made into something utterly grotesque. In the same way, if one wants to, one can misunderstand Fichte, since he begins Reden an die deutsche Nation with the words ‘I speak for Germans as such, and about Germans as such’. Why does he say this? Because Germany is divided into a whole number of small individual states, and he does not want to address the Prussians, or the Swabians or the Saxons, or the people of Oldenburg, Mecklenburg or Austria and so on, but Germans as such. He wanted to unite all the individuals. So he is talking to Germans and only to Germans. I do not want to praise the Germans, but such things may justifiably be included in a description of them.

I have brought up this matter today because there is definitely a tendency to sound a note in the centre, a note differing from that of the periphery. And if our anthroposophical work can contribute to this other note, there is no reason why we should not say so amongst ourselves. Just today I received a pamphlet by our friend Ludwig von Polzer, who as you know worked here: Thoughts during Wartime. Whether you agree in detail with what he says or not, it is interesting to note that he is not particularly concerned with attacking and insulting others but rather with reading the riot act to his Austrian compatriots. It is to them he speaks. Obviously he has come to be an Austrian as a result of his karma, but he nevertheless reads the riot act to his Austrian compatriots. He does not say: We are blameless, we never did this or that, we are pure white angels and all the others are black devils. No, he says:

‘Why does mankind hate itself and tear itself to pieces? Are external political differences of opinion really the cause of so much suffering? Every party to the fray claims to know what it is about, but in reality none of them know.
A declining, decadent culture is fighting its deathly struggle. The Central Powers, who are fighting for the first germination of a new culture, have not recognized it as yet; they fight for something they do not know, for something unknown to them; and they are themselves still filled with the convictions against which their own soldiers are bleeding in battle.
The old degenerate ways must be, as it were, vomited forth and that is why in their final fling they are running so wild.
Do we not come up against it amongst ourselves wherever we turn, this attitude of the Entente which bears the old, decadent culture? Has it not infected us as well? We see it on the streets in the latest fashions, it is embodied in modern architecture, it grins down at us from the hoardings, in commerce it runs to orgies, it inflates itself in bureaucratic madness, in its self-important untruthful humanism it lies to itself, our press seeks to outbid its colleagues of the Entente in devotion to the truth, and so on.
The Entente is here among us, fuming and raging, claiming to work for our honest soldiers and compatriots, almost all of whom have meanwhile died a sacrificial death.
All these things running so horrifyingly wild in our own country—let it be hoped for the last time before the end—are not deutsch.’

So all those things worthy of censure in his own country he calls ‘not deutsch’. His main aim is to appeal to the conscience of his own compatriots. There are further, similar passages in this booklet. It is good that such a thing is said for once in connection with our own endeavours. There is no need for us to be in total harmony with every sentence that is written amongst us. The most wonderful achievement will be to work on all these things independently, preserving our individuality and taking nothing as dogma or as the word of a higher authority. Those things which are meant to come to the fore are quite able to do so without the help of any authority. But to give our Society meaning we need to stand together in unanimity. In part this means, of course, that we should be alert to what goes on amongst us and should recognize those who work alongside us and who endeavour to place before the world what goes on within our Anthroposophical Society in such a way that it really reflects the intentions of our Society. The main thing we can do to help our age is to work with understanding through the impulses of this age from our viewpoint. We need not lose heart, for however unfavourable conditions become in time, we may recall Lessing's words: Is not the whole of eternity mine? This is a thought that concerns every single human being.

We should be particularly careful to develop good practices with regard to the proper evaluation and estimation of all that comes to the fore amongst ourselves. In this connection I hope you will not mind my mentioning something, without wishing to say anything unpleasant to anyone. The periodical Das Reich, produced by Alexander von Bernus, makes every endeavour to move within our stream. So what does it matter if we agree or disagree with one or another of the articles it publishes? It is quite possible to disagree with a good deal. But many mistakes have been made on the part of our members with regard to this periodical. Seeing how it has been berated from all sides, I have to say that it is really not right to throw obstacles in the path of efforts which genuinely endeavour to work in harmony with our Movement. Of course everybody is entitled to his own opinion about the verses which Alexander von Bernus composed in connection with certain historical occult teachings which may be found amongst us. But I do consider things have been taken too far when floods of blatently rude letters start to arrive from our members. Where will it lead if we ill-treat those who are on our side while taking very little notice of those who insult us, just letting them go on doing so?

I wanted to bring up the matter of this periodical Das Reich, which strives to promote our endeavours, because I want to reply to the question that could be asked: What can we do? The very reason why these lectures have been given is to find a reply to this question: What can we do? What we can do is maintain an understanding attitude, in accordance with our anthroposophical spiritual science, towards everything going on at present! For what would be the significance of this spiritual science for us if we could really not transcend the attitude prevalent all over Europe today of people who speak of national aspirations and the like, and shape events in accordance with these national aspirations. Within the Society which serves anthroposophical spiritual science no one need become a faithless son of his nation, or deny anything he ought not to deny because he is firmly united with a particular nation as a result of his karma. But no one can be a true anthroposophist if he turns a blind eye towards the enormity of what is going on just now and allows himself to be deafened by all those means which some of those in power use today to stun us in order to avoid having to state what they are really playing at. So let me point out those things that are easily believed when they come towards us in a sentimental form, whereas what has always been hidden by the screens behind which occult events take place still has to remain hidden away behind these screens.

It must become clear to us that a time could come again—I am choosing my words very warily today, so I say could come again—in which the battle grows extremely terrible because peace is definitely not wanted. It could grow even more terrible than it has hitherto been if something is not introduced from one side or the other which can prevent this terror. Then there will once again be an opportunity to speak about the atrocities of Central Europe; then under the rubble and ashes will be buried the fact that these atrocities could have been prevented if people had not roared like a bull against moves towards peace. It was within the power of countries of the periphery to bring about peace. Yet the time will come—it is by no means unlikely that the time will come—when it will be said once again: The Germans are doing this or that and flouting every international law.

Indeed, my dear friends, it is once again fashionable for the encircling powers, having failed to bring about what could have held such actions in check, to accuse those who are encircled of protecting themselves on all sides. We must come to see this clearly in all its enormity. Beside all that may very well have happened, for instance in Belgium, must be placed the fact that the British Empire could have prevented all that has happened in Belgium.

Harsh though it might sound, it has to be said that it is untruthful to speak about the atrocities in Belgium without taking into account how easily they could have been prevented by the English. And it goes without saying that we feel the tragic destiny of France. Yet France was truly in a position which could have enabled her not to participate in the war.

The Central Powers were not in a position to avoid waging a defensive war once it became obvious that France would take part in any case. It is all very well to say the two could have faced each other, frontier to frontier. This is the very thing that was not possible, because Franco-Russian militarism so greatly outweighs what is called Prussian militarism.

However strongly we feel we belong to one group or another, we can surely resolve to look at these things squarely—I say ‘can’, not ‘must’. Then, when we work through this and make it a part of our lives, each in his own way will be able to do whatever he wants to do, in answer to the question: What can the individual do? Unless ever more and more people come to nurture the idea of making a united European stand against the belligerence of powers now at work invisibly, the collapse of European culture will indeed be inevitable. Even now a belligerent wave from the East is threatening to engulf us—from Japan, where a form of imperialism is in preparation which might turn out to be far mightier than any imperialism the world has so far known. The will to conquer is expressed in the cry of the new national anthem which, reminiscent of the English hymn, ‘Rule Britannia’, now resounds in ‘Rule Nippon’. To show you that the powers of Europe would have good reason not to mock the word ‘peace’, not to mock the content of the peace idea, let me read to you this hymn, now quoted in Japanese newspapers:

When Nippon, at the Lord's command,
Rose from the sea at dawn,
There sounded throughout all the world
A call from heaven's blue dome:
Born, Japan, are you to rule.
Rise proudly with the morning sun:
You I choose to rule the world.
Torn by hate and blinding rage
Europe drowns in her own blood,
But you, devoid of blame or fault,
Shall be the guardian of the earth.
Born, Japan, are you to rule.
Rise proudly with the morning sun:
You I choose to rule my world.

This is what is now booming across the world from the East. This is the Orient's answer to Europe, bathed in blood. Yet despite this, there are people in Europe who want to scorn the call for peace! This is a fact to which we cannot give too much thought.

Causes Of Infantile Paralysis

(Dr. Steiner asks if anyone has a question.)

Questioner: Dr. Steiner has spoken about epidemics and how they are to be fought. At the present time an epidemic has broken out—Infantile Paralysis—which attacks adults as well as children. Could Dr. Steiner say something about this?

Second Question: Is it harmful for people to keep plants in their bedrooms?

DR. STEINER: As for the question about plants in bedrooms, it is like this. In a general way it is quite correct that the plants give off oxygen which men then breathe in and that man himself breathes out carbonic acid gas. Thus man breathes out what the plant needs, and the plant what man needs. Now, if plants are kept in a room, the following must be remembered:

When one has plants in a room by day, things happen roughly as I have said; during the night the plant does indeed need rather more oxygen. During the night things are rather different. The plant does not need as much oxygen as man, but it needs oxygen. Thus in the darkness it makes demands on that which otherwise it gives to man. Naturally, man is not deprived altogether of oxygen, but he gets too little and that is harmful. Things balance themselves out in nature: every being has something that others need. So it is with plants, if one observes carefully. If the plants are put outside the bedroom when one sleeps, then there is no unhealthy effect. So much for this question.

* * *

Now as to Infantile Paralysis which just recently has become so prevalent in Switzerland too. It is still rather difficult to speak about this illness, since it has only assumed its present form quite recently, and one must wait till it has taken on more definite symptoms. Still, from the picture one can form at present—we have had a serious case of Infantile Paralysis in the Stuttgart Clinic and one can only judge by the cases which have occurred so far—one can say now that Infantile Paralysis, like its origin, Influenza, which leads to so many other diseases, is an extraordinarily complicated thing and can only be fought if one deals with the whole body. Just recently there has been discussion in medical circles as to how Infantile Paralysis should be treated. There is great interest in this now, because every week there are fresh cases of the disease. It is called Infantile Paralysis because it is mostly children who are attacked. Yet just recently there was a case of a young doctor who certainly is no longer a child, who was, I believe, perfectly healthy on Saturday, on Sunday was taken with Infantile Paralysis and was dead on Monday. This Infantile Paralysis strikes sometimes in an extraordinarily sudden way and we may well be anxious lest it grow into a very serious epidemic.

Now Infantile Paralysis is certainly connected, like Influenza itself, with the serious conditions of our time. Since we in our Biological Institute in Stuttgart succeeded in proving the effects of the minutest quantities of substance, one must speak about these things, even in public, in a quite different way than formerly. We have in Stuttgart simply shown that when one has any substance, dissolves it, dilutes it greatly, one has a tiny amount in a glass of water. One obtains, say, a 1 per cent solution. A drop of this is taken, diluted to a hundredth of its strength. It is now one ten-thousandth of its original strength. Again diluting this to one-hundredth of its strength, we have a solution one-millionth of the original strength. In Stuttgart we have succeeded in obtaining dilutions of one in a million, one in a billion—that is, with twelve zeros. You can imagine that there is now no more than a trace of the original substance left, and that it is a question, not of how much of the original substance is left, but of how the solution works: for it works quite differently from the original. These dilutions were made in Stuttgart and they are not so easily imitated. (Perhaps the German Exchange can do it, but nobody else!) This has been done with all sorts of substances. We then took a kind of flower pot, and poured into it in succession the various dilutions. First, ordinary water, then the 1 per cent dilution, then the .1 per cent, the .01 per cent and so on, up to one part in a trillion. Then we put a wheat seed in. This grows, and it grows better in the diluted liquid than in the non-diluted! And the higher the dilution the quicker the growth: one, two, three four, five dilutions—up to twelve. At the twelfth, the growth becomes slower again, then increases again, then decreases again. In this way one finds the effects of minute quantities of substances. It is very remarkable. The effect is rhythmic! If one dilutes, one comes to a certain dilution where the growth is greatest, then it gets less, then again greater—rhythmically. One sees, when the plant grows out of the ground, something works on it together with its substances, something which works rhythmically in its surroundings. The soil environment works into it. That is clearly to be seen.

Now when we are clear that very minute quantities of substance have an effect, we shall have no hesitation in recognising that in such times as the present, when so many men take incorrect nourishment and then rot as corpses in the ground, this works differently. Of course, for the earth as a whole, the effect is very diluted, but still it is different from what happens when men live healthily. And here again, the food which grows out of the earth is a factor.

Naturally, people with grossly materialistic scientific views do not understand this, because they say: What importance can the human corpse have for the whole earth? This effect is very diluted, naturally, but it works.

It will be well if we speak about the whole plant. The health of men is completely dependent on the growth of plants and therefore we must know what really is involved.

I have been greatly occupied with this point in connection with Infantile Paralysis, and it has turned out that one must really concern oneself with the whole man. Indications have appeared for all sorts of remedies for Infantile Paralysis. The subject is of great importance, since Infantile Paralysis may play a very grievous role in the future. It is naturally a question which occupies one greatly, and I have in fact given it a great deal of attention. There will probably have to be found a treatment made up of soda baths, iron arsenite (Fe As₂ O₃) and of yet another substance which will be obtained from the cerebellum, from the back part of the brain of animals. It will have to be a very complicated remedy. You see, the disease of Infantile Paralysis arises from very complicated and obscure causes and so requires a complicated remedy. These things have become of urgent importance to-day, and it is well that you should understand the whole question of the growth of plants.

The plant grows out of the ground—I will represent it to-day with reference to the question which has been put. (Dr. Steiner makes a sketch on the blackboard.) The root grows out of the seed. Let us first take a tree; we can then pass to the ordinary plants. We take a tree: the stem grows up. This growth is very remarkable. This stem which grows there, is really only formed because it lets sap mount from the earth, and this sap in mounting carries up with it all kinds of salts and particles of earth; and so the stem becomes hard. When you look at the wood from the stem of a tree, you have a mounting sap, and this sap carries with it fine particles of earth, and all sorts of salts too, for instance, carbonate of soda, iron, etc., into the plants and this makes hard wood. The essential thing is that the sap mounts.

What happens, in reality? The earthy, the solid, becomes fluid! And we have an earthy-fluid substance mounting there. Then the fluid evaporates and the solid remains behind: that is the wood.

You see, this sap which mounts up in the tree—let us call it wood-sap—is not created there but is already contained everywhere in the earth, so that the earth in this respect is really a great living Being. This sap which mounts in the tree, is really present in the whole earth: only in the earth it is something special. It becomes in the tree what we see there. In the earth it is in fact the sap which actually gives it life. For the earth is really a living Being; and that which mounts in the tree is in the whole earth and through it the earth lives. In the tree it loses its life-giving quality; it becomes merely a chemical; it has only chemical qualities.

So when you look at a tree, you must say to yourself: the earthy-fluidic in the tree—that has become chemical; underneath in the earth it was still alive. So the wood-sap has partly died, as it mounted up in the tree. Were this all, never would a plant come into existence, but only stumps, dying at the top, in which chemical processes are at work. But the stem, formed from this sap, rises into the air, and the air always contains moisture. It comes into the moist air, it comes with the sap which has created it, from the earthy-fluidic into the fluidic-airy and life springs up in it anew so that around it green leaves appear and finally flowers. ... Again there is life. You see, in the foliage, in the leaf, in the bud, in the blossom, there is once more the sap of life; the wood-sap is dead life-sap. In the stem, life is always dying; in the leaf it is always being resurrected. So that we must say: We have wood-sap, which mounts; then we have life-sap. And what does this do! It travels all round and brings forth the leaves everywhere: so that you can see the spirals in which the leaves are arranged. The living sap really circles round. It arises from the fluid-airy element into which the plant comes when it has grown out of the earthy-fluidic element.

The stem, the woody stem, is dead and only that which sprouts forth around the plant is alive. This you can easily prove in the following very simple way. Go to a tree: you have the stem, then the bark, and in the bark the leaves grow. Now cut the bark away at that point; the leaves come away too. At this point leave the leaves with the bark. The result is that there the tree remains fresh and living, and here it begins to die. The wood alone with its sap cannot keep the tree alive; what comes with the leaves must come from outside and that again contains life. We see in this way that the earth can certainly put forth the tree, but she would have to let it die if it did not get life from the damp air: for in the tree the sap is only a chemical, no giver of life. The living sap that circulates, that gives it life. And one can really say: When the sap rises in the spring, the tree is created anew; when the living sap again circulates in the spring, every year the tree's life is renewed. The earth produces the sap from the earthy-fluidic; the fluidic-airy produces the living sap.

But that is not all. While this is happening, between the bark, still full of living sap, and the woody stem, there is formed a new layer. Now I cannot say that a sap is formed. I have already spoken of wood-sap, living sap, but I cannot again say that a sap is formed: for what is formed is quite solid: it is called cambium. It is formed between the bark which still belongs to the leaves, and the wood. When I cut here (see sketch) no cambium is formed. But the plant needs cambium too, in a certain way. You see, the wood sap is formed in the earthy-fluidic, the life sap in the fluidic-airy, and the cambium in the warm air, in the warm damp, or the airy-warmth. The plant develops warmth while it takes up life from outside. This warmth goes inward and develops the cambium inside. Or if the cambium does not yet develop—the plant needs cambium and you will shortly hear why—before the cambium forms, there is first of all developed a thicker substance: the plant gum. Plants form this plant gum in their inner warmth, and this, under certain conditions, is a powerful means of healing. Thus the sap carries the plant upwards, the leaves give the plant life, then the leaves by their warmth produce the gum which reacts on the warmth. And in old plants, this gum, running down to the ground, has become transparent. When the earth was less dense and damper, the gum became transparent and turned to Amber. You see, then, when you take up a piece of Amber, what from prehistoric plants ran down to the ground as resin and pitch. This the plant gives back to the earth: Pitch, Resin, Amber. And if the plant retains it, it becomes cambium. Through the sap the plant is connected with the earth; the life-sap brings the plant into connection with what circulates round the earth—with the airy-moist circumference of the earth. But the cambium brings the plant into connection with the stars, with what is above, and in such a way that within this cambium the form of the next plant develops. [See: Man as Symphony of the Creative Word, Twelve lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in Dornach, 19th October to 11th November, 1923, Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company.] This passes over to the seeds and in this way the next plant is born, so that the stars indirectly through the cambium create the next plant! So that the plant is not merely created from the seed—that is to say, naturally it is created from the seed, but the seed must first be worked on by the cambium, that is: by the whole heavens.

It is really wonderful—a seed, a humble, modest little seed could only come into existence because the cambium—now not in liquid but in solid form—imitates the whole plant; and this form which arises there in the cambium—a new plant form—this carries the power to the seed to develop through the forces of the earth into a new plant.

Through mere speculation, when one simply puts the seed under a microscope, nothing is gained. We must be clear what parts the sap, the life sap, the cambium, play in the whole matter. The wood sap is a relatively thin sap: it is peculiarly fitted to allow chemical changes to take place in it. The life sap is certainly much thicker, it separates off its gum. If you make the gum rather thick, you can make wonderful figures with it. Thus the life sap, more pliable than the wood sap, clings more to the plant-form. And then it gives this up entirely to the cambium. That is still thicker, indeed quite sticky, but still fluid enough to take the forms which are given it by the stars.

So it is with trees, and so, too, with the ordinary plants. When the rootlet is in the earth, the sprout shoots upward. But it does not separate off the solid matter, does not make wood; it remains like a cabbage stalk. The leaves come out directly on the circumference, in spirals, the cambium is formed directly in the interior, and the cambium takes everything back to the earth with it. So that in the annual plants the whole process occurs much more quickly. In the tree, only the hard parts are separated out, and not everything is destroyed.

The same process occurs in ordinary plants too, but is not carried so far as in trees. In the tree it is a fairly complicated matter. When you look at the tree from above, you have first the pith inside: this gives the direction. Then layers of wood form round the pith. Towards the autumn the gum appears from the other side, and fastens the layers together. So we have the gummy wood of one year. In the next year this is repeated. Wood forms somewhere else, is again gummed together in the autumn, and so the yearly rings are formed. So you see everything clearly if only you understand that there are three things: wood sap, life sap, and cambium. The wood sap is the most fluid, it is really a chemical; the life sap is the giver of life; it is really, if I may so express myself, a living thing. And as for the cambium, there the whole plant is sketched out from the stars. It is really so. The wood sap rises and dies, then life again arises; and now comes the influence of the stars, so that from the thick, sticky cambium the new plant is sketched out. In the cambium one has a sketch, a sculptural activity. The stars model in it from the whole universe the complete plant form. So you see, we come from Life into the Spirit. What is modelled there is modelled from out of the World-Spirit. The earth first gives up her life to the plant, the plant dies, the air environment along with its light once more gives it life, and the World Spirit implants the new plant form. This is preserved in the seed and grows again in the same way. So that one sees in the growing plant how the plant world rises out of the earth, through death, to the living Spirit.

Now other investigations have been made in Stuttgart. These things are extraordinarily instructive. For instance, one can do the following, instead of merely investigating growth—which is very important, especially when one is dealing with the higher potencies, say of one in a trillion—one can do the following. We take metals or metallic compounds highly diluted in the manner previously described, for example, a copper compound solution, and put it into a flowerpot with some earth in it: we put it in as a kind of manure. In another similar flowerpot we put only earth, the same earth without the manure. Now we take two plants, as similar as possible, put one in the pot with the copper manured earth, and the other in the pot without the copper manure. And the remarkable thing is: if the copper is highly diluted, the leaves develop wrinkles on the edges—the others get no wrinkles, if they are smooth and had previously none. One must take the same earth, because many specimens previously contain copper. One dilutes it with copper; the same kind of plants must be taken so that comparisons can be made.

Now we take a third plant, put it into a third pot with earth, but instead of copper, we add lead. The leaves do not wrinkle but they become hard at the top and wither when lead is added. You have now a remarkable sight. These experiments were made in Stuttgart, and you plainly see, when you look at the pots in turn, how the substances of the earth work on plants.

You will no longer be surprised when you see plants with wrinkled leaves somewhere. If you dig in the earth there, you will find traces of copper. Or if you have leaves which are dry and withered at the edge, and dig in the earth, you will find traces of lead. Look at a common plant, say mare's tail, with which people clean pots; it grows just where the ground contains silicon; hence the little thorns. In this way you can understand the form of plants from the nature of the ground.

Now you can see of what importance it is when quite tiny amounts of any substance are mixed in the earth. Naturally, there is a churchyard somewhere outside, but the earth is everywhere permeated with wood sap, and the tiny quantities penetrate everywhere into the ground. And having investigated how these tiny quantities work, of which I have told you, we say: That which disappeared into the earth, we eat it again in our food. It is so strong that it lives in the plant form. And what happens then? Imagine I had thus a plant form from a lead-containing soil. To-day it is said that lead does not arise in soil. But lead does arise in soil, if one puts decaying living matter in it. It simply does arise in soil. A plant grows out of it: one may say, a lead-plant. Well, this lead plant when we eat it, has a quite different effect from a lead-less plant. Actually, when we eat a lead plant, our cerebellum, which lies at the back of the head, becomes drier than usual. It becomes drier.

Now you have the connection between the earth and the cerebellum. There are plants which simply through the constitution of the earth, through what men put into the earth and what then spreads everywhere, can dry up the cerebellum. As soon as our cerebellum is not in full working order, we become clumsy. When something happens to the cerebellum we become awkward and cannot properly control our feet and arms; and when the effect is much stronger, we become paralysed.

Thus, you see, is the connection between the soil and paralysis. A man eats a plant. If it has something dying at the edge of the leaves, as I have described to you, his cerebellum will be dried up somewhat. In ordinary life this is not noticed, but the man cannot any longer rightly direct his movements. If the effect is much stronger, paralysis sets in. When this drying up of the cerebellum happens in the head, so that man cannot control his muscles, at first this affects all those muscles which are dependent on a little gland in the head, the so-called pineal gland. If that happens, a man gets influenza. If the evil goes further, influenza changes to a complete paralysis. So that in every paralysis there is something that is inwardly connected with the soil. And so you see knowledge must be brought together from many sides if one is to do anything useful for men. It is useless to make a lot of statements—one must do so and so! For if one does not know how a man has taken into his organism something dying, one may have ever such good apparatus and the man will not recover. For everything that works in the plant and passes over from the plant to the man, is of great importance.

Wood sap develops in man as the ordinary colourless mucus. Wood sap in plants is, in man, mucus. The life sap of the plant which circulates from the leaves, corresponds to the human blood. And the cambium of the plant corresponds to the milk and the chyle in the human being. When a woman begins to nurse, certain glands in the breast cause a greater flow of milk. Here you have again something in human beings which is most strongly influenced by the stars, namely, milk. Milk is absolutely necessary for the development of the brain—the brain, one might almost say, is solidified milk. Decaying leaves create no proper cambium because they no longer have the power to work back into the proper warmth. They let the warmth escape outwards from the dying edges instead of sending it inwards. We eat these plants with an improperly developed cambium: they do not develop a proper milk; the women do not produce proper milk; the children get milk on which the stars cannot work strongly, and therefore they cannot develop properly.

Hence this Infantile Paralysis appears specially among children—but adults can also suffer from it, because men are all their lives influenced by the stars.

In these things Science and Medicine must work together: they must everywhere work together. But one should not isolate oneself in a single science. To-day there are men who specialise in animals—the zoologists; in men—the anthropologists; or in parts of men, with sick senses, or sick livers, or sick hearts—specialists of the inner organs. Then again there are the botanists, who study only plants; and the mineralogists, who study only stones; and the geologists who study the whole earth. Certainly this is very convenient. One has less to learn when one is merely a geologist or when one has only to learn about stones. Yes, but such knowledge is useless when one wants to do something for a man. When he is ill, one must understand the whole of Nature. It is useless merely to understand geology or botany or chemistry. One must understand chemistry and be able to follow its working right into the sap. It is really so. Students have a saying—there are in universities, as you perhaps know, both ordinary and extraordinary professors—and the students have a saying: the ordinary professors know nothing extraordinary, and the extraordinary professors know nothing ordinary! But one can go still further to-day. The geologist knows nothing of plants or animals or men; the anthropologist knows nothing of animals, or plants, or the earth. Neither knows really how the things upon which he works are connected. Just as man has specialised in work, he has specialised in knowledge. And that is much more dangerous. It is shocking when there are only geologists, botanists, etc., so that all knowledge is split up. This has been for men's convenience. People say to-day: a man can't know everything. Well, if one doesn't wish to take in all knowledge, one can despair of any really useful knowledge.

We live at a time when things have assumed a frightful aspect. It is as if a man who has to do with clocks wants to learn only how to file metals, another how to weld them. And there would be another, who knows how to put the clock together, but doesn't know how to work the single metals. Now one can get a certain distance in this way with machinery, although at the same time a certain amount of compulsion is necessary. But in Medicine nothing can be achieved if one does not take into account all branches of knowledge, even the knowledge of the earth. For in the tree trunk lives something which is carried up from the earth (which is the subject of geology) to the sap. There it dies. One must also know meteorology, the science of air, because from the surrounding air something is brought to the leaves which calls forth life in them again. And one must also know astrology, the science of the stars, if one wishes to understand the formation of cambium. And one must also know what enters with the cambium in the food. ... So that when one eats unsound cambium as a child, one gets an unsound brain. In this way diseases are caused by what is in the earth. This is what can be said about the causes of such apparently inexplicable diseases: the causes are in the soil.

In these talks I have repeatedly pointed to the fact that the theosophical world view does not lead the human beings away from the work in the sensuous field that it does not lead to fantastic, illusory fields as the adversaries of this world view suggest so often. I have rejected this repeatedly. Today I have to emphasise this in particular before we enter the world which the human being transmigrates between death and a new birth. For the adversaries of the theosophical world view are inclined only too easily to explain everything that I describe in this field as something imaginary, as something completely fantastic. Nevertheless, someone who is able to look deeper in the nature of things recognises these super-sensible worlds that are beyond the sensuous world as the real nature of all beings. As well as nobody is able to construct a vapour machine unless he knows the being of vapour, nobody is able to understand and to explain what takes place before our sense-organs unless he knows the being of the psychic and spiritual. The causes of the physical are in the super-sensible, in the supra-physical. As true it is that we climb up to the higher fields, it is true that we try to understand this super-sensible being only to be able to work here in this world. We have to know the nature of the super-sensible to bring it into the sensuous world. That is why this must be emphasised because we enter fields that escape completely from the sensory eye. To the sensory observation the human being is dead at the moment when the psycho-spiritual has separated from the physical. No eye and no ear can give information of the human destiny in that time when the human being progresses to a new embodiment after death.

We want to consider this destiny between death and rebirth. For this purpose we want to become engrossed in two fields of our existence which belong to our life which belong also to our life like the sun and the moon and like all things which are on our earth. The human being only equipped with the physical senses knows nothing about these higher worlds. He lives in them; however, living in a world and knowing about it are two completely different matters. The German philosopher Lotze (Hermann L., 1817–1881, German philosopher) and also the poet and philosopher Hamerling (Robert K., 1830–1889, Austrian poet) expressed very well again and again that if the human being were without eyes and ears the whole world around us would be dark and silent. Only because we have these sense-organs the world gleams in colours and sounds. We must say of this world that we only know as much of it as it is accessible to us by our sense-organs.

Just an interesting book has appeared which tells of the soul-life of a lady—Helen Keller (1880–1968, American author, The Story of My Life, (1903)—who became deaf-mute and blind at the age of one and a half years and has still developed a wide-ranging and virtually ingenious soul-life. Imagine clearly once how the world, which gleams and sounds to the other human beings, must appear to such a human being, and we imagine how to a blind-born whose eyes are operated the world, which had no colours before and was without light, gleams and is enriched with new qualities; then we have an idea of the human being who awakes from the sensory view, who comes from the darkness to light like after an operation. About the everyday world lies a soul-world which is real for that whose spiritual eyes are opened. Theosophy also calls this soul-world the astral world. One has argued a lot against the term astral world because one believed to find a medieval prejudice. But not without reason this world has been called astral by those who are able to behold in the soul-world. For just as colours and sounds appear to the physical senses, all those facts appear as true realities in this astral world which we subsume with the terms: desires, instincts, passions, impulses, wishes and feelings.

Just as the human being digests as he sees and hears, he wishes, has passions and feelings. He lives in the world of passions, impulses, desires, feelings and wishes, as well as he lives in the physical world. And like the physical eye if it faces another human being sees his physical qualities, the opened spiritual eye sees what we subsume as soul qualities. Just as the physical senses can distinguish electricity from light or light from heat, the opened soul-eye can make a distinction between an impulse, a desire, which exist in the soul of the fellow man, and the feeling of love, devotion, and piety. As heat and light are different, love and piety are different in the soul-world. Because these qualities gleam to the opened soul-eye like colour phenomena, which are full of sounds like the astral, they were called astral.

Here I have to insert some occult ideas. We understand them as those ideas which refer to the super-sensible which can only be obtained by such whose spiritual and psychic senses are opened. Nothing is absolutely hidden. Wishes, desires and passion are hidden only for that whose soul-organs are not opened. We can recognise with our soul-organs which qualities of the soul-world the human being has in him. As he faces us with a particular countenance, every human being faces us with a particular countenance of his soul. As he has a physical body, he also has a body gleaming in the soul-light which is bigger than his physical body in which he is wrapped up like in a light cloud which gleams in the most different colours.

I mention both intentionally, because both exist. One sees some of the qualities that refer to thoughts and ideas shining, other only gleaming. One calls this light cloud that is invisible for the usual eye however, visible to the seer the human aura. It contains everything that I have called soul qualities. We can make a distinction just between those qualities which the soul has because it inclines towards the sensuous because it clings to the sensuous, to the desires which come into being because the human being desires the sensuous and those which concern unselfish devotion, feelings of love or piety. If the aura is irradiated with feelings that come from the lower instincts that are connected with the material life, various figures, lightning-shaped or other figures of blood-red or reddish-orange or reddish-yellow colours flow through the soul, while everything that is connected with nobler feelings, with nobler passions, like with enthusiasm, with devoutness, with love, appears in the human aura in marvellous greenish, greenish-blue, blue-violet and violet-reddish colours.

Thus the human being has his soul on one side pointing to the material, longing for the material, clinging to it, and on the other side this soul is equipped with the opposite pole with which it rises to the noble and is glowed through and flowed through with the noble again and again. Between these both qualities the soul-life is split. Those who live in the green, blue, violet colours go through many reincarnations to acquire these nobler qualities to themselves. The soul is equipped with the lower qualities at first, with impulses, desires, passions, instincts. It must have these, for the soul would not have what we call the desire for the sensuous in the occult philosophy, the soul would not get round to acting in the sensuous world. The fact that the human being is active in the sensuous world that he acquires property, forms tools with the materials of the sensuous world for his life results from the human desires for the sensuous life. This desire is the only driving force for the still undeveloped soul in the times in which it goes through its first reincarnations.

The youthful soul is induced to act only that way. If the soul walks then through the reincarnations, it brings itself to work more and more not only out of the desires, but out of knowledge, out of devotion and love. Thus the soul progresses on its pilgrimage through the world from desire to love. This is the way of the soul: from desire to love. The desiring soul sticks to the physical-sensuous. However, the loving one can be penetrated by the spirit, obeys the spirit, and fulfils the commandment of the spirit. This is the difference of the age of the souls. The young souls are the longing ones, the ripe souls are those which love, which make the spirit work in them. In the soul-world or in the astral world we see this soul body of the human being gleaming in its different qualities, and we can thereby distinguish the degree of maturity of a human soul. All qualities which we can observe in this soul body come from the devotion to the sensuous or from the devotion to the spiritual.

Now we also understand what death means, actually. We want to try to understand the concept, the idea of death once with this idea just won. What happens at first when the human being dies? That which has followed not only the physical principles in his physical body up to now, but what has also complied with the soul principles: the hand which has moved in accordance with the feelings which have surged through the soul, the look which has looked out into the world because it has been carried by the spiritual qualities in the soul, the countenance which has changed its expression depending on the soul , everything that has obeyed the soul in life goes its own ways after the death of the body.

The human body, in so far as it is a connection of physical and chemical forces, does no longer follow the impulses of the soul but the physical forces of the world which has now completely claimed it for itself. It belongs to the external physical world from now on, and nobody who has only occupied himself with those who have ignored this can decide about the fact that the psycho-spiritual, which has controlled the body, has disappeared, because now the psycho-spiritual is merely accessible to the open eye of a clairvoyant person. We will hear in the last hours, which deal with the theosophical basic concepts, how the human being already gets opened his eye for the higher life in this life and becomes aware of that which I have told. But you see from the start that the post-mortal destiny of the spirit can only be understood from the point of view of the super-sensible. Somebody who occupies himself only with natural sciences does not have a vocation to recognise anything of the spiritual. The human being was equipped with physiological-chemical forces. He does no longer control them after death; then his “body” is only a soul body.

What had lived in him as wishes, desires, passions, love, enthusiasm and piety was not engaged in the physical-chemical principles, and it has drawn them rather in its influence. The soul is there after death as it was there before, only not intermingled with the physical body. If the human being consists of mind, soul and body during his physical life, as we have seen, he consists of mind and soul after death. And as the human life takes place in the physical world, it also takes place in the higher world, in the soul-world or in the spiritual world. These are the places of residence which the human being has to go through, the soul-land and the spirit-land.

Let us look at these closer. One can look at them, the astral world or mental world, as at our physical world. As there are the most manifold natural forces in our physical world, like heat, electricity, magnetism, there also are the most manifold forces. These can be divided into particular groups which we must get to know because we can thereby gain an insight of the destinies of the soul after death only. There we have the lowest class of soul qualities, the real world of desires which the occultist calls the region of desires. It is that world which is generated in our soul by its lowest propensities to the physical body. All those emotions of our soul express themselves in the world of desires which come from the desires of the soul for the physical. This is the lowest form of the soul life, the region of burning desires which one has called the burning fire of desires in mysticism.

Let us now look ahead at the nature of the consideration; this explains to you which difference exists between the life in the body and the life without body if you look at this soul quality which is connected with the burning desires. What is desire for the soul living in the body? The soul desires a physical object, a physical satisfaction. The colour of the burning desire, which streams out of the soul as electric current streams out of a point of a needle, changes only if the desire is satisfied.

The current changes immediately if the desire is satisfied. Then the fire stops burning. This is a significant moment for the soul researcher if a desire finds its satisfaction. It looks for the soul observer as if a fire is extinguished with water. The fact that this fire can be extinguished with giving satisfaction results from the fact that the human being has a body. The sensual desire can be satisfied only sensually. There is the palate which desires something tasty. At the moment, however, when no palate is there, it is impossible to satisfy the desire. The soul clings to the feeling, to the sensuous world. The desire can be satisfied as long as the soul is connected with the body. At the moment when it is no longer connected with the body it cannot satisfy the desire, and that is why the soul suffers inexpressibly. This is one of the conditions which the soul has to go through in kamaloka. It has to get to know that condition which allows the desire to exist but shows the impossibility of satisfaction. Then the soul learns gradually to take off the desire. This is an idea which the human being has to attain if he wants to get a concept of that which happens between death and a new birth. We get to know the further processes only after we have cast a precise look at the soul-world and the spirit-land.

Before I describe the destinies between death and a new birth, I want to describe this group of soul qualities and processes exactly which we find in the super-sensible world. The desire was the first. The second is the psychic stimulus, that which is not directly a desire. However, what surrounds us if we speak of the human sensuousness is connected with the sensuous. It is the stimulus which expresses itself in nobler colours which signifies the joy of devotion to the immediate sensuousness. It provokes the sensations of colours and forms round us, of smells approaching us. We call this susceptibility to the sensuous, this weaving and living with the sensuous organs in the environment the force of the emotional stimulus.

Another region of the soul-life is the region of wishes. The wishes refer to the fact that the soul feels sympathy for that which lives in its environment, and, hence, turns its emotions to this object of the environment just in the form of a wish. It does no longer live only with the senses in the sensuous environment, but it fulfils itself with the feeling of love for this environment. However, it is still completely fulfilled with selfishness, with egoism. The theosophists call that soul love which is still fulfilled with egoism the real quality of the soul wishes, the region of wishes. With it we have got to know the third group of soul experience, the region of wishes.

The fourth group is that where the soul no longer tends to anything in the surroundings, but to that which lives in the own body; where the feeling tends to that which occurs in the own body as weal and woe, as pleasurable sensations and as reluctances. We call these internal waves of the feelings in the own existence, this self-desire, this desire for existence with every being the fourth group of soul forces. And the fifth group leads us from the region of desires to the region where the soul pours out in sympathy.

Everything that we have got to know up to now was connected with desire, with the fact that the soul has referred the matters to itself. Now we get to know the matters where the soul spreads out its being, where it sympathises with other beings of its surroundings. There are two types. First we deal with love of nature and then with the love for our fellow men. We call this fifth group of soul facts soul-light. Just as the sun gives off its physical light, the soul gives off its light if it sympathises with the world, if it wraps it, if it illuminates it with the light of its love. This appears to that person, who only has organs for the physical, as something illusory. However, it is much more real for somebody who has spiritual eyes and ears than the table and the walls round us, much more real as the light of the physical flame.

The sixth group of soul facts is that which the occultist calls the real soul-force, what fulfils the soul with enthusiasm for its task in the world, the affectionate devotion to the duty which shines in marvellous violet and blue-violet colours. This forms the spiritual light which gets the driving forces and impulses for the human activity from the soul. This is developed in particular with philanthropical human beings. These feelings accompany the big devoted actions of the human soul in the physical world. These are the experiences of the sixth group.

The experiences of the seventh and highest group are the forces of the most real spiritual life. It is there where the soul no longer refers to the only sensuous with its emotions, but where it makes the light of the spirit shine in itself where the soul addresses itself to higher tasks than it can get in the sensory world where its love goes out to that spiritual love, which Spinoza (Baruch S., 1630–1647, Jewish-Dutch philosopher) describes at the end of his famous Ethics where he speaks of the fact that the highest pours into the soul and that it reappears as God's light.

We have observed and pursued the aspects of the human soul from the selfish desire up to the spiritual all-love. These seven levels of spiritual facts meet someone everywhere in the world whose eye is opened. The world shines not only in colours and sounds not only in acoustic phenomena, but shines also in the world of wishes, desires and passions, shines also in the world of love effects. All that is reality. And if the soul is taken away from this scene, it is on another scene which differs from the external sensory scene in this respect that this external sensory scene only offers what eyes and ears and the other senses can perceive at first. The sensuous just covers the soul because the soul expresses itself in the sensuous. Thus the soul comes to the fore only by the sensuous. The soul hears by the sounds of the language, feels by touching et etcetera.

The spiritual eye sees beyond that, it sees the sheer nature, the nakedness of the soul facts. If the soul is taken away from the scene of the senses, it lives in the soul-world. These are the experiences of the soul in the soul-world which it goes through immediately after death. There it lives in a world free of all physical and chemical forces, in a world of suffering, of desires and impulses. At first it has to develop everything that can be developed there. Uncovered, that is without physical cover, it is given to that which flows to it and through it. It purifies itself gradually by these qualities flowing through it, while it gets to know the desires without being able to satisfy them. There the soul learns to live without the physical body. There it learns to be a self without physical desire and without physical pain, without physical feeling of well-being and without physical discontent. There it does no longer feel as a self at first.

The incarnated soul feels as a self because it is in the body. The soul in the body says to its body “I”. However, if it wants to say “I” after death, it gets to know the feeling of the body without being able to live it. If it stopped this, it learns to regard itself as a soul. The human being learns to regard itself as a soul in the fourth region, and the more often the human being has gone through this region, the longer his pilgrimage has lasted, the stronger his sense of self is developed, the more he knows also when he is re-embodied to say “I” not only to his body, but also to his soul, the more he feels as a soul-being. This is the difference between a human being, who has gone through many, and a human being, who has gone through few incarnations. The advanced human being feels as a soul-being.

Then the human being also gets to know this higher region which we have called soul-light, soul-force and the spirit soul. There the human being settles and works. One is used to calling these highest regions of the astral world the summer land in the theosophical literature. This is that region in which the soul moves on the spheres of sympathy, on the spheres where it learns to live in pure love for the environment and in pure love for the colours. Only if the human soul has gone through these different regions after death, his mind, his third part, the highest part of the human being, is enabled to leave behind everything astral that is filled with wishes, desires and passions and which still clings to the sensuous. And only what of the soul belongs to the spirit, what has developed spirit in the soul lives on, after the human being has cast off the tendency, the desire for the sensuous.

The soul now enters that region where it has to do nothing more with the forces which go downward. Because the spirit penetrates it completely, it enters the devachan, the real spirit-land. The spirit-land which the soul experiences takes up the longest time of the life after death. The time of purification in the kamaloka is relatively short. Afterwards, in the devachan, the soul acts out the experiences which it has obtained in the earthly, physical world freely and uncheckedly, so that it can work in love in this physical sensuous world. The spirit cannot come completely to expression in the physical-sensuous world. We acquire experiences between birth and death perpetually. But these are got hemmed like a plant is got hemmed in a rock crevice. In the spirit-land the soul strengthens and invigorates itself. The next lecture deals with this stay of the soul in the spirit-land.

It shows which destiny the soul has to go through in the time longest by far between death and a new birth. The astral world still appears as something depressing destined to take off a lot. The spirit-land is a realm which one not needs to fear. Nothing connects the spirit flowing through a soul with that which tends to the only sensuous-material. We will have to describe the destiny which the human being experiences there and which should reveal the true nature of the human being to us on account of the experiences in the devachan. Let me only mention one matter. It could seem easily that the single regions of the astral world lie on top of each other like single layers. This is not the case. They are to be understood more like different states of consciousness. Not the place changes in which the human being is, but the state of consciousness changes. The soul land, the spirit-land is everywhere around us. Everywhere a soul-world and a spiritual world is around us, which like colour and light light up if the soul becomes able to use the spiritual eyes, the spiritual ears. This makes the whole physical world disappear to the soul. Just as you could see a veil and if the veil sinks you can see behind the veil, the soul experiences what takes place in the world of desires if it removes the veil of the sensory touching, seeing, and hearing. Then another world comes to the fore round it, a world which was there also round it before, but was not experienced, which is experienced now. It is another state of experience which the soul undergoes. It is a metamorphosis of the human life not a change of place or region. The human being advances step by step on his pilgrimage of life.

This teaches us that we have to seek for the reasons of the sensuous. We want to look at the super-sensible in order to go back strengthened that way into the real world with the full consciousness that we are not only sensuous beings, but that we are beings with soul and mind. With this full consciousness we work in the world hard, full of courage and more confidently, as if we only thought that we are only sensuous beings. It is that which the theosophical world view brings immediately. It has to make the human being not more inefficient, but stronger, more courageous, more audacious. This is not the right theosophy which draws the human being off from life. We want to provide the knowledge of the super-sensible because in the super-sensible the origin and the nature of the sensuous are to be sought. All true recognisers and occultists have said this at all times, and this is also to be found in the inspired writings of nations of all times. And it sounds to us from our own mystics, particularly from the marvellous, artistically perfect literature of the East. We find there a passage in the Upanishads with which I would like to close this consideration today which speaks of the interrelation of the sensuous-limited and the super-sensible, the eternal. It shows how the sensuous-limited comes from the eternal, how the single spark comes from the flame. The flame remains a whole, something permanent, even if the sensuous spark dies away. The single sensuous phenomenon separates from the eternal and returns to the eternal again. The Upanishads say: “As well as the sparks issue a thousand and one times from the well burning flame and are of equal nature, the manifold beings issue form the imperishable and return to it again.”

Recently, Ludwig Jacobowski ¹ with his “Loki” a narrative poem that depicts in symbolic acts the heavy, hot struggles that take place at the bottom of every human soul that does not merge into the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but leads a deeper life. Those who immerse themselves in this “novel of a god” will be captivated by the poet's deep insight into the workings of the soul and his powerful sense of everything that shakes, elevates and plunges the human heart into abysses.

Now Jacobowski has followed up this creation with his “New Poems”*. Through them we can look into the depths of his own soul, into the experiences of his inner life, into everything that has lifted him up to the high vantage point from which he surveys the world and its mysteries in “Loki”. The great, free worldview that we encounter in the novel is deeply rooted in the poet's nature. Two character traits are inherent in this nature, which, in their harmonious interaction, always determine the significant personality: a fine, receptive sense for all the individual things that confront us in life, and a mind that grasps the great connections between the details in their true significance. We owe the fresh, rich colors that shine out at us from Jacobowski's poems to his receptive senses; and it is through his mind that the poet always points out to us what “holds the world together at its core”. In the “Shining Days” we never miss the great view of the essence of the world that lies behind the eternal flow of appearances. Rather, these poems constantly direct our feelings and our imagination towards this essence. One always has the feeling that this poet draws from the eternal source from which the best content of life flows to us.

For those whose spirit is directed in such a way, life is not easy. For every step means a test for them. The world has many secrets to reveal to them. But nature does not give anything away voluntarily. It wrings everything from us in a hard struggle. It paves the way to every goal with suffering and deprivation. But the essence to which it ultimately always leads us is that which satisfies the heart and mind. The mists of existence dissolve; and the sun of life smiles upon us. The true artist shows us this sun. Because it is the sun that, as a spiritual bond, causes the connection of things. All genuine art is therefore “cheerful”. And a sunny cheerfulness, a cheerfulness born out of the difficult struggle of life: these are the things that flow from Jacobowski's poems to us.

Oh, our shining days
Shine like eternal stars.
As a consolation for future lamentation
They glow from a golden distance.

Don't cry because they're gone!
Smile because they have been!
And even if the days are gloomy,
our stars will redeem them!

Jacobowski introduces the collection with this poem, as if with an artistic gospel, and he ends it with the confession:

Sinking arms,
folded hands,
Around me the warm,
land illuminated;
Eyelashes closed
In the flattering light,
flowing around
The brown face.

Stand in the sun
that I fade away...
Wistfulness becomes bliss,
And bliss becomes woe!
If only I had grace
And kindness and pleasure,
To bathe in the glow
The darkest breast! ...

Shining days,
Now you sink slowly!
Alas, without complaint
I look after you.
Secret glow,
That so surrounds me,
Shines forever
The blooming world!

The liberating keynote that resounds throughout the book is expressed in these verses. However powerful the individual experiences may be that inspire the poet, his mind always pushes him towards the heights of existence, towards those bright regions for which the transience of everyday life is only a metaphor. Just as every individual experience becomes a symbol of the eternal ideas of world events for the philosopher, so for the true lyricist every individual feeling, every particular mood becomes a symbol of the entire fate of the soul. And Jacobowski is a true lyricist in this highest sense. See how in the following verses ($. 56) a single feeling comes to life in a universal one.

Brown twigs protrude from a white vase
And drag heavily on the densely filled lilac.
Bright green leaves push through
through the brown branches. The wind gently brushes the blossoms,
A scent runs up and down in shivers.
The whole room drinks itself full of lilac,
And even the soul feels the blossoms softly.

Once I was so happy in my heart
suck sweets from lilac stems. —
Oh, I do it again and make children's eyes
And feel the youth in the sap of the blossom!

This diversion of the individual experience into the general is a fundamental trait of Jacobowski's personality. It works in him like a natural process of life in the human organism. He does not seek depth anywhere, he does not strive beyond the individual. This lives in his soul in an immediate way, as the individual plant appears before us as a representative of its entire species. One need only compare his poetry with that of Richard Dehmel to grasp the immediacy of his universal feelings. In Dehmel's work, the path from the individual experience to the great world connections always leads through the idea, through abstraction. In Jacobowski's work, this is not necessary. For he feels universally. He does not need the world of imagination to rise to the primal facts of the soul; every experience of the soul has for him the character of the eternally significant.

This trait in Jacobowski is inextricably linked to another, without which greatness in the human soul is not possible. This is the feeling for the great, simple lines in the world. Everything great in the world is simple; and if someone does not feel the simple greatness of the simple, but seeks the significant in the strange, in the so-called secrets of existence, this only proves that he has lost the sense of the great that meets us at every moment of life. The sins of some modern poets, who seek salvation in random, remote moods because they lack a sense of the simple, the “simple-minded”, are far removed from Jacobowski. Just as in a folk song, an everyday event can trigger a gigantic strength of feeling, so in Jacobowski's work a simple event becomes great because he transports it into the sphere of his mind. It is the simplest thing in the world; and at the same time it is one of the deepest experiences that can happen to a person, as is shown in the poem “The Old Woman” (p. 207):

The old woman

I

I have an old woman,
She lives right next to heaven,
For it is exactly ninety steps,
And children on it, a real muddle.

In her little room, clean and bright
The loud echo of the streets resounds. And slowly night falls in
Darkening on the masses of houses.

The full moon climbs over the roof,
the stars shine in a circle,
The wall clock ticks only slowly...
We sit there motionless and silent.

II

What do I have in common with the old woman?
I don't know exactly.
It can't be her coffee,
she puts too much milk in it,
I only love her baked apples,
She cooks them for me in the oven."
What do I have in common with the old woman?
That makes a narrow grave far away. There she laid her hopes,
A slim, blonde maiden. She went through life quietly,
And thought of one and that was me. And no one else realized
That she was the sweetness of my life. When I feel life is confused and rough,
Then I climb up to the old woman.
For her modest little chamber
Holds my soul's blossom within.
And when I come to her, I feel pain. And only when I leave her!

The following lines will describe the outstanding place that Jacobowski occupies among contemporary poets and present the character of his lyrical creations in detail.

II

Looking back on the “Shining Days” as a whole, after enjoying the individual poems, a unified, self-contained work of art stands before the soul. All the lyrical creations form a stylish harmony. The circle of human soul life passes before us. The feelings that are aroused in us by the sublimity and perfection of the whole world, the relationship of the soul to the world, human nature in various forms, the joys and sorrows of love, the pain and happiness of knowledge, the social conditions and their repercussions on the human mind, the mysterious paths of fate: all these elements of the life organism find expression. Nothing is alien to the personality that lives itself out in this book; it is at home on the heights and in the depths of existence. And one has the feeling that in this personality every feeling is given the right measure, the right degree. None pushes itself forward at the expense of the others. A harmonious universality, radiating from the central interests of life, is Jacobowski's essence. And his feelings are driven by these interests in life with a warmth and strength that have a personal and immediate effect in the most beautiful sense of the word. What moves all of humanity becomes, in a truly lyrical way, a matter of its own for this poet. We do not need to put ourselves in the place of a single individual in order to understand his creations; he guides us to our own inner selves. He expresses in his own way what moves us all. He has the magic wand to strike poetic sparks from life everywhere, and therefore does not need to look for peculiarities. Sentimentalism is as foreign to him as delicate sensitivity is his own; he is not a dreamer, but a powerful grabber. A rare confidence in his spiritual direction, a sure, firm feeling of the fruitfulness of his striving speaks from his poems. There is something pithy and delicate at the same time in his nature; he is like a tree that is exposed to strong storms, but is firmly rooted in the ground. He knows that he can abandon himself to life, to the everyday, because he finds treasures everywhere, even on the most trodden paths.

Compare Jacobowski with contemporary poets of note. How many believe that they will only find what is valuable if they search for the shells and extract rare, precious pearls from them. Jacobowski is not looking for shiny pearls; the seed that he reaches for, the common flower at the edge of the meadow, is enough for him. If one wants to name contemporary poets who, after having delighted us with his “Shining Days”, now stand with him in the front row, then only two names will come to mind: Detlev von Liliencron and Otto Erich Hartleben. The differences between the three poets are, however, great. And it is difficult for us to assess them when they are still in the prime of their lives, still stirring up new feelings in us every day. We can only give a provisional and very subjective judgment. Otto Erich Hartleben, the lyricist, seems to me like Goethe's description of the artist in “Winckelmann”. With his admirable taste and his cult of beauty, he communicates something to us that flows over us like ancient art. In this respect, he stands so much alone that we would rather isolate him than compare him. Detlev von Liliencron is the lyrical master of detail. His eye sees every thing in the light of the eternal. But his mind knows nothing of this eternity; that is why he tells us nothing about it. With Liliencron, it is as if we had to hear a second voice if we are to understand the coherence of his images. We must have a kind of second sight with this poet: then we will see what he gives us in the light of the eternally meaningful. Jacobowski has this second sight himself. And with it he achieves something that only poets achieve who create from a worldview, and what I must regard as the hallmark of the true poet: that the philosopher must call him a “brother poet” and at the same time that the simplest mind finds itself in him. The simplest nature and the highest spirit that can be drawn from this nature are one and the same.

Jacobowski's poetry will pass the highest test there is for a poet: to be equally appealing to the man who goes to work in the morning and can only use the festive moments on Sundays to let the serene realm of art work its magic on him, and to the true philosopher who is on familiar terms with the eternal riddles of existence. Like the philosopher, Jacobowski is a world thinker. See how he translates the great idea of Indian wisdom, that everything in the world is only an illusion and therefore need not touch us, into a very individual feeling:

“It's nothing! Just walk past the world!”

This strange word does not set my heart free.
How gladly would I pass by the world,
But, alas, the world does not pass me by!

For even if I stand in hiding like children,
fearfully turned away from the dance of the days, —
They drag me out of the corner by force,
And each one presses pain into my hand.

In a poem like this, the highest wisdom seems like the most charming naivety; the three most monumental forms of the soul reveal their innermost relationship: the childlike, the artistic and the philosophical.

Because Jacobowski unites these three forms in the most original way, I believe that as a poet he surpasses his contemporary Dehmel. He is a complete poet; Dehmel is half poet and half thinker. And two such halves make as little of a whole as a half lens and a half bean. In Dehmel's work, you will look in vain for a poem as simple as the following, which could almost serve as a motto for many of the greatest philosophical creations:

Soul, tell me, what are you struggling for?
“I am of the earth, but I long to be of heaven!"
Soul, you only achieve night and death?
“A morning red glows over nights!"

In a beautiful psychological study in “Pan” (1898, 3rd [issue, 4th year]), the brilliant Lou Andreas-Salome hit the nail on the head when she said: “In our time, many, and not the worst, turn away from the whole outer life and even despise it as a mere occasion for personal activity and self-realization, because they feel themselves hemmed in and robbed of their individual existence by the entire cultural conditions in which we live. [...] There is a search and longing for solitude in the most advanced people, in all those who carry something within themselves that cannot be born on the market, in all those who carry hope and future within themselves and secretly fear that these could be desecrated. They know full well that the great works that stride across the earth with brazen steps of victory and ringing music, century after century, arise from full contact with the full breadth and depth of real life, but until then – they also know this – many other, quieter works must precede them in white robes, with shy buds in their hair, and testify that there are human souls that are festively dressed and willing and ready for a new beauty in their lives.” On the other hand, it is safe to say that in the future, people with white robes and shy buds in their hair will be interesting symptoms of the end of the nineteenth century, people who will be studied for their peculiarity, but that the real signature of this period will be the spirits with healthy senses, with developed blossoms in their hair, who love fresh colors and not the pale, sickly white. We count Jacobowski among them.

Our healthy thinking has given rise to Darwinism and all its consequences in the second half of the century; on the paths along which this healthy thinking and healthy feeling walks, we also meet poets like Jacobowski. Alienated from the world, lost in aesthetic and philosophic-mystical quirks, we encounter poets with white robes and shy buds in their hair. Artificial poetic forms are of little value, as are bizarre, ingenious ideas. Both, however, always arise in times of powerful spiritual struggle. However, they never appear in the case of strong, original, independent minds, but rather in the case of weak, dependent minds that cannot produce original content from their souls, that have to extract everything from themselves with pliers and pumps, but that would still like to participate. Such minds are not equal to the demands and tasks of the time. They do not know any simple, straightforward answers to the questions that are buzzing around us. That is why they seek the abstruse, the sophisticated. The profound connoisseur of the workings of nature, Galileo, spoke the wise words that the true is not hard and difficult, but simple and easy, and that in all its works nature uses the closest, simplest and easiest means. Only the mind that knows how to use the simplest and easiest means, just like nature, truly lives in harmony with nature. Jacobowski appears as such a mind among the host of contemporary poets. Dehmels' artificial forms and artificial feelings seem like a departure from natural simplicity.

III

What a mistake it is for individual contemporaries to seek the salvation of poetry in formlessness and to believe that the “old” forms have been used up is best shown by contrasting the creations of these enthusiasts of formlessness with poems such as those of Jacobowski. The philosopher Simmel has written an interesting essay about a follower of formlessness, Paul Ernst. According to Simmel, this formlessness represents progress in that the artist no longer seeks the higher, the divine in art through artificialization, through the manipulation of immediate natural phenomena, but rather sees a divine significance in every experience that takes place before our senses, a significance that deserves to be captured in this immediacy. On the basis of such views, poetry that is nothing more than prose divided into verses is considered “modern” today. Those who hold such views live in the mistaken belief that the “old” forms are something that the artist arbitrarily adds to the phenomena of nature from his subjective essence. He does not realize what Goethe repeatedly explained in the most illuminating way, that the external course of events is only one side of natural existence, the surface, and that for those who look deeper, higher laws of form are expressed in nature itself, which they recreate in their artistic forms. There is a “higher nature” in nature. What Goethe has the Lord say to the angels in “Faust”: “But you, the true sons of the gods, rejoice in the living, rich beauty! That which is becoming, which eternally works and lives, embrace with the love of gentle boundaries, and what floats in a wavering appearance, fasten with lasting thoughts,” expresses the artist's mission. Only the “shaky appearance” presents itself in formlessness; the eternal becoming is full of form; it is inwardly, through its essence, bound to form. The rejection of form is nothing more than an expression of the inability to see the “higher nature” in nature, to find the subjective, stylish expression for its innermost harmony. In the face of all such aberrations of the time, Jacobowski, out of an inner necessity of his artistic sensibility, takes the safe path of the artist. One can see what he achieves with the proven “old” forms in a poem like “The Four Robbers”, which forms the conclusion of “Shining Days”. In this legend, simple simplicity is combined with symbolic allusions to the deep connections of world events and with a noble, closed form. What I said at the beginning of this essay about Jacobowski's poetry, that this poet draws from the eternal source from which the best content of life comes, is the reason why he stands out as such a pleasing, refreshing poet from other fellow poets. These others, however, only know derived sources. They are driven by a purpose in life that is unable to fulfill them. At best, they see branches and shoots, but they are unable to penetrate to the fertile, constructive elements of the life organism. Only those who direct their gaze to these fertile beings will find life's higher justification. When it is so often said that spiritual greatness leads to loneliness, one must reply that the proud, necessary loneliness that arises from the feeling of the eternal in the world has nothing to do with the accidental loneliness that arises from someone withdrawing into some isolated corner of existence. If he sees nothing in this corner but “what lives in a fluctuating appearance”, then his report cannot captivate us, even though he speaks of things that are hidden from the everyday eye. The cultural content of the world is not enriched by adding isolated phenomena to the old stock, but by leading the eternal becoming to a new stage of development. The way in which an artist who is capable of such things relates to life phenomena that appear new and “modern” in his time is evident in the part of “Leuchtende Tage” entitled “Großstadt” (Big City). Here, a spirit speaks of the social life of our day that does not see it in the perspective of the moment, but rather in the perspective that arises from the contemplation of the great laws of the world. The singers of social passions and conflicts often see only a few steps ahead. The light that falls on contemporary phenomena when they are placed in the context of a world view is what gives our feelings about these phenomena the right nuance. Modern big-city life, for example, is given such a nuance in Jacobowski's poem “Summer Evening”:

Summer evening. —
The air is soft and warm;
a distant scent from a garden,
The wide expanses of the sky are still pale,
here and there pale traces of stars;
On the street, the crack of whips and noise,
boys who are infatuated with young girls;
Children play with hoops in front of the doors,
coachmen knock their pipes;
knights on steeds, who are thinking of love,
honestly endeavor to win the favor of the ladies on bicycles, ...
And all the soft, warm air,
And from gardens a stray scent.

The poet experiences a “modern” situation; he portrays it in the context of the whole world. We do not see the city scene in isolation, but in such a way that the rest of the world plays into it. In this sense, “The Soldier, Scenes from the Big City” is a truly modern creation, in which the fate of a person transplanted from the countryside to the big city is described. Moving images pass before our soul, and from them we see the suffering of a man who is caught in the snares of eternal, gigantic fate, with the part of unreason that is in the world, and crushed. A poem like this teaches us how much a person's attitude, such as Jacobowski's, can deepen their feelings about modern life:

The mother once carried vegetables,
And when the cherry harvest came,
Then dear Liese stole for me,
as much as her little apron could hold.
How we feasted in the fields and meadows!

Mother sits in front of her baskets;
Now she is old, but happy in her mind,
So she boasts to her neighbor:
“My girl can't go wrong,
For she knows how to earn
And still puts something aside for later!"

I gave her a present yesterday
And recognized her face at once.
I stood in silence in the crowd,
until her Rembrandt feathers faded
In the street bustle slowly faded.

I couldn't move from the spot,
Her gaze burned into me.

IV

Jacobowski's ability to see the deeper connections of existence in the individual experience makes it possible for him to also poetically shape what reveals itself to us in life as chance, as blind necessity. In such poetic creation, the senseless approximation then appears as the expression of a meaningful guidance in world events. The kind of poetry that arises from such a view is usually called symbolist. A versatile nature like Jacobowski's will always push towards the symbolic representation of certain experiences. The serious play of the imagination will seek eternal laws even where they do not impose themselves in reality. But it is precisely this universality that prevents symbolism from being exaggerated in a one-sided way. For the harmonious personality always feels more or less what Goethe felt when he saw the Greek works of art in Italy: that the true artist proceeds according to the same laws as nature itself when creating its creatures. When the imagination of such a poet works symbolically, it does not do so in the obtrusive way in which many contemporary symbolists would like to force their subjective and arbitrary ideas on us as revelations, but with that spiritual chastity that allows nature itself to speak in the symbol, without distorting or contorting the inner truth of its expressions. In this beautiful sense, Jacobowski's “Frau Sorge” is a symbolizing poem:

A couple walks through the evening light,
he is a blacksmith's apprentice, she is a seamstress.

"Rosel, when we both pull a cart,
It's twice the joy and half the effort!"

And she leans wearily against her beloved;
A tear now and then runs down her cheek.

"Rosel, stop crying for your daily bread;
If it was enough for one, it's enough for two!"

He took her in his arms, asked no more questions,
caressed her warm, glowing face...

Gradually the light faded and they walked far

A woman sat down in the same place,

Looked with a gray gaze, raised her withered hand,

Threatened with the crutch, murmured and vanished...

The couple strode into the city,
Mrs. Worry was already sitting in the middle of her little room.

Jacobowski's imagination has a similar symbolic effect on the phenomena of nature. This is also evident in his prose stories. It appears so enchanting in his “Loki”. The spiritual in him grows out of the natural, as it were; it reflects its soul-stirring power back onto nature and receives from it a firm basis in reality. In the “Shining Days”, this trait is particularly evident in the section “Sun”. I will quote the poem “Shining”:

Just now, when the sun is shining,
my darling is walking across the field;
A glow passes over the field,
Catches itself, as if it were meant for her,
shining in her blonde hair.

Just now, when my sweetheart is running
over the blooming field,
Where her laughter falls down,
the stalks glisten like dewdrops,
The flowers glisten in the grass.

Just now, when the golden trace
Brightly glows in my eyes,
I see only blessings, only love, only happiness,
I see only a single glow
over the blossoming world.

And the poem “Maienblüten” seems to me like a bond that nature and the soul form in the imagination – in the best sense of a symbolist inspiration of nature:

Bear it silently when from the branches,
From the overfilled branches,
flowers blow into the pious hair,
And gently bend over,
So in thirst, lean over,
lips to lips
. See, a sweet and wondrous tremor
runs through the rows of leaves,
All the blossoms that they scatter,
they scatter blessings on you and me.

If we let the various currents of modern poetry pass us by, we are sure to encounter many a magnificent blossom. But we see only too often that beauty in the individual must be paid for with one-sidedness. It is harmonious universality that makes Jacobowski significant. He knows no poetic dogma; he knows life, and his interests end where life ends.

• 1. Not«Leuchtende Tage». New poems (1896-1898) by Ludwig Jacobowski. J. C. C. Bruns Verlag, Minden in Westf.